[latchkey]

Similar price point as a S8 Pro Ultra, but without a dock. The dock is actually really nice cause it stores water / dirt and more importantly... cleans the mop after use. Membership is also a non-starter for me.

I think you're going to have a hard time competing against the S8.

[mehuln]

Thank you for your kind feedback.

The choice of lack of dock is deliberate one -- when we did research with our target audience -- familes and working parents with kids/pets, we realized that they actually do not like the large dock for few reasons:

1) It's ugly - family homes are very carefully decorated and most don't want the big dock in the room.

2) It's extremely loud -- again, it's a matter of preference but it's like rocket taking off every time it vacuums the vacuum. And, even the self-cleaning mopping is noisy. It still doesn't cover for the fact that it just drags dirt around between those cleaning cycles.

3) We heard from familes that they hated the smelly dirty water and did not know where to throw it.

Again, I'll refer to back to noise but for lost of pets and kids, the noise of dock and the robot are very scary. I know because my Golden hated it and my 3-year old would cry everytime the rocket took off.

Based on the response so far to pre-orders, we're very optimistic that it's resonating. Thanks!

[latchkey]

1) agreed, it is bulky and a bit ugly, but it also fits perfectly under the sink in my kitchen, so this isn't an issue for me. It isn't like a regular vacuum isn't bulky and ugly either.

2) it is loud for about 30 seconds as it sucks what is in the robot into its own bagged storage. not a big deal at all.

3) it is a lid sealed container of dirty water that you just pour down the sink or a toilet after it is done cleaning. this isn't rocket science here.

4) I'm not worried about someone in China seeing me in my underpants. My house and images and what I paid for it are already listed in MLS. This is classic making a big deal out of something that really isn't a big deal.

5) Do you know how many S8's have been sold? That would be the real comparison with your pre-orders. My bet is that they are orders of magnitude higher.

[mehuln]

Also, families care a lot about privacy, and right or wrong, there's an inheritant mistrust of cloud based disc bots and especially those coming from China. We do not beleive anyone of the disc bot companies have wrong intentions or anything, but I know that I wasn't comfortable with our home data going to cloud.

Hence, we started with the premise that we shouldn't have to compromise our privacy to keep our floors clean. Thanks!