New Roomba promises ‘poopocalypse’ horror stories are a thing of the past



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Robot vacuums are a great investment for a pet owner because they give you a helper that can stay on top of all that dirt and pet hair. With a noisy motor and plenty of scheduling options, people are often tempted to run the robot while they are away, but if you do, you better be very confident in potty training your pet. If you’ve never seen what happens when a robovac encounters Fido’s little crash, consider yourself lucky.

iRobot is about to repair this robovac on-board box with the new Roomba j7 + robot vacuum. It has a new “Genius 3.0” obstacle detection system, a new front camera and some AI-powered software. And one of the obstacles he watches over is poo.

If you’ve never heard of this “poop + Roomba” phenomenon, you should definitely never google it and click on any results that appear, like this or this or this one. To save you some trauma, robot vacuums have many moving parts, such as rotating wheels and brushes. This is fine if you are driving and picking up dry dirt, but if the robot encounters a soft mass of Something that it can grind, these rotating brushes quickly become paint rollers. Then the robot drives all over the House. It’s bad.

After a man’s “poopocalypse” story went viral in 2016, iRobot said he actually sees this situation “a lot” from Roomba owners. At the time, a spokesperson recommended owners not to run the robot unattended if they were worried about something like this, but today the company has in fact guarantees the new Roomba won’t crash into pet waste. “This robot is even backed by the official pet owners promise (POOP), ”the press release says,“ where iRobot will replace any Roomba j7 + that doesn’t avoid solid pet waste. ”A new robot vacuum will be the least of your problems.

Besides the really gross obstacles, the new Roomba may also be on the hunt for charging cords, toys, socks, and other items that may end up on the floor. The robot remembers every scan of your house, so it can point out new obstacles in the app and ask you how it should deal with them in the future. Areas that should be tough forever, like the underside of a computer desk, can be marked as no-go areas so the little robot doesn’t get stuck. Rooms are tagged, so you can tell him something like “clean the kitchen” through the app or a voice assistant (Google and Amazon), and he’ll know where you want him to go. The new “Genius 3.0” options can also allow you to schedule the cleaning of the robot while you are away, using the phone’s location services, and display estimated cleaning times.

Other than that, it’s a pretty old-school iRobot package. Unlike the more expensive “S9” series, this robot does not have a “D” shape for better corner cleaning and a wider cleaning path. It is always a circle with a rotating brush for the corners and small truncated brushes which should be stored between the wheels. The double counter-rotating brushes on the lower part of the dirt pickup handle, and when all is done, it docks to a larger suction and charging station, which cleans the robot. Supposedly, you don’t have to empty the bag for up to 60 days. The Roomba j7 + is available now for $ 849.99, which includes the dock.

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