5 ms·

> The iRobot Terra will use a series of wireless beacons that you place around your yard instead of a perimeter wire. These will provide a wireless, localized p

by Seenso 7y ago

> The iRobot Terra will use a series of wireless beacons that you place around your yard instead of a perimeter wire. These will provide a wireless, localized positioning signal to allow the iRobot Terra to find it’s way around your lawn. What happens when the beacons run out of battery power? The biggest fear I have with a robot lawnmower is that it somehow escapes its boundary and wanders the neighborhood and injures a person or pet with its spinning blade. And it's pointless to have one if you have to supervise it to safeguard against rare faults in its boundary detection system.

reaperducer 7y ago
What happens when the beacons run out of battery power? FWIW, the indoor beacons for its Roomba machines last a very long time. Mine go four to six months on a pair of AA batteries. Since these new ones are for outside, I hope they have larger batteries and last even longer.
- jjeaff 7y ago
  They could probably easily make them work with solar chargers like those little walkway lights.
defanor 7y ago
That's my concern about their home vacuum cleaners as well: if a battery runs out, it would hit my computer. There are some programmable models though (were not available here at the time), and various certainly programmable DIY ones (may be a fun project, but would take some time); that seems like a much better solution -- both for efficiency and predictability (as opposed to random walk), and for this particular case with paths/boundaries (define them once in the robot's memory, maybe even just by moving it manually or otherwise showing it the path/boundaries, and don't rely on batteries in external devices).
- Seenso 7y ago
  I have one of the random Roombas. The virtual walls are nice for keeping the robot out of areas where it will get stuck, but I rely on making small modifications to the environment to protect things from damage. In the case of a computer, you could try putting it on a short platform (no more than an inch high is sufficient) or positioning it so cables are in spaces narrower than the robot can access. The latter is what I do. The back of the case is a few inches from a wall, and the cables are routed upwards into cable guides mounted under the desk. I mostly did that for aesthetics rather than the Roomba, though.
  - bdcravens 7y ago
    I have a few areas where ours gets stuck - I haven't tried it yet, but I was thinking cheap pool noodles would work. Definitely cheaper than beacons at $50 a pop.
    - cr0sh 7y ago
      Our Roomba loves to get stuck under certain pieces of furniture and the low overhangs of our kitchen and bathroom cabinets. It just wedges itself in place and gets jammed, eventually erroring out. If it doesn't do that, then the other annoying thing it sometimes does is drive off into a bedroom and go underneath our king-size bed, then "dies" (runs out of battery) somewhere in the middle of the bed area, which makes it very difficult to coax out. Neither my arms nor my wife's are long enough to reach it; I generally have to use a broom handle or such to shove it closer to one side to pull it out. First-world problems, right?
      - bdcravens 7y ago
        We have a newer one that returns to base to recharge, and it seems to do well about knowing when to "return home"
    - scrooched_moose 7y ago
      Usually easier to slightly raise/lower your furniture. A surprising amount of furniture already comes with levelers (1) that no one ever adjusts. Raise them up 1/4" and it can then pass under. If not, tacking on some small furniture glides are usually enough (2). 1) https://c1.neweggimages.com/ProductImage/A27C_1_201906171218594321.jpg https://c1.neweggimages.com/ProductImage/A27C_1_201906171218... 2) https://i.etsystatic.com/17715291/r/il/b873a3/1550855907/il_794xN.1550855907_pj2g.jpg https://i.etsystatic.com/17715291/r/il/b873a3/1550855907/il_... These have the advantage of allowing it to clean under the furniture as well. Every time ours got stuck I'd adjust the height a bit and haven't had a problem in over a year.
- Izkata 7y ago
  I have a Neato, which uses magnetic strips for boundaries. No batteries, and in 5-ish years so far, no problems.
  - beat 7y ago
    That's a good idea! Passive boundaries are better than active boundaries, for sure.
    - Goz3rr 7y ago
      I have a Roborock (Xiaomi) S50 which just has a LiDAR on top and I can set boundaries based on an actual map of my house with the app. Greatly preferable over having to place random things around the house.
