This might be a good time to add a couple more reviews to the list, I have gotten two more robots since I wrote the original review, the 360 s10 and the Ecovacs Deebot X1 Plus so I will talk about those apps. First, the 360 s10 is a really good robot if you don't mind emptying the dust bin and don't need a self empty feature. This robot has three lasers that it uses to map the house and avoid obstacles. One feature I really like is that you can have it clean the entire place twice in one cycle, it takes longer of course but it's a deeper clean. The app is called 360 robot and I would put it in to the category of usable but not totally accessible. There are a bunch of unlabeled buttons but the interesting thing is, the labels come after a series of buttons. So, as you swipe through the screen, Voiceover will say "button" a couple of times and after that you will have the labels such as clean or recharge, double tapping on the labels usually works rather than having to use the unlabeled buttons themselves. Setting the suction power and water level for the mop can also be done and the settings screen reads very well. Regarding the Ecovacs Deebot X1 Plus, the X1 is Ecovacs top of the line series and there are three bots to choose from, since I wasn't that interested in mop features I got the one that just has the self empty station, the X1 Turbo has a station that will automatically wash the mop pads, and the X1 Omni has a station that will both wash the mop pads and empty the dust bin. While there are some controls that read a bit oddly in this app, I'm going to put this app, which is called Ecovacs Home in to the mostly accessible category. Setting the suction and water levels is quite easy and the settings screens use standard check boxes. While all of these bots are good, I still think Roborock is the best brand over all, and they just came out with a new mid range series which includes the Q5, Q7 and Q7 Max. All of these will work with Roborock's self empty dock, if you don't need the mop feature I would suggest checking out the Q5, or if you want the self empty feature you can get the Q5 Plus. I really can't think of anything at this point that Roomba has over these other brands, I think Roomba has really fallen behind on several things. First, their navigation uses a camera rather than lasers and this has several disadvantages. First, it is not able to create a map as fast as lasers can and it requires some light to work correctly. Second, the battery in the Roombas is too small. Most of my robots have a 5200 MAH lithium battery and can clean my place twice without problems. The Roomba J7, which is Roomba's newest model only has a 2300 MAH battery and it shows, if I set it to clean twice it needs to go back and charge in the middle of the cleaning cycle. If Irobot intends to remain competitive they need to get with the times, companies such as Roborock, Eufy, 360 Smart Life and Ecovacs have completely passed them up as far as robot features and performance. > On Jul 16, 2022, at 5:35 PM, Christopher Chaltain <[email protected]> > wrote: > > A few weeks ago Mike Arrigo <[email protected]> posted the following review > of several robot vacuum cleaners. I used this myself, and just a few minutes > ago, we let our Roborock start it's maiden voyage around our house. > > I remember a while back there was some discussion about the accessibility of > apps that are used to control robot vacuums. I now have a small robot vacuum > collection and have tried each brand's app so I have an idea about which apps > work the best with Voiceover. Some are definitely better than others. I'm > going to group these in to three categories, accessible or mostly accessible, > that is, everything is well labeled or at least easy to use with Voiceover's > recognition abilities, useable but not the most accessible, meaning you can > use the app but some of the controls are not labeled and you will have to > memorize the order of where they are on the screen, and mostly unuseable, > that is, you will need sighted help to do at least some things in the app > since they are impossible to do using voiceover. One other thing to note, > many robots will map your house and let you define rooms or no go zones by > drawing on the map. Unfortunately there is no way to do that using Voiceover > with any of these apps and I'm not even sure how that could be made > accessible since it involves drawing, so your choices are to get sighted help > if you want to use those features or just let the robot clean the entire > place each time which is what I do. > Ok, let's start with the most accessible category, these are in no particular > order. > The Irobot home app is used for the Roomba robots and works very well with > Voiceover. For the most part, everything is well labeled, there are a few > places where voiceover has to guess at what a control is but it does describe > those controls well. I had no problems setting up my Roomba J7 Plus totally > without sighted help. This app is very interactive which I like, at times it > will display tips and tricks or ask you how the robot did on its last run and > this is all completely accessible. If you decide you want to get a Roomba you > will have no trouble at all using the app. > Next up is the Roborock app. As a side note, I think Roborock is one of the > best, if not the best brand of robot vacuums available, their cleaning and > navigation is excellent. I discovered something with this app, I actually > have two different Roborock models and the controls read slightly differently > depending on which robot you choose to control from the home screen. This > makes me wonder if the app is actually downloading this content from the > robot itself. Either way, the app is very easy to use and navigate with > voiceover. So, depending on which Roborock model you choose to get, things > may read slightly different. For example, when I open the entry for the > Roborock S4 Max and come to the settings option, Voiceover says "settings." > On the other hand, when I choose the Roborock S7 Max V, which is Roborock's > current top of the line model and one that I would absolutely recommend, the > settings option says "possibly games, more." Once you know that this opens > the settings screen for the robot it works fine. One other minor quirk about > how the app reads, while in the settings screen, if you turn a setting off, > Voiceover says "off," but when you enable a feature, rather than saying "on," > Voiceover says "Open." Changing the cleaning settings such as the suction > power and mop intensity works fine. > On both the Irobot and Roborock apps, reading the battery level and robot > status works fine. The Irobot app will indicate if the battery is high, > medium or low, where as the Roborock app indicates the battery level as a > percentage. > The next app I will mention is the Eufy Home app. Eufy is a brand made by > Anker which is known for their power banks and battery chargers. Eufy makes a > line of robot vacuums