What makes a machine a robot?
I’ve seen the movie I, Robot. I know what the future holds. But right now, I am very pleased to have a little, round robot doing a LOT of my vacuuming around the house!
I think what upgrades a machine to robot status is mobility. A robot can be programmed to navigate the physical world. This is creepy to some people, but it is humorous to me. Jeeves (Yes, I named my robovac) is obviously not taking over the world any time soon.
How Jeeves works
I purchased Jeeves through amazon.com. I may have to call it a “him,” just because of his namesake from the PG Wodehouse Jeeves character. Jeeves is a eufy Boost IQ RoboVac 11S. I don’t know why eufy isn’t capitalized on the amazon page, and I might have to add 11S to Jeeves’s name, because that is the robot way of things.
The robovac seems to work on the premise that if left to wander long enough, it will eventually cover the whole floor. It rolls around bumping into things and then politely going another direction. The spiral sweeper brushes help gather debris, much like a twirling mustache.
He? It? I’m so torn. Regardless, he won’t go down the stairs unless carried. He manages my kitchen rugs fairly well, but they have the stiffness of a rubber backing. He gets hung up on electrical cords, so I move those when I can. He has gotten up onto the base of a floor lamp and not known what to do. Usually he will beep a distress signal if he feels stuck in one spot for too long. Oh, and his light turns an angry red…
How to clean this robot vacuum cleaner
His dust bin is full every time his charge runs out. I haven’t strictly timed how long this takes, but it has been over two hours. He returns to his charging base if at all possible.
People have started making comments about how clean my floor is. Part of this is because I am motivated to keep odds and ends picked up so Jeeves can be more efficient, and part of it is because all the dog-fur dust bunnies are being captured on a regular basis.
I have made a video showing some things people might have questions about, like how make it go where you want it to and how to clean it’s underbelly.
Do you ever need to use an old-fashioned vacuum cleaner again?
The robovac does NOT do stairs. He also does best in more open spaces. For instance, I have not let him work in my sewing room very much. There are too many corners and it is a tight, active workspace.
From observation, I don’t think that Jeeves is as powerful as my upright vacuum cleaner. I had a neglected area rug with a lot of labrador retriever fur pressed onto it (the dog sleeps there a lot). The rug didn’t look noticeably different after Jeeves worked on it for a while. However, after working on it once with the upright, Jeeves seems to do well with upkeep.
Do you need more than one robot vacuum cleaner?
I could easily be convinced to get another robovac for the downstairs. I really enjoy not having to spend time or energy pushing around the upright so much. It is very satisfying to work on something else while Jeeves scoots around fairly unobtrusively, like any good butler.
I fully expect to own a robot vacuum cleaner for the rest of my life. Just like once you have a washing machine, you rarely do laundry by hand. It makes sense to use such labor saving devices. It may seem to be putting someone out of a job, but in reality it is freeing up human resources to be uniquely human.
Now, if you will excuse me, I need to give Jeeves some directions.
