I currently have 9 bots, but I do love central vacuums as well, I do collect regular vacuums as well, I currently have 64 vacuums, including several central vacuum units, it is possible to use them without pipes simply by connecting a hose directly to the unit. I've tried sending out several bots at once, didn't work too well, they became quite confused but it was fun to watch.
> On Jul 16, 2022, at 11:07 PM, Sieghard Weitzel <[email protected]> wrote: > > Wow, Mike must really have a thing for Robo Vacuums, I wonder if he could > have a Robo Vac war or something, sounds like he has enough of them to wage a > serious battle 🤣 > > Years ago I bought a top of the line Neato model for my Mom after she had hip > replacement surgery and while she did use it for a while, she said it had > many more issues than it seemed to be worth it. It got stuck quite often and > it was never able to finish on a single charge even though my parents' house > is not huge, about 1,300 or 1,400 square feet but with a few maybe tricky > corners and with both smooth floors and rugs and my Mom said it often got > quite confused, maybe also because of the very high ceilings in the living > room. But at times she said it spent 15 minutes going over and over the same > small area as if it was stuck on some sort of loop. She also said she had to > spend a lot of time cleaning its brushes and making sure it was clean in > general and while I am sure there are maybe better models out there now, I > have so far no desire to try one of these things even though I am a bit of a > gadget person. We have hardwood floors throughout the upstairs of our house > and tile in the kitchen, bathroom and down the stairs, downstairs it's cork > flooring in the guest room and family room and tile in the hallway, but it's > just so easy to plug in the hose of the central vac and it's powerful and > always works without a fuss. To each their own I guess. > > > Best regards, > Sieghard > > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Kay > Malmquist > Sent: Saturday, July 16, 2022 5:23 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: Roomba > > I will be interested in what you think. I also saw Mike's review and thought > seriously about buying the Roborock. Do you have any recommendations as to > the best place to buy one? Years ago, I had two Roomba's, one for downstairs > and one for up. I liked them and miss them for the in-between vacuum jobs > they did. > > Kay Malmquist > [email protected] > > Worrying does not empty tomorrow of its troubles, it empties today of its > strength. > Corrie Ten Boom - 1892-1983 - Watchmaker > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Christopher Chaltain" <[email protected]> > To: <[email protected]> > Sent: Saturday, July 16, 2022 5:35 PM > Subject: RE: Roomba > > > 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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