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June 5, 2005
The Roomba is Dead; Long Live the Roomba
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Our deceased Roomba, its remains guarded faithfully by Winston |
I started by placing the Roomba in the bathroom, where it went to work picking up bits of kitty litter around our cats' litter box. Then, I directed it to the bedroom, while I proceeded to clean the rest of the bathroom. The Roomba makes a bit of noise, which you soon get used to, so I quickly noticed an unexpected silence from the bedroom. Before crossing the hallway, though, I heard it restart; it must have hit a rough spot and gotten stuck for a moment. But then after a few seconds it stopped again, then started, then stopped.
Entering the bedroom, I watched in horror as the Roomba spiraled pathetically in a backwards arc, going in circles to nowhere before stopping in confusion. A moment or two later it would start again, but then return to its dreadful death spiral. I shut it off and went to the iRobot.com website to diagnose the problem. The very first entry on the troubleshooting page dealt with the issue "Roomba repeatedly starts and stops and/or spins in place" -- precisely our little robot's problem.
I spent the next hour or so going through the troubleshooting list, working out each potential problem: cleaning its sensors, using canned air to clean dust out of its wheels, unscrewing various parts to remove debris (read: prodigious amounts of cat hair). Eventually, the Roomba was quite clean, as clean as it's ever been since the day last September when we first introduced the world to our Roomba.
I then brought the Roomba back into the bedroom, placing in a spot that had been cleaned previously. There were no obstacles to get in its way, nor was there any dust. This would be a clean, smooth test run -- hopefully, at least.
The Roomba played its Simon-like song of simple tones, then began to work as usual, arcing slowly before beginning its reconaissance mission across the room. But within 30 seconds, the painful dance began yet again: the Roomba stopped, went backwards, and arced out of control before shutting down for a few moments before repeating its death spiral. There was nothing left to do except let it die with dignity. I shut it off, dusted off its top one last time, turned it upside down and removed the battery. I had pulled the plug on my one and only robot.
After a few moments of grief, the anger set in: how could a machine less than nine months old be dead? I picked up the phone and called iRobot to ask them. The person I talked to was very supportive, though; she quickly promised to send us a brand-new Roomba within three weeks. I only had to mail in the wire support frame that holds in its spinning parts as a proof of purchase; they'd then send me the wire frame back along with the new Roomba.
So now, the Roomba sits in the corner of our apartment, upside down in the most undignified fashion, lest it disembowel itself by sitting rightside-up, its innards falling out because its wire support frame is gone. If all goes well, before the end of the month we'll have a new Roomba to take its place; for now, though, we mourn and honor its faithful service, both as a cleaning assistant and as never-ending entertainment for our two cats. Oh, and we'll have to use the upright vacuum again.
The Roomba is dead; long live the Roomba. -andy
Posted by acarvin at June 5, 2005 12:35 PM
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