The best argument I heard for getting one of these was an appeal to laziness.
Either the robot vacuum cleans the floor, or it simply doesn’t happen unless it gets bad enough to justify the time spent doing it. It’s better to live in a house with perpetually clean floors rather than one where the floors get bad enough until you’re forced to take action.
Yeah, this looks like a store inside a mall. If they used one of their vacuums, it’d not be contained within the store since they just kinda drive around until they hit a wall or come to a ledge before changing directions.
I highly doubt they are concerned about the privacy of their own business, which is the only reason a normal person should not be using these unless you know how to disable their ability to phone home.
Only the fancy pants ones. The cheap ones are like blind bumblebees that clean by accident while running headlong into every wall. I dunno if a shop would risk using expensive ones when underpaying a cleaner is cheaper. There’s a message here but I’m too tired to see it. I wonder if you actually did the math, how expensive would hiring a cleaning service match up to buying one of the fancy robot vacuums?
An off-brand one i found on residential waste 6 years ago (broken lidar motor, 5 quid in spare parts) has internal maps.
They really don’t have to be fancy pants for this in this year of our lord 2026 where disposable vapes have the chips to run a webserver.
Roombas have also had “beacons” before they had any competition. You could set two of them up to block it from leaving.
I also have a hard time imagining that if a Roomba store chose to use its bots in the store, they would go with the cheapest model instead of showing off one of their top models.
Are there open-source alternatives, or any DIY projects?
I’ve seen 3D printer files for the case. What else do you need besides some wheels, some circuitry, a battery, some lidar or ultrasonic rangefinders, a microcontroller, and some code?
Doesn’t seem too difficult if you know how to solder and can find instructions. The hardest part would be programming it, but if the code already exists…
I also found out about oomwoo https://github.com/makerspet/oomwoo
Some people say that it’s made with AI or smth so be aware (and it’s not even complete yet)
It takes me a fraction of the time to sweep/vacuum/mop the floor compared to my robot, but the difference is the robot takes a fraction of my time since I can start it and let it run with the odd bit of maintenance and sometimes rescuing it when it gets trapped or sucked up something it shouldn’t.
It’s not a panacea, I still have to ensure that the area is fully clean except for the sweeping and mopping portion. However, as long as I keep up on that part, I can let the robot run overnight and have clean floors in the morning.
I’ve had a Roomba, and I’ve manually cleaned a floor.
There’s nothing dumb about not having to vacuum and mop.
The best argument I heard for getting one of these was an appeal to laziness.
Either the robot vacuum cleans the floor, or it simply doesn’t happen unless it gets bad enough to justify the time spent doing it. It’s better to live in a house with perpetually clean floors rather than one where the floors get bad enough until you’re forced to take action.
Roombas aren’t designed for commercial spaces.
Yeah, this looks like a store inside a mall. If they used one of their vacuums, it’d not be contained within the store since they just kinda drive around until they hit a wall or come to a ledge before changing directions.
I highly doubt they are concerned about the privacy of their own business, which is the only reason a normal person should not be using these unless you know how to disable their ability to phone home.
random roomba going around the entire floor of the mall vaccuming around
They can store maps so that they don’t go out of a designated area.
Only the fancy pants ones. The cheap ones are like blind bumblebees that clean by accident while running headlong into every wall. I dunno if a shop would risk using expensive ones when underpaying a cleaner is cheaper. There’s a message here but I’m too tired to see it. I wonder if you actually did the math, how expensive would hiring a cleaning service match up to buying one of the fancy robot vacuums?
An off-brand one i found on residential waste 6 years ago (broken lidar motor, 5 quid in spare parts) has internal maps. They really don’t have to be fancy pants for this in this year of our lord 2026 where disposable vapes have the chips to run a webserver.
Roombas have also had “beacons” before they had any competition. You could set two of them up to block it from leaving.
I also have a hard time imagining that if a Roomba store chose to use its bots in the store, they would go with the cheapest model instead of showing off one of their top models.
Maybe the ones around here are just garbage then. The first one I bought for $120 AUD 4 years ago didn’t have a map
Are there open-source alternatives, or any DIY projects?
I’ve seen 3D printer files for the case. What else do you need besides some wheels, some circuitry, a battery, some lidar or ultrasonic rangefinders, a microcontroller, and some code?
Doesn’t seem too difficult if you know how to solder and can find instructions. The hardest part would be programming it, but if the code already exists…
I found this: https://github.com/alvitawa/stofzuigerrobot
but it’s a 7 years old unmantained project
I also found out about oomwoo
https://github.com/makerspet/oomwoo
Some people say that it’s made with AI or smth so be aware (and it’s not even complete yet)
It takes me a fraction of the time to sweep/vacuum/mop the floor compared to my robot, but the difference is the robot takes a fraction of my time since I can start it and let it run with the odd bit of maintenance and sometimes rescuing it when it gets trapped or sucked up something it shouldn’t.
It’s not a panacea, I still have to ensure that the area is fully clean except for the sweeping and mopping portion. However, as long as I keep up on that part, I can let the robot run overnight and have clean floors in the morning.
The ones which can handle long hair and dog fur are a godsend.