      - MBCook 7y ago
        The newer/higher end Roomba’s with cameras on them have the same feature using VSLAM instead of LiDAR.
  - scrooched_moose 7y ago
    Eufy (part of Anker) is the same. Our entryway is about 1/2" lower than the rest of the house. Small enough for it to fall in without triggering the edge sensor, too tall for it to get back out.
- wolrah 7y ago
  > if a battery runs out, it would hit my computer. So? It's a vacuum, you could drive it right in to a computer non-stop until the battery runs out and it's not going to do any meaningful damage. The worst case scenario would be if you had a case where the power or reset button was right there at vacuum height, but other than that what's your concern?
  - asdkhadsj 7y ago
    You'd be surprised. I have a Botvac and that thing can easily damage plenty of things in my house. On that note, I love my Botvac. My biggest complaint though is that it has to "learn" a room first, without any sort of helping functionality. This is a problem in my eyes because the Botvac comes with an awesome in-app barrier system where you can tell it to avoid areas, but to tell it to avoid areas it has to have done a normal scan of that area. It's a chicken-egg scenario. I can't keep the botvac out of my fragile areas without first letting it in my fragile areas. Once scanned though, the Botvac's "no go" lines are awesome, and very accurate in my experience.
  - defanor 7y ago
    Mechanical shocks are indeed the concern. > you could drive it right in to a computer non-stop until the battery runs out and it's not going to do any meaningful damage What is this based on (i.e., are HDDs and all the smaller components commonly designed to withstand such shocks)? Now I've looked up a random WD Blue HDD data sheet [1], which mentions 30G shock (read/write, 2 ms). If a vacuum cleaner was to hit it directly while moving at about 1 m/s (less than 4 km/h, and it seems to walk at around that speed, though I haven't found exact values), and assuming that it would accelerate the HDD to its own speed in those 2 ms (maybe it's not realistic, though not obvious to me), that'd be about 50G (1 m/s / 0.002 s / 9.8). Even if it is so, a vacuum cleaner has a plastic bumper, a computer case is heavy, and a vacuum won't hit any of those components directly, but it seems dangerously close and I'd rather not hit the computer. [1] https://documents.westerndigital.com/content/dam/doc-library/en_us/assets/public/western-digital/product/internal-drives/wd-blue-hdd/data-sheet-wd-blue-pc-hard-drives-2879-771436.pdf https://documents.westerndigital.com/content/dam/doc-library...
- asdff 7y ago
  I have the xiaomi one with lidar that actually maps the room and vacuums in laps. If it detects something in the way it slows down and lightly taps it, then it turns around. It never hits anything full speed. If you disconnect the dock the vacuum will keep working, but when it is finished it will go looking for the dock then tell you it's lost.
karmicthreat 7y ago
I would trust the beacons a bit more. You could at least test on the mower that you have a good enough beacon constellation.
rtkwe 7y ago
If enough beacons have died such that it can no longer calculate it's position I bet it just stops. Should be a fairly easy thing to check just stop, send a notification, and power off or more likely since beacons are far more likely to die between runs just don't start if enough beacons aren't present.
elif 7y ago
You only need 3 to localize. So you can have a constellation of n, resulting in a battery failure tolerance rate of (n-3) / n %. If you are worried, increase n.
hanniabu 7y ago
And you will 100% be reliable instead of the company. This is my fear with fully autonomous cars too. If the car has an error can injures someone, their huge team of lawyers and lobbyists will likely pin the blame on you somehow.
- thereisnospork 7y ago
  Well if you assume a full automonous car is as safe a driver (on average) as a 16 year old male that liability you are worried about can be (will be legislatively required to be?) insured away for a few hundred dollars a month. The insurance market for lawnmower liability admittedly isn't as well developed.
  - hanniabu 7y ago
    Interesting, so double insurance. One for you and one for your car, genius! Maybe somebody at Progressive, Allstate, or Geico will see this and get a promotion, lol.
dzhiurgis 7y ago
You'd have to try really hard to get injured by this. Blades are covered and stop when it tips over or get's lifted up. So unless you are a deaf gecko pet, I don't see much of a problem... But it's an American forum and this is not a legal advice.

