If you've seen any of my posts on LinkedIn, you might know that I have an interest in robots & machine intelligence and how it can make our lives progressively better in the next few years. As a starting point in experiencing directly the impact, our family decided to take the leap into a floor vacuuming robot.
After a bit of looking around and reading online, we settled on the Neato as it seemed to get good reviews, and from videos online it appeared to use good AI for floor coverage & not needing to bump into things all that often. We found one on Amazon in their deals/used section, and picked it up for $100 where new ones seemed to be going for $300+. From my other posts, you'll probably also notice a theme that I'm a fan of repurpose/reuse, which is just a good cover story for someone who likes the hunt of a good deal and doesn't mind a bit of fixing.
With the usual quick service from Amazon, we had our new 'bot in a matter of days, got it charging, set the schedule and then tried out the spot clean function. It fired up without a problem, and like a miracle started moving around the floor sucking up all kinds of dust, dog hair, and other random stuff we dropped in its way. It is a bit loud, but we got used to the white noise, and surprisingly the dogs seemed not to be bothered in the least by the noise or the new addition to the household. My son Kaden quickly decided it was colored a little like R2D2, his favorite Star Wars character, and that became its name.
Here's R2 driving around...
The next few days worked like a charm, every 9am R2D2 would fire up and move about, and we couldn't believe all the stuff it seemed to find... despite my wife being a neat freak and constantly vacuuming. It had no problems navigating the home, going under couches, etc, and seemed to get smarter over time. Every now and then it would hit the fringes of a carpet and get hung up, or wander under something really low and be unable to get out, but it lets out little beeping noises and the kids had fun hunting it down. R2D2 had become part of our family, and did an amazing job keeping the dust & dog hair down and letting us focus on other things.
Unfortunately, somewhere into week 2 or 3, R2 started having problems waking up, and soon after seemed to be completely dead. Figuring that, as a refurbish, this was perhaps a battery issue, I ordered some new extra powerful batteries. A couple days later, we fired R2 back up, and it worked again for a day or two, then rapidly konked back out. We were all pretty sad, as R2 had become part of our routine and his absence helped us realize how much we valued his contribution.
After some looking online, it turns out this particular model seems to have problems with aging on the factory capacitors that help bring him to life on startup. With some help from other DIYer posts online, I was able to track down the 7 little caps that needed to be changed out, and $5 worth of parts off Alibaba were soon ordered. I haven't done a lot of soldering since engineering school, so I was looking forward to seeing if I might remember anything.
A few days later, my parts arrived, and here's some pics of robot surgery... getting him apart was a little tricky, but loads of fun and the kids seemed to like seeing the insides of a robot.
R2's brain...
After a few tries getting the caps to seat into the green circuit board, and realizing my eyes are far worse than I imagined for close soldering work, R2 went back together pretty well. A couple hours of charging later and he fired back up... our family was complete again, and that expensive engineering degree paid off again! (ok, I really didn't need any degree, just a screwdriver, YouTube, and a steady hand on the soldering iron)
Our takeaway from this little experiment was that robots really do have a place in a modern home, and can be quite affordable if you do a little searching. Robots and AI are certainly getting to the point of being more than just a novelty - we're not yet at the point of seeing general purpose AI, but with the explosion of home automation & IoT (Internet of Things), advances are coming fast and there's a lot to be gained along the way to truly general purpose robots like in the movies.
Unless you have a house full of shag carpets or tassled rugs, I'd highly recommend trying one out. We have had such a good experience that, after finding a good deal on a floor mopping bot, we've added to our collection! Here's R2's buddy C3PO hard at work...
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