Monday, December 29, 2008

Robot! Robot! Clean My House!

By Ned Dagostino

Of all the routine tasks which have to be done everyday, vacuuming is the most brain-numbing! How often have you caught yourself wishing this task away? You can now own a robot slave that does the floors for you! These futuristic floor robot vacuum cleaners justify the statement: "The future is now!"

All you have to do is to turn the robot on. After that it deals with all the vacuuming duties by itself, no supervision required! It runs according to a program which is embedded in its circuitry. The robot can be easily reprogrammed by the user from time to time. This reprogramming can be done directly or remotely. Some robots use the Internet, others use the equally ubiquitous cell phone system to perform remote programming.

Sophisticated logic circuits scan the floor to determine the amount of dirt there, and compute the number of passes required to clean the area. The robot then moves ahead and repeats the scan. In this way the whole area designated for cleaning is covered. No more getting down on your hands and knees to clean under the bed or the couch - the robot is designed to clean all those hard to reach places.

The robot is programmed to navigate around objects, or to turn back when it reaches the end of the room. How it does so depends on the model you buy. Sophisticated but expensive models detect boundary conditions using non-contact techniques like infrared or ultrasonic. Cheaper models stop only after colliding into the obstacle. This can damage the robot as well as the furniture and the walls, so you're well advised to get a model with rubber bumpers.

The robot vacuum cleaner does its job real well. There is a small problem with cleaning tight areas like the join of the floor and the wall, and corners. This robot does a great job with general house cleaning. The fine cleaning will have to be done manually.

Manual cleaning is still required for staircases and steps. The robots also have a strange appetite for the loose fringes at the edge of rugs and carpets! This causes the robots to stall, and you have to run to their rescue. All these are run-of-the-mill problems which are currently being addressed by the designers of these sophisticated robots.

The floor robot vacuum cleaners that are available today can handle all sorts of floor surfaces, and work well on carpets too. They are programmed to detect pet hair and wet patches, and clean these up in addition to normal dirt and debris.

The mobility of these robot cleaners is due to their self-contained power packs. When it is time for a recharge, the robot advises you of this by audio-visual signals. Some really brainy models scurry themselves off to the recharging station and get the recharge done by themselves! The starting price of these robots is really quite affordable. Specialty features raise the price, and according to the features they provide the price can rise to what can fairly be called exorbitant.

The robot takes over the boring task of vacuuming for you, and lets you devote your precious time to more important functions, like looking after someone ill in the family or preparing the day's meals. Be warned that the robot floor vacuum cleaner actually takes quite a lot of time in cleaning the floor! If you need the floor cleaned in a jiffy, then you'd better do it yourself.

The robot floor vacuum cleaner can't empty itself; this has to be done manually. You will definitely appreciate the freedom from the single chore that is the biggest headache in your routine. So get a robot and do something more creative while the floor is getting vacuumed by the robot.

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