called Robovac. Again, this app works well with > Voiceover. Getting my Robovac X8 connected to my network worked fine and the > controls for starting and stopping the robot, as well as changing the suction > power are completely accessible. I prefer to run my robots on maximum power, > I figure if the robot has the power available, why not use it for a better > clean? One minor quirk about this app, there is no way that I know of to read > the battery level, you can tell if the robot is charging or fully charged but > that's all. > Now we will move on to the second category. I currently only have one app in > this category, the app is useable but not as easy to use since many of the > buttons are unlabeled. The Trifo app fits this category. I have the Trifo > Lucy pet edition robot and this app is used to control it. This app uses a > different method to set up the network connection. With most other robots, > you enter your WI-FI network name and password in to the app and then you > connect your phone to a temporary network that the robot creates and the app > uses this to transfer the network information to it. With the Trifo robots, > you enter the network information and the app creates a QR code that is > displayed on your phone's screen. You hold your phone's screen in front of > the robot and the robot's camera reads the QR code. I was able to get this to > work without sighted help but I had to turn off the screen curtain feature of > Voiceover. This app has a lot of buttons that are unlabeled so Voiceover just > says "button." The most important buttons, the start and stop cleaning button > and the button to return to the dock are unlabeled as well as the buttons for > map management and the button to change the suction setting. I was able to > figure out what each button does after some experimentation but I definitely > want to contact Trifo about this and hopefully they will label these buttons > appropriately. Changing the suction to maximum works fine once you get to the > right screen, it's a percentage slider and I set mine to 100 percent for the > highest setting. > Ok, now on to the remaining two apps that I have tried, I had to get sighted > help at different points in order to get these apps to work. Let's start with > the MII home app, this app is used to control several different robots made > by Dreametech and a few other brands. I have the Dreametech L10 pro, creating > an account and connecting the robot to my network worked fine so again, I'm > wondering if the app is downloading the screens that are displayed from the > robot itself once it's connected, regardless it ends up the same. It's > possible to get in to the settings screen but when toggling options, it reads > very strangely. The check box that you need to double tap on to toggle each > option is after the option description and when you enable it, voiceover > doesn't say anything, when you disable it, voiceover says "plate." I had to > get sighted help to figure this out and I also needed sighted help to set the > suction power to maximum, you can get in to the cleaning settings screen but > Voiceover does not see the control for changing the suction power at all, > apparently it's a circle with each setting shown as a larger fan, totally > nonstandard. Once everything is set, you can read the battery level and start > and stop cleaning but even with this control you can tell that Voiceover is > guessing at what it is, it's not labeled. When swiping through the screen, > sometimes Voiceover does not say anything. For these reasons I am considering > this robot to be one of the least accessible when using Voiceover though it > does clean well. > The last app I will talk about is the Neabot app used to control the Neabot > Q11, again a very good robot as far as cleaning goes, but this is the least > accessible robot vacuum app I have used. I had to get sighted help several > times. First, creating an account is not possible without sighted help > because there is no way to access the Register" item. Voiceover says "don't > have an account yet? Register" and it sees that as one item when it should be > two items. Double tapping does not work so you have to get sighted help to > tap on "register" with Voiceover turned off. After that creating the account > works fine and connecting the robot to the network can be done without > sighted help but once that is done, you really start to see the accessibility > issues. You can read the battery level and the "Start cleaning" option works > fine, but everything else is either completely unlabeled or even when > Voiceover tries to guess what something is, the descriptions are not very > helpful. With lots of patience you can get in to the main robot settings > screen which is where the firmware update option is, and this also has > problems. When there is a firmware update, Voiceover sees the text describing > the update, the cancel, and the update options all as one item, this should > be three. I was able to update the firmware by turning Voiceover off and > tapping towards the bottom right of the screen but I think I was just lucky > enough to tap in the right place. Also, setting the suction to maximum > required sighted help, Voiceover does not see the control for changing the > suction power at all. I have contacted Neabot about these issues and never > got a response. > So to finish this review, at this time the most accessible robot vacuum apps > I have tried are from Irobot, Roborock and Eufy. All of these brands are good > but Roborock is my favorite because of its excellent cleaning and navigation. > > -- > Christopher (AKA CJ) > Chaltain at Outlook > > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of > [email protected] > Sent: Saturday, July 16, 2022 2:53 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: RE: Roomba > > Yep > iPhone app is accessible and it can be controlled by Google home or Alexa. > > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Mary > Anne Lynskey > Sent: Saturday, July 16, 2022 1:02 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Roomba > > Good afternoon everyone. I am curious. Have any of you experience using a > Roomba? I recently ordered one from Amazon which has not arrived yet. I am > wondering if this is a viable option for someone who is totally blind. How > accessible is the app and how difficult is it to set up the app and use it. I > know it can be controlled via the a lady. Any feedback appreciated. Thanks > and everyone have a wonderful day. > > Mary Anne > Sent from my iPhone > > -- > The following information is important for all members of the V iPhone list. > > If you have any questions or concerns about the running of this list, or if > you feel that a member's post is inappropriate, please contact the owners or > moderators directly rather than posting on the list itself. > > Your V iPhone list moderator is Mark Taylor. Mark can be reached at: > [email protected]. 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