Why Don’t Hotels Use Roombas?(freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com)
freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com
Why Don’t Hotels Use Roombas?
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/01/why-dont-hotels-use-roombas/
25 comments
It wouldn't have to be as fast as a human because it doesn't need to be watched and a maid could carry multiple of them. (In fact given their battery life, she'd have to.) She could clean room 1, release roomba 1 in it after she was done, move on to clean room 2 while roomba 1 worked, release roomba 2 after the end, etc.
There might be a little lag at the end of the shift though, depending on the amount of time the Roomba took to vacuum and the amount of time she took to do everything else, so she'd probably just vacuum the last room or two by hand depending.
Nonetheless, the idea is dumb for many other reasons.
There might be a little lag at the end of the shift though, depending on the amount of time the Roomba took to vacuum and the amount of time she took to do everything else, so she'd probably just vacuum the last room or two by hand depending.
Nonetheless, the idea is dumb for many other reasons.
Forget about the maids having to carry them at all. Build a kind of auto-recharge/clean/de-hair/emptying station into the base of the bed and have one each room. Also build an electronic "Do Not Disturb/Please Clean the Room" sign into the door which notifies the Roomba when it might be okay to activate. The Roomba would be programmed to start the cycle one hour after the guests leave in the morning.
Alternatively, have a cart-sized Mothership robot with the above facilities. It could go down the hall and dispatch Roombas, which would enter through a "Robot-door" disguised as a kickplate and equipped with a wireless lock. The Mothership could implement battery-swap to maximize the duty cycle of the Roombas.
Alternatively, have a cart-sized Mothership robot with the above facilities. It could go down the hall and dispatch Roombas, which would enter through a "Robot-door" disguised as a kickplate and equipped with a wireless lock. The Mothership could implement battery-swap to maximize the duty cycle of the Roombas.
It'd be a substantial lag, I would guess.
The only way to find out is to actually run a simulation. I don't think a cleaner would have to carry multiple robots, just multiple batteries.
The only way to find out is to actually run a simulation. I don't think a cleaner would have to carry multiple robots, just multiple batteries.
Because vacuuming is <5% of what cleaning people do. You'd need an auto-emptying robot too, which is much harder to make. And you'd need to make it much more reliable - drastically increasing the life of the product. That's very hard.
Especially given that it needs to remain small in order to get under beds. You can't just slap a giant battery on it.
Wow, that is a stupid idea.
http://mattmaroon.com/?p=416
http://mattmaroon.com/?p=416
Agreed. Most people use Roombas for entertainment purposes. It definitely takes more time to look after them than it would to do a better job with a vacuum.
I bought one for my wife. I kind of think of it as a pet.
I bought one for my wife. I kind of think of it as a pet.
I dunno about the rest of you but mine actually works as advertised. I leave it on before I go to work and it cleans the whole (carpeted) house by the time I get home.
When you say look after them, what do you mean? I clean the brushes out about once a month and that takes a short while. The bin seems to need emptying about as often.
When you say look after them, what do you mean? I clean the brushes out about once a month and that takes a short while. The bin seems to need emptying about as often.
Mine needs more care than that, but basically I agree with you. I couldn't be happier with my Roomba. Just because a loud-but-irrelevant blogger says something doesn't mean it's true or that you have to agree. :)
I think the dog hair is its undoing.
Because people would steal them the way they steal towels and other things in hotel rooms?
It'd be a crackhead's paradise -- find the nearest hotel, break two room windows in, and score a cool $600 worth of electronics in a few minutes. Score!
It'd be a crackhead's paradise -- find the nearest hotel, break two room windows in, and score a cool $600 worth of electronics in a few minutes. Score!
It'd be a crackhead's paradise -- find the nearest hotel, break two room windows in, and score a cool $600 worth of electronics in a few minutes. Score!
I think the hotels that would use this first would not be the motel in the drug district, but rather a high-rise in some city. If you can break into a 10th story window, I guess you can have the Roomba.
Currently, theft of this variety doesn't appear to be a real problem; there is tons of expensive stuff in hotel rooms right now. Video game systems, flat-screen TVs, mattresses, etc. The Roomba would be easier to steal, but I doubt it would become a common occurrence.
