It looks like the iRobot Roomba is going to have some more competition. A company named Neato Robotics has introduced their own robot, named the XV-11, due out in January 2010 (estimated price is US $399). The XV-11 robot vacuum resembles a Roomba in that it is short, but instead of being round, it has two square corners in the front of the robot. Neato explains that these make the robot more able to vacuum into corners.
While that’s the most obvious difference, it looks like there are others worth noting. The XV11 users lasers and a mapping technology known as SLAM (simultaneous localization and mapping) to create a map of any room before it starts to vacuum. The vacuum will start by circling the perimeter of a room to create a map. Large rooms are broken up into fifteen foot square areas. A laser on the top of the robot is used to identify walls, furniture, and doorways. Then the robot vacuum concentrates on path finding and obstacle avoidance. Once the initial map is made, the robot will start at one end of the room and methodically go back and forth across the room like it’s swimming laps to cover all the space. This is in contrast to the iRobot Roomba, which uses a few different “behavioral” algorithms to cover all the floorspace in a room, and which works in a more chaotic manner.
Unlike the Roomba vacuums, which use virtual walls and lighthouses to control how the robots go from room to room, the Neato can distinguish doorways. So you can set it in “Room Mode” and it will stay in one room. If you want it to clean the whole house, you set it to “House Mode” and it will go from room to room. The vacuum is designed to clean each room completely before moving on to the next.
Like a Roomba, the Neato XV11 can locate its charger and automatically charge. Some other features it shares with Roombas are: cliff detection, scheduling, a removable bin, and variable floor vacuuming. So it can vacuum linoleum, carpet, etc. The Neato robot is much more loud than the Roombas, which the company explains is due to the fact that the vacuum has more suction. The Neato vacuum also has a LCD display so you can see its status. Battery life is estimated at an hour.
When I first set out to do these papermodels, I was planning on doing a series. It’s been a few months since our last papercraft, and our Roomba 562 Pet Series and Hal 9000 Mashup proved to be so popular that it was obvious that we should do it again. Our newest diabolical creation is a mashup between Darth Maul and the iRobot Roomba 400 Series, or as I like to call it, the iDarth Roomba 400. Pretty catchy, isn’t it? Click here to download the papercraft (PDF, 1.1 MB).
I feel compelled to point out that in place of the usual corner brush, the iDarth Roomba 400 has a dual-bladed light saber. There are also important instructions for use on the bottom. To activate the robot, you place it in the middle of your floor and press the “maul” button. What could be more simple?
Have fun printing these out and putting them together!
iRobot’s Roomba 400 Series is the entry-level vacuum cleaning robot. While this unit is their most basic, and lacks some of the more advanced features of the newer robots, the 400 Series is still great at cleaning your floors. Here’s a list of the included features of the Roomba 400 vacuum:
- Covered by a One Year Warranty
- Battery Charger
- Rechargeable Battery
- Cleaning Tool
- Vacuuming Debris Bin
- Owner’s Guide and Documentation
The Roombas are designed to handle that most boring of household chores, sweeping your floors. All you have to do is carry the robot to the middle of your room and press the “clean” button in the center of the top of the robot. These vacuum cleaners automatically adjust their height to any floor surface, be it rugs, tile, carpeting, linoleum, or wood flooring. This assures that your floors get as clean as possible. Roombas are designed to figure out how large a room is and then adjust their vacuuming time to make sure that it covers the entire floor. Also built into the iRobot vacuums are sensors to keep the robot from falling down stairs and to sense when it bumps into things. This way it can safely navigate around your room and vacuum.
All of the iRobot Roomba vacuums use a three-stage cleaning system. A spinning brush on the left hand side of the vacuum scoops dirt and debris from hard to reach places like overhangs and corners. On the bottom of the vacuum are counter-rotating brushes that grab larger bits of debris, hair, pieces of grass or leaves, and of course dirt. Finally, the robot has a vacuum to suck up smaller pieces of dirt and dust.
Features of the iRobot Roomba 400
(Click here to see a page explaining all the iRobot vacuum cleaner features.)
- Customer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
- Warranty: 1 year
- Charging Time: 7 Hours
- Detects Dirt: No
- Spot Mode: No
- Max Mode: No
- Self-Charging Home Base Compatible: Yes
- On-Board Scheduling: No
- Voice Demonstration: No
- Light-Touch Bumpers: No
- Advanced Anti-Tangle Technology: No
- Improved Edge and Corner Cleaning: No
- Room-to-Room Navigation: No
- High Capacity Bin: No
- Easier Maintenance: No
- Wireless Control: No
- Lighthouse Technology: No
- Virtual Walls Included: 0
- Lighthouses Included: 0
- Wireless Command Center Included: No
- Extra Brushes: No
- Carrying Case: No
- Extra Filters Included: No
- Bonus Accessory Kit: No
Purchase the iRobot 400 on Amazon
It looks like the iRobot Roomba is going to have some more competition. A company named Neato Robotics has introduced their own robot, named the XV-11, due out in January 2010 (estimated price is US $399). The XV-11 robot vacuum resembles a Roomba in that it is short, but instead of being round, it has two square corners in the front of the robot. Neato explains that these make the robot more able to vacuum into corners.