by Seenso 7y ago

reaperducer 7y ago

What happens when the beacons run out of battery power? FWIW, the indoor beacons for its Roomba machines last a very long time. Mine go four to six months on a pair of AA batteries. Since these new ones are for outside, I hope they have larger batteries and last even longer.

jjeaff 7y ago
They could probably easily make them work with solar chargers like those little walkway lights.

defanor 7y ago

That's my concern about their home vacuum cleaners as well: if a battery runs out, it would hit my computer. There are some programmable models though (were not available here at the time), and various certainly programmable DIY ones (may be a fun project, but would take some time); that seems like a much better solution -- both for efficiency and predictability (as opposed to random walk), and for this particular case with paths/boundaries (define them once in the robot's memory, maybe even just by moving it manually or otherwise showing it the path/boundaries, and don't rely on batteries in external devices).

Seenso 7y ago
I have one of the random Roombas. The virtual walls are nice for keeping the robot out of areas where it will get stuck, but I rely on making small modifications to the environment to protect things from damage. In the case of a computer, you could try putting it on a short platform (no more than an inch high is sufficient) or positioning it so cables are in spaces narrower than the robot can access. The latter is what I do. The back of the case is a few inches from a wall, and the cables are routed upwards into cable guides mounted under the desk. I mostly did that for aesthetics rather than the Roomba, though.
- bdcravens 7y ago
  I have a few areas where ours gets stuck - I haven't tried it yet, but I was thinking cheap pool noodles would work. Definitely cheaper than beacons at $50 a pop.
  - cr0sh 7y ago
    Our Roomba loves to get stuck under certain pieces of furniture and the low overhangs of our kitchen and bathroom cabinets. It just wedges itself in place and gets jammed, eventually erroring out. If it doesn't do that, then the other annoying thing it sometimes does is drive off into a bedroom and go underneath our king-size bed, then "dies" (runs out of battery) somewhere in the middle of the bed area, which makes it very difficult to coax out. Neither my arms nor my wife's are long enough to reach it; I generally have to use a broom handle or such to shove it closer to one side to pull it out. First-world problems, right?
    - bdcravens 7y ago
      We have a newer one that returns to base to recharge, and it seems to do well about knowing when to "return home"
  - scrooched_moose 7y ago
    Usually easier to slightly raise/lower your furniture. A surprising amount of furniture already comes with levelers (1) that no one ever adjusts. Raise them up 1/4" and it can then pass under. If not, tacking on some small furniture glides are usually enough (2). 1) https://c1.neweggimages.com/ProductImage/A27C_1_201906171218594321.jpg https://c1.neweggimages.com/ProductImage/A27C_1_201906171218... 2) https://i.etsystatic.com/17715291/r/il/b873a3/1550855907/il_794xN.1550855907_pj2g.jpg https://i.etsystatic.com/17715291/r/il/b873a3/1550855907/il_... These have the advantage of allowing it to clean under the furniture as well. Every time ours got stuck I'd adjust the height a bit and haven't had a problem in over a year.
Izkata 7y ago
I have a Neato, which uses magnetic strips for boundaries. No batteries, and in 5-ish years so far, no problems.
- beat 7y ago
  That's a good idea! Passive boundaries are better than active boundaries, for sure.
  - Goz3rr 7y ago
    I have a Roborock (Xiaomi) S50 which just has a LiDAR on top and I can set boundaries based on an actual map of my house with the app. Greatly preferable over having to place random things around the house.
    - MBCook 7y ago
      The newer/higher end Roomba’s with cameras on them have the same feature using VSLAM instead of LiDAR.
- scrooched_moose 7y ago
  Eufy (part of Anker) is the same. Our entryway is about 1/2" lower than the rest of the house. Small enough for it to fall in without triggering the edge sensor, too tall for it to get back out.
wolrah 7y ago
> if a battery runs out, it would hit my computer. So? It's a vacuum, you could drive it right in to a computer non-stop until the battery runs out and it's not going to do any meaningful damage. The worst case scenario would be if you had a case where the power or reset button was right there at vacuum height, but other than that what's your concern?
- asdkhadsj 7y ago
  You'd be surprised. I have a Botvac and that thing can easily damage plenty of things in my house. On that note, I love my Botvac. My biggest complaint though is that it has to "learn" a room first, without any sort of helping functionality. This is a problem in my eyes because the Botvac comes with an awesome in-app barrier system where you can tell it to avoid areas, but to tell it to avoid areas it has to have done a normal scan of that area. It's a chicken-egg scenario. I can't keep the botvac out of my fragile areas without first letting it in my fragile areas. Once scanned though, the Botvac's "no go" lines are awesome, and very accurate in my experience.
- defanor 7y ago
  Mechanical shocks are indeed the concern. > you could drive it right in to a computer non-stop until the battery runs out and it's not going to do any meaningful damage What is this based on (i.e., are HDDs and all the smaller components commonly designed to withstand such shocks)? Now I've looked up a random WD Blue HDD data sheet [1], which mentions 30G shock (read/write, 2 ms). If a vacuum cleaner was to hit it directly while moving at about 1 m/s (less than 4 km/h, and it seems to walk at around that speed, though I haven't found exact values), and assuming that it would accelerate the HDD to its own speed in those 2 ms (maybe it's not realistic, though not obvious to me), that'd be about 50G (1 m/s / 0.002 s / 9.8). Even if it is so, a vacuum cleaner has a plastic bumper, a computer case is heavy, and a vacuum won't hit any of those components directly, but it seems dangerously close and I'd rather not hit the computer. [1] https://documents.westerndigital.com/content/dam/doc-library/en_us/assets/public/western-digital/product/internal-drives/wd-blue-hdd/data-sheet-wd-blue-pc-hard-drives-2879-771436.pdf https://documents.westerndigital.com/content/dam/doc-library...
asdff 7y ago
I have the xiaomi one with lidar that actually maps the room and vacuums in laps. If it detects something in the way it slows down and lightly taps it, then it turns around. It never hits anything full speed. If you disconnect the dock the vacuum will keep working, but when it is finished it will go looking for the dock then tell you it's lost.

