I didn’t think I’d ever get one of these things — robotic vacuums. But Woot had them on sale for really cheap, so I looked into it and decided it’d be a great present for Grace (ahem, wedding anniversary coming up).
Our unit came today and we gave it a test drive for 2 minutes (the manual says to give it an initial charge for 16 hours before use), and wow… that thing works great! Grace had this huge smile on her face when she saw the package arrive. Admittedly, it’s pretty hard for surprises when:
a. the package is so freaking huge…
b. both of us are home all day long, and…
c. the name of the damn company is printed visibly on the outside of the packaging…
One of the more interesting things about iRobot “robots” is that they are totally hackable. The unit comes with a serial port that I can hook up to a computer and program it (or even load Linux on it if I wanted to). Some of the more well-known hacks include: bluetooth sensor, wifi-connection, customized routines… etc.
Also worth mentioning is its packaging is very Apple-ish… or as Apple-esque as anybody has come anywhere close to packing a merchandize. Me like it very much.