Besides, in my imagined version of how this would work, the door to the room would be open while the Roomba is doing its thing, and the maid would probably hear the window breaking. (There wouldn't be a Roomba in each room, the maid would just carry some when doing their cleaning, set them loose in a few rooms, wait for them to finish, repeat.)
Anyway, this just won't happen. I should have just written that initially and saved the bits used to represent this reply ;)
I think the hotels that would use this first would not be the motel in the drug district, but rather a high-rise in some city. If you can break into a 10th story window, I guess you can have the Roomba.
Currently, theft of this variety doesn't appear to be a real problem; there is tons of expensive stuff in hotel rooms right now. Video game systems, flat-screen TVs, mattresses, etc. The Roomba would be easier to steal, but I doubt it would become a common occurrence.
Besides, in my imagined version of how this would work, the door to the room would be open while the Roomba is doing its thing, and the maid would probably hear the window breaking. (There wouldn't be a Roomba in each room, the maid would just carry some when doing their cleaning, set them loose in a few rooms, wait for them to finish, repeat.)
Anyway, this just won't happen. I should have just written that initially and saved the bits used to represent this reply ;)
Rather than breaking in, they'd just take the thing home after staying there, and then when they got billed, call the credit card company and say "I never saw any Roomba". Credit Card companies almost never deny a customer a charge back, and they certainly wouldn't over an item that actually could just run away on its own.
Why don't they do that now for the TVs or the fine art?
Unlike the Roomba, a customer couldn't plausibly assert that a TV or a painting actually escaped from a room by itself.
They are bolted down.
A Roomba is much easier to pick up and stash.
Why Don't 99%+ of Americans use Roombas?
Why don't 99%+ of developers use emacs or vi? Because they are too dumb to realize that their life can be improved. I assume a similar principle applies here.
mattmaroon (see blog post above) appears to be unable to follow the instructions included with the Roomba, so he doesn't like his. This is interesting because this is the same argument ("it's too hard") you hear about other cool things, like emacs, vi, CL, etc.
Anyway, I like mine. I start it when I shower and I emerge to have a clean apartment. I have a small apartment, though. Yes, it needs to be emptied every few days (and the cat hair removed from the brushes), but that takes all of 5 minutes -- much less time than vacuuming manually would have required. (The reality is that when I didn't have a Roomba, I just never vacuumed. Gross.)
mattmaroon (see blog post above) appears to be unable to follow the instructions included with the Roomba, so he doesn't like his. This is interesting because this is the same argument ("it's too hard") you hear about other cool things, like emacs, vi, CL, etc.
Anyway, I like mine. I start it when I shower and I emerge to have a clean apartment. I have a small apartment, though. Yes, it needs to be emptied every few days (and the cat hair removed from the brushes), but that takes all of 5 minutes -- much less time than vacuuming manually would have required. (The reality is that when I didn't have a Roomba, I just never vacuumed. Gross.)
Because they are expensive and inefficient. They're largely novelty.
My primary reason is that they get stuck on cords easily, and I have too many of those to be worth the hassle of concealing.
My primary reason is that they get stuck on cords easily, and I have too many of those to be worth the hassle of concealing.
$99 is hardly expensive for a vacuum cleaner. Besides, that argument doesn't wash. You could say the same thing about dishwashers. Domestic robots are here to stay.
You're one geek with a lot of cords. Most people aren't like you...
You're one geek with a lot of cords. Most people aren't like you...
That's a lot of cords. :)
Speed, capacity and throughput come into play.
I only need to clean 1 living quarters where as a maid service in a hotel has to do dozens, every day. The roomba would have to be at least as fast as the human and it is not. That's OK for home use since I'm at work so it can take all day if it wanted to. That wouldn't work out so well at a hotel where throughput matters more.
This sounds like an interesting problem for someone in operations research to tackle. I can conceive that a roomba might be useful in a hotel (for example, when the cleaning staff is going at the bathroom, let the robot loose in the room) ... but it would require some time and money to study it.
Perhaps a system where the floor has embedded RFID tags with unique serial numbers to help make the robot's job easier and more efficient, and a larger capacity bin and battery.
I'm sure iRobot is thinking about this.