[kccqzy]

> it just doesn't save that much money, even if it works well

You should see how wasteful typical American households are when they use a dumb thermometer. The best energy-saving feature is simply at-home vs away-from-home detection. I don't want my HVAC at home to run when I'm away at work or worse away at vacation, unless the temperature is really extreme. This easily saves me hundreds of dollars for a month-long vacation.

> Making roombas deal with furniture or large objects left on the floor seems like mission impossible

Roomba the company hasn't innovated in years. Switch to a different brand like Roborocks. Also don't choose models with a camera for privacy and performance reasons: lidar is much better.

[jdlshore]

High end robot vacuums have been innovating (including Roomba), with self-emptying bins and ML-based obstacle avoidance for things like cords and pet waste. This requires a camera, so any high end robot vacuum is going to have one. For me, those features are worth it.

The other big area of innovation is combo-vacuum+mop, including automatic water replacement and cleaning, but those features don’t seem to be fully ready for prime time yet. Roomba is behind the curve on this one.

[kccqzy]

ML-based obstacle avoidance does not require a camera. The latest products consciously avoid cameras to assuage fears that the images captured could be sent to the cloud.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/12/19/1065306/roomba-i...

[jdlshore]

It may not require a camera, but in practice I think most or all units use them. It’s definitely not a Roomba-specific issue.

I’m familiar with the “woman on a toilet” story and I think it’s overblown. It was a prototype unit used for training the ML model, not a consumer unit.

[crabbone]

How does the thermostat know you are going on a month long vacation?