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Robot vacuums are the worst. I have to help it every thirty minutes. And anytime I close a door or move something it wants to create a new map. The old randomized ones were actually better.




What kind of Robot Vacuum did you have? I had mine map the house once downstairs, and once upstairs and it's been fine navigating around stuff ever since. It comes into the kitchen area while I'm cooking and will eventually just come around for a second pass after my feet are out of the way. I have the roborock Q5+.

The only complaints that I have are:

1) I have mine set to notify me when it's done cleaning. Sometimes it will do it immediately after it's done, while other times the notification might come two or three hours after the fact. Still other times, not at all.

2) I have to clean the vacuum more frequently than I would like. That means: cutting out hairs from the "side brush" on the front of it, cutting hairs out of the "main brush" that sucks up most of the debris, and wiping the sensors clean. In fairness, I'd probably have to do the same sorts of thing with the rollers on a normal vacuum cleaner after a while too, though.

3) There's been a handful of times over a 2-ish year period where it'll go to the other room to start cleaning, and while a normal trip might take 15-20 minutes, it'll claim to be done in about 5 minutes. I suspect that blankets may have fallen on the ground or something, so it became too "blocked" to be able to clean properly, but it could be some kind of software error.


> 1) I have mine set to notify me when it's done cleaning. Sometimes it will do it immediately after it's done, while other times the notification might come two or three hours after the fact. Still other times, not at all.

Check your mobile's app settings/battery optimisation? Sounds like the app doesn't keep running properly in the background


I've had the same issues until I got top of the line Roborock. It never loses map and almost never gets stuck, washes itself with water and drain connection. I'd rather not buy a Chinese brand but here we are...

> The old randomized ones were actually better.

Exactly. We changed from some fancy one that my boss gave me to a cheap one that you operate with an old-school (can't believe I'm saying that) infrared remote. It doesn't "think". It just works like our other reliable dumb machines - diswasher and washing machine. We don't own a regular vacuum cleaner as I just do a regular sweep with a broom when we want a thorough job done.

All other home tech gadgets friends and family have acquired live in limbo land stored in the back of the draw or on top of the cupboard, never opened or tried once but got stuck downloading some stupid app. But we can't just throw it away yet, as there's guilt around acquiring that smart tech thing in the first place even though we know there's already so much e-waste.


I never had problems with them, just avoid having lose cables. Mine works pretty much unattended in a 110sqm flat, just need to fill the water tank and empty the waste water every 4-5 days.

I was worried about this. Especially as a roboticist who deals with making tools to help people do this for fleets of robots. But I thought I’d try this $450 Eufy bot and the thing is pretty much foolproof. Just have to clean up the Lego first…



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