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Wouldn't you want to own a Roombamower that could automatically mow your lawn after a few times around manually? If a Roomba vacuum can vacuum the house witho

Wouldn't you want to own a Roombamower that could automatically mow your lawn after a few times around manually? If a Roomba vacuum can vacuum the house without training, why would I have to bother training a lawn mower? Shouldn't it work without training? Or a microwave that could recognize types of food with an internal camera, and suggest optimal cooking times based on total times you've done in the past? "I see you're trying to make popcorn! I notice you always somehow always have the same brain fart when it comes to microwave popcorn and burn the ever-loving bejesus out of it, shall I set that up for you again?" Every "self-adapting" interface that I can recall using was a disaster. Then again, the ones I can think of were Windows Start Menu and Microsoft Office features. They were really terrible, though.

spc476 14y ago
I doubt the Roombamower would work that well without training. The Roomba is constrained by the walls, so it can just move about randomly without problem (except for stairs---unless it has a sensor to detect its about to tumble down a flight of stairs, you might need to "wall off" the stairs). However, where I currently live, there are no such constraints for a Roombamower. There is no fence between our yard and the neighbor to the south. There is a fence between us and the north neighbor, but only in the backyard. The driveway isn't a good border because we still have a portion of our yard on the "far side" of the driveway (so the Roombamower can safely cross the driveway to keep mowing), but it shouldn't venture out into the street (no curb---and no sidewalk (another rant) to worry about). I'm not terribly concerned about our back property line as that's a nearly impenetrable thicket of native plant life (Florida, if you are curious). In our situation, we would need to somehow inform the Roombamower the extent of our yard. As far as the microwave goes, I can barely operate ours (and here I am, programming computers for a living) and would prefer two dials---power (linear scale is fine) and time (logarithmic would probably work nicely for this).

spc476 14y ago

I doubt the Roombamower would work that well without training. The Roomba is constrained by the walls, so it can just move about randomly without problem (except for stairs---unless it has a sensor to detect its about to tumble down a flight of stairs, you might need to "wall off" the stairs). However, where I currently live, there are no such constraints for a Roombamower. There is no fence between our yard and the neighbor to the south. There is a fence between us and the north neighbor, but only in the backyard. The driveway isn't a good border because we still have a portion of our yard on the "far side" of the driveway (so the Roombamower can safely cross the driveway to keep mowing), but it shouldn't venture out into the street (no curb---and no sidewalk (another rant) to worry about). I'm not terribly concerned about our back property line as that's a nearly impenetrable thicket of native plant life (Florida, if you are curious). In our situation, we would need to somehow inform the Roombamower the extent of our yard. As far as the microwave goes, I can barely operate ours (and here I am, programming computers for a living) and would prefer two dials---power (linear scale is fine) and time (logarithmic would probably work nicely for this).