- By Dan Veaner
- Business & Technology
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Last November Elon Musk repeated his warning that the rise of robots and Artificial Intelligence (AI) could mean the end of humankind, saying that it could be "fundamental risk to the existence of human civilization." Pretty scary coming from the mind behind PayPal, Tesla electric cars, and SpaceX. Nevertheless, faced with a busy schedule and mounting dust bunnies I decided to risk annihilation by trying out a robot vacuum cleaner.
After researching the various brands and models, which can set you back more than a thousand dollars if you really want to go end, I decided to try the Shark Ion Robot (model 755), partly because our regular vacuum is a Shark that has performed well over the years, and partly because of good reviews when compared to a similar (and more expensive) industry leader (iRobot Roomba) unit. The best price (this week) was at BJ's Wholesale Club, with a special price of $299.99 for a $30 savings if you purchased it online. We don't have an online account, but as it happened they were offering that price in the store as well. That's a little less than you would pay for the Roomba 690.
The Ion robot is not the intimidating robot Gort of 'The Day The Earth Stood Still'. In fact, if you say "Klaatu barada nikto" to the Shark vacuum it will be 'The Day The Vacuum Stood Still'. However, if you press the 'Clean' button on top of the robot or in the smart phone app, the plucky little robot happily roams around your room sucking up dust and cat hair. On-board sensors tell it when it's about to hit a wall or a chair, and it spins around to vacuum in a different direction.
Often it turns around before actually hitting the surface it was aiming for. But if you are worried it might damage a valuable piece of furniture or a musical instrument, for example, you can lay down BotBoundary™ Strips. Or you can put it in a doorway to limit which rooms the robot cleans. The robot sees the strip as a wall, and when it encounters one it turns around and goes the other way. It also has sensors that prevent it from plummeting off ledges or stairs. Robots don't like to plummet any more than humans do.
Despite the Musk warnings, this is not rocket science. I had to attach a couple of brushes by simply snapping them onto the robot, plug in a charging dock (it comes with two) and place the robot in the dock. It takes about three hours to charge the battery, which runs the Shark Ion for about an hour. At the end of a session it finds its way back to the dock to recharge. The only thing you have to do is empty the dirt/dust container and perhaps brush off the filter. It is easily accessible at the front of the robot, and very easy to clean out.
My first time I pressed 'Clean' on the phone app and watched the vacuum cleaner move back and forth around the room, avoiding walls and chairs, and stopping at a BotBoundary™ strip I had laid under a carpet in front of my harp. It seemed to randomly find its way back and forth across the room, but by the end of the hour it had done a nice job of picking up dust and dirt in a room that hadn't been vacuumed for several weeks. There was still some debris right near the chairs, but not a lot.
It didn't have any problem with carpet fringe, and while it did lift one corner of the carpet, it was only the one corner -- and the second time I used it, it didn't even do that. Some loose cords were pulled out during its wanderings, but they didn't impede the vacuum's ability to navigate. I'll probably tape them down to avoid the problem. For a vacuum cleaner the Shark is fairly quiet. Reviewers say it is quieter than the Roomba. I don't have a Roomba to compare it to, but I can tell you that while it isn't that loud, it does sound like a vacuum cleaner. So if you are thinking of sitting in the room while it is being cleaned, raising your feet as the vacuum whizzes by, and sipping a mint julep, don't expect the kind of quiet you can meditate or read a book to.
For my next experiment I used the phone app to schedule cleaning sessions. I told it to start vacuuming at two minutes past midnight this morning. When I woke up the app flashed a notification that the front bumper was stuck. And it offered a solution. But when I got downstairs the robot was nowhere to be seen. That was odd... it's only one room. Where could it be?
So I pressed the 'Find My Robot' button in the phone app and the vacuum played a surprisingly pleasing alert sound that helped me find where it had gotten itself stuck between a stereo speaker and the wall. I pressed the front bumper a couple of times as suggested by the app notification, set it down, and pressed the 'Clean' button on the top of the robot, then went to get breakfast. The robot finished its session and docked itself to recharge. The app keeps a history of cleaning runs so you can confirm it finished its scheduled sessions even if they were while you were asleep.
Have you ever gotten a piece of technology and been mildly disappointed when it turned out to be a lot less complicated than you anticipated? That's how I feel about this robot, and that's a good thing: it simply does what it is supposed to do with little participation by me. It did a better job than I thought it would cleaning the room, and while I expect the next generation will know how to scoot over to the wastebasket and empty its own dirt bin and, perhaps, change its own filter. Shark has made the whole thing so easy that aside from emptying the bin there isn't a lot for a human to do. The vacuum comes with a brush with a hook on it for getting threads unwrapped from the roller, and cleaning the filter. Periodic filter and brush replacements are recommended. We'll see how it holds up.
Using the Shark or any other robot vacuum doesn't entirely mean you can stop doing the vacuuming yourself. You'll still need to drag out the old upright to clean stairs. But all in all I am thinking the Shark Ion represents more of a dust apocalypse than a robot apocalypse. I think humans can live with that.
For Alexa fans, this vacuum robot can be controlled by Alexa. We don't have any Alexa devices. I really don't get along with Siri, so I am loath to have another AI voice assistant listening to everything we say in our house and replying to questions we didn't really ask or playing the wrong songs. If we did have one it might be fun to say, "Alexa, vacuum my house!" and actually have it happen. Hmm, I wonder if you could program it to vacuum the house if you say, "Alexa, Klaatu barada nikto"?
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