Bob Cramer's Blog

I don’t know about you, but I find Roomba, the vacuuming robot, to be kind of creepy.

Knocking around the house, constantly crashing into walls, and then spinning away as if nothing happened, Roomba is like a drunken sailor in hot pursuit of lint and dust.  It doesn’t care how many obstacles you put in front of it, how many clothes or cords you have on the floor, whether you have carpet, hardwoods or tile, Roomba is on a singular mission to eradicate household filth and it won’t be stopped.

That is the part that weirds me out.

What if it can’t?

My dog agrees with me.  He finds the Roomba almost as untrustworthy as the pizza delivery man. He barks at it, then runs from it and after months of therapy, has finally accepted it as like a step-brother.  Yes, they share a house, but that is where the friendship ends.

Roomba has made a difference in our house’s overall cleanliness.  Said mentioned dog is a big shedder especially when it thunders.  So we unleash the little whirling dervish of dirt on stormy summer nights.  The dog and I both cower in the corner; he is scared of the lightning and I’m scared of… “The Thing”.

I’ve also notice, after closer inspections, that the Roomba sports a stylish, high tech mustache complete with white bristles hanging down like a fu manchu.  The manufacturer says it allows the Roomba to dig out dirt from tough to reach corners, but I think it is secretly designed to give the device personality.   Evidently, the Roomba also has a fear of heights as it has “cliff detection sensors” that helps it avoid dangerous drop-offs, like hallway steps or violent mood swings.

Finally, Roomba’s work ethic is questionable.  Like many of us, at the beginning it is all gung ho, casually bobbing around the house, running into things like a typical one year old. But as soon as it starts to feel tired or filled up, it starts to look for Momma, or in its case, homebase.  Yes, it can put himself into timeout whenever it sees fit.  I find that disturbing especially as I paid hundreds of dollars to acquire its services.  Excuse me, Mr. iRobot, but I will tell you when the work is done.  Got it?