robomaid
i invariably get a load of spam mail every day, most of which i delete without opening. they typically are pre-approved (but not really pre-approved) mortgages, 'penile enhancement' products, porn, cons to try and get me to reveal my personal information, letters from my friends the abacha family in nigeria telling me about the death of another family member and informing me of my $1000000000 cut, and so on.
on occation i get some interesting spam. a few months back i received a spam mail from a company that advertises website maintenance software. nothing unusual about that, but the different approach was they had run a basic analysis of this site already and given me a list of broken/dead links for free. pretty cool- in fact i wrote to the guy and told him it was a cool approach and he wrote me back thanking me any suggesting i buy his software. was cool but not that cool, buddy!
this morning i received a spam mail with the intriguingly title of 'robomaid' which was enough for me to open it. i half expected to be tricked into a porn site or yet another pre-approved mortgage but instead i was presented with several broken photo links and a small video of a tiny ufo-like object scurrying around the floor of a deliriously happy homemaker.
not only did the robomaid clean the floor for but according to the animation in the video it kept track of its own progress so as to be certain the entire room was clean. intrigued as to how such a thing could be sold for only $20, i checked out the simple robomaid website which has the same video and a bit more info:
- robomaid is from europe (you can almost hear the tv studio audience, "oooohhhhhh... ahhhhhh!!!")
- robomaid picks up dust with electrostatic pads on the botom (ok, could work i suppose)
- robomaid 'changes directions automatically to keep working the entire floor surface' (umm... really????)
the latter claim i find very hard to believe. for it to be able to do this it'd have to be able to map out a room and track it's progress around the room to ensure it doesn't cover the same area and simply bounce around like a self-propelled billiard ball or take a plunge off the stairs. that's to say nothing of involuntary changes in direction due to collisions or the pet attacks.
i agree with a comment on the gadget blog- it looks like one of those squirrel balls that drive pets absolutely nuts. they wobble along until disturbed and then head off in a random direction.
of course if one of you have a spare $20 bill burning a hole in your pocket then perhaps you can conduct some first-hand research for us to find out if there's anything to robomaid, the senstation that's 'sweeping europe' (ho ho!!!!).
posted by jeremy @ 8:48 AM
14 Comments:
Yeah agree with u jeremy ... let some do the review for us ;)
errrrrr... does it come with dish washing, ironing, bath room cleaning, and windows washing?? ^-^
I thought the SPAM was about the SPAM meat, not the spam :P
Anyway regarding robot maids, I've seen some prototype in action at a electronic fair at Central Ladphrao 6 months ago. It looked like an interesting but extremely expensive gadget.
I don't know about the TV Media stuff selling at 800 baht. The one I saw was like 20k baht and I wonder how could they fit that many sensors to it with only 800 baht? Sounds extremely fishy.
The parents of a friend of mine had a robot lawn mower. It was this squat roundish thing, much like a ufo too and it just randomly choose paths across the lawn to mow. The only problem was if it bumped into a shrub it would try to climb over it and get stuck. Occasionally it went to sleep mode for a rest and then would start again. They were very happy with it. I guess this robomaid probably works in a similar way?
for 20k baht one could get a real live maid to do all of that stuff- and she'd be much less likely to fall down the stairs and break (one would hope!).
the lawnmower one sounds interesting... though from what you described it seems like one would have to constantly be looking after it.
I have this thing, got it for about 17$ including shipping (I figured, WTH?) - and I have to say, I really like it. It's simple, but it works - kind of a dumb auto-swiffer. I have a lot of floor area, but it does a reasonably thorough job. Not so much "intelligent" as cleverly designed - it tracks edges by rolling along them, & moves in a sort of sine curve that seems to vary the path it takes. That could be my older building's ooold wood floors at work, I dunno. But it picks up dust & dust bunnies really well. The only thing I don't like about it, is the expense of the replacement pads. That's kinda annoying.
Thought I would give my 2¢.
-Rachel
wow thanks rachel... i didn't expect that we'd actually get a field report from a robomaid user here. i guess the pads would be an issue- hope they aren't too expensive, though perhaps that is how they offset the cheap cost of the actual cleaning unit. one thing i wonder about, though, is how long it takes to clean the whole floor- if it moves in a random manner then surely some spots will be left for a long time. anyway, thanks again for the feedback!
You're welcome. :)
The cost of pads are on par with Swiffer, especially when you buy a bunch at once. On the site - with shipping, there's 144 for $56 or so. When you first get the thing itself, in the box there's an order from, from which I've ordered 48 pads for 20$, w/ free shipping. Mostly, the probable delay in *receiving* the things will be annoying. I ordered the robomaid itself months ago, and it just came last week.
Even though it doesn't "know" where it's going, it moves pretty fast - so it ends up covering a lot of ground. Used daily, it will definitely get any remote bit it missed.
