[ad_1]
By Liam McCabe
This position was created in partnership with Wirecutter. When readers choose to buy independently selected editorial choices by Wirecutter, Wirecutter and Engadget can earn an affiliate commission. Read the full blog on sunsets are kryptonite for some fancy robot vacuums.
There are many reasons to love the high-end Roombas of iRobot. We enthusiastically recommend some of them in our guide to the best robot vacuums. But for a model, the Roomba 960, the intelligent navigation system based on a camera has a strange side effect: it does not work well in dimly lit rooms.
It makes sunsets a problem.
The Roomba 960 uses a low-resolution camera to find out where you are at home. When there is not much light, the camera can not see where it is. (And to be fair, other brands of camera-based robots have the same problem: we have tested Samsung robots, for example, which are even more sensitive to low-light conditions than Roombas.)
I first noticed this quirk as soon as I started testing the first iRobot robot with a camera navigation, the Roomba 980 (now discontinued) it It was a long time ago in 2015, when it was brand new. I turned on the robot around 3:30 pm, with the intention of finishing my day's work by following this $ 900 state-of-the-art robot that was cleaning my apartment, noting how far it was more advanced than simpler robots. (who roam randomly bouncing off walls and furniture) that iRobot has been making for over ten years.
As we were in December in Boston, the sun was starting to fade at the beginning of the session and my apartment was totally switched off around 4:10 pm. I had not bothered to light lamps because I was busy watching all the action of a robot of the next generation. Suddenly Roomba stopped in the middle of an open room and let out a short, sad melody. "Error 17", he is lamented.
I lit a lamp to see what was going on, I watched this fanciful robot with an air of confusion and disdain, I pressed Start because no, and I l '# 39; I watched him pick up where he left off. Weird, but I give up.
A few days later, the same thing happened again. "Ok, what's going on here?" I was wondering.
Although the robot was released only a few weeks ago, error 17 was already a frequent complaint among the new owners who wrote the first reviews. Low lighting seemed to trigger it and the new camera navigation system was the root cause. The solution was quite simple: turn on the lights. But in those brief dark moments, the sunsets were kryptonite for these sophisticated robotic vacuums.
I asked iRobot what was going on and the representatives stated that "the robot is able to go under dark beds and into a dark room". They continued: "However, not all vision-based systems need at least a little light and the 980 will have a limited range in very low light conditions." The 17-error is more likely to occur in a congested area, as if someone was running it in a restaurant – in the dark or so, because the error in the other sensors becomes too much. "iRobot customer reviews and reviews revealed that the vast majority of people use their Roomba during the day. "
It seems that iRobot has found a way to make its new models work better in low light. The company's latest flagship robot, the Roomba i7 +, has worked well for sunsets, and I have not yet found a proprietary review that cites this problem. iRobot told us that this model has a better camera, as well as more memory and processing power, than the Roombas 900 series, although the company did not promise that it would work well in the dark, saying that "it is possible that these updates of the i series also helps in low light. "
What do you want to bet that when someone finally invent a robot able to climb stairs, the owners who watched it jump into the shower will be informed by their owners?
This blog may have been updated by Wirecutter. To see the current post, go here.
When readers choose the editorial choices Wirecutter selects independently, Wirecutter and Engadget can earn affiliate commissions.
[ad_2]
Source link