karmicthreat 7y ago

I would trust the beacons a bit more. You could at least test on the mower that you have a good enough beacon constellation.

rtkwe 7y ago

If enough beacons have died such that it can no longer calculate it's position I bet it just stops. Should be a fairly easy thing to check just stop, send a notification, and power off or more likely since beacons are far more likely to die between runs just don't start if enough beacons aren't present.

elif 7y ago

You only need 3 to localize. So you can have a constellation of n, resulting in a battery failure tolerance rate of (n-3) / n %. If you are worried, increase n.

hanniabu 7y ago

And you will 100% be reliable instead of the company. This is my fear with fully autonomous cars too. If the car has an error can injures someone, their huge team of lawyers and lobbyists will likely pin the blame on you somehow.

thereisnospork 7y ago
Well if you assume a full automonous car is as safe a driver (on average) as a 16 year old male that liability you are worried about can be (will be legislatively required to be?) insured away for a few hundred dollars a month. The insurance market for lawnmower liability admittedly isn't as well developed.
- hanniabu 7y ago
  Interesting, so double insurance. One for you and one for your car, genius! Maybe somebody at Progressive, Allstate, or Geico will see this and get a promotion, lol.

dzhiurgis 7y ago

You'd have to try really hard to get injured by this. Blades are covered and stop when it tips over or get's lifted up. So unless you are a deaf gecko pet, I don't see much of a problem... But it's an American forum and this is not a legal advice.