There's this other "robosweep" contraption I've seen around, that looks like a cheap imitation of robocop's shoulder - that's apparently slow as molasses, at something like 3 seconds per foot. The robo*maid* is pretty zippy - the ball is very energetic, & moves like those squirrel-ball things, or (*caution* hyperHensonNerdReference) Fizgig from Dark Crystal. (roboMuppet, anyone?)
What I *really* want is a roomba (another nutty little ufo thing, but pricier and waaay better, from irobot.com). The ultimate in effective floorcleaning laziness. Too much $$ for me just now though. :(
I just hope this silly thing doesn't break too quick - I know how cheaply made & delicate these things can be.
It's very fun to watch it work, though. ^_^
-Rachel
sounds like there's more margin in the pads (which shouldn't cost much at all to make) than the robomaid itself. i read about that robosweep on a site where someone took it apart to see what was inside, which wound up being not much at all- a search for 'robomaid' and 'robosweep' should come up with it. nice reference! dark crystal and krull were a couple of my favorite movies years back. here in thailand for the price of a roomba one can get a human maid... which has the advantage of being able to obey voice commands and probably bounces off of walls less than the robots. cleaning efficiency is probably about the same tho. =)
Rachel, I have a Roomba, save your money. Unless every system is perfect, the filter is clean, dust cup empty, nothing stuck in the brushes or wheels it won't work. We had ours for about a month and the battery stopped taking a charge fotunately they sent us a new battery at no cost. After the Roomba disaster I got a Robomaid. I LOVE it. Whoever thought of putting a weasel ball in a cage and attaching a swiffer to the bottom is making a mint. I have 4 rooms with hardwood floors, three cats and a dog that sheds just walking acoss the room, the pet hair was diving me insane. I was always vacumming and dust mopping a couple of times a day just to keep up with it all. This little thing has really helped. Yes the pads are a bit pricey. I went to WalMart and in the automotive section you can get those microfiber dusting cloths, they are 16" by 16". I cut them to fit the Robomaid and I just toss them in the washer.
Claudia
I've got a ROBOMAID for 21,95$ plus shiping cost 19,25 $. It only operated for a quarter of an hour and then it's gone. It is not from Europe. It is made in China.
I got the robomaid for $10 - it works great on our hardwood floors. You can re-use the pads by shaking them out (or washing if you want) and then tossing them in the dryer with a pair of old pantyhose to re-staticize them. Just make sure there's no old dryer sheets left in there! Saves a lot on pads. So far with re-uses I'm down to a nickel a pad!
Hope this is helpful.
Judy :)
I have a robomaid, and I just ran out of the electrostatic pads. I tried a dryer sheet instead. but you need to leave the circle in the middle bare, so the ball will have contact with the floor...
Three dryer sheets per use rather than ordering more pads, is this cost effective?
I bought like 8 of these for my house, 5800 square feet. I got them on sale (I can't find a sale now though). I love them. If you have pets, then it's a must. Or if you have lots of dust or floor (not carpet) then it's also great. My puppy wet on the floor and two of these robomaids found their way into it and I tried washing them off (I'm bad) I fried them both. Now my husband wants me to order 5 more for us and 2 for his friend, but I hate how they rip you off in shipping ($8 per unit - ridiculous). Anyways, I also tried using something in place of the pads, but it ended up being a mess, so now I just order 144 at a time and try to find the site with the cheapest shipping too! As long as I order the pads before they run out, my husband is happy and the kids - it holds us over from sweeping all these floors until the housecleaner comes every 2 weeks. Anyways that's all. Melody
I have both the Robomaid and the Roomba ... (quite a bit of difference in price) ... but as you can see - I spare no expense in finding something else to clean for me!!!
I also have two golden retrievers, hardwood floors and slate floors (tumbleweeds of fur flying in our house on a daily basis). I tried the Roomba and kept having to empty the dirt compartment and spending a couple hours ever week cleaning the dog hair out of the brushes - NOT my idea of "Automatic Cleaning". I've been running the Robomaid every morning (The Robomaid is like an automatic Swiffer tool), throwing the pad out, plugging it in to charger takes all of about 3 minutes per day. It picks up about 85% of my dog hair and dust (does best in the open areas - doesn't get anything between furniture and walls if there isn't enough clearance for it to run there ... so I still get some fur accumulation in these hidden areas). I LOVE IT. For the price and effort - I think it works great. Replacement pad pricing - I have solved that by going to my local 99 cent store and picking up the "Swiffer-Type" refill pads - using two of them (cutting half circles out of both, then attaching them to the frame of the unit, since one isn't big enough - I cover half the frame with each pad - leaving the rectangular corners on the outside edges doesn't seem to bother it). Again, LOVE the Robomaid, HATE to clean!!!
Laura
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