As I wrote about on KnowProSE.com, I did a test order from Temu and one of the things in the order was a robot vacuum. It’s not one of the fancy ones that maps your place and sends the information across the Internet to someone else. It’s a very basic model.

I’m new to this robot vacuum thing. I saw the first generations come out. I wasn’t too impressed, but these days, with the potential surgery ahead, it would be nice to have things routinely cleaned.

It’s got 3 spinny things, a vacuum, and (for some reason) a mop attachment even though it isn’t a mopping model. I don’t know, I won’t speculate, and the instructions say not to use it on wet surfaces.

I put the new tool to work immediately. It did 4 runs through my condo yesterday with 4 charges. And I found it amusing, so much so it is now a pet.

A Pet Robot Vacuum In a Bachelor Residence

I don’t have kids, or a significant other. It’s just me. Having a robot vacuum wandering around and doing routine vacuuming is a nice idea. And yet… it requires human intervention in amusing ways.

I found I had stuff on the ground that… well, probably should not have been on the ground that could get it stuck (there was that sock…) or get it bouncing around. So now I have things up on other flat surfaces that will annoy me every time I walk by, so those will get put away. That’s a bit of a win for me, and without nagging or negative commentary.

It’s almost childlike in that regard: You have to robot vacuum-proof your residence. So much of yesterday was having it run around and basically tell me where it had problems. I can hear it’s little whirrrrr as goes around, with the dull clicks when it runs into things.

It’s when it goes quiet that you have to go look for it. Like a child, like my nieces and nephews way back when. So I put up ‘guards’ in some areas, and in others… well, I had to pick stuff up. “No, don’t play with that.”

I was at my bedroom desk as it wandered into the bedroom yesterday and it wandered under the bed. Like a child or a pet. I looked at it, left it to it’s own devices, and went back to writing after I discovered some things under the bed. I had wondered where that deodorant had gone.

It finds things for me on the ground. After every run, I look inside it to see what it found. There’s an amazing amount of hair that it has found (what? It’s just me and I have my hair!), lots of dust in areas I thought were clear, and – haha! – it finds screws and other small parts that somehow were somewhere on the ground. For someone who is always doing something with spare parts, that’s helpful.

Of course, as time passes, it should find less and less.

What It Has Taught Me

Well, first, it does seem I needed it for some time. It’s suction is good enough for it to navigate without issue except for that one rug that slides, so I’ll have to stop that from sliding. And, I think, it deserves a name.

I haven’t decided on a name yet.

It has it’s own charm, and is a productive member of the household. It has it’s own language, purring happily as it does it’s job, rattling things around when I have to do mine, and now that I have gotten most of the obstacles where I want them – at least for now – it can run rampant unsupervised.

It has a bed. A ‘dock’ that it goes back to that I haven’t decided on location for yet. And when it goes quiet, I have to go look for it which is amusing.

It even… as pictured… went back to it’s box by pure accident yesterday.

This is a technology that I like. It’s not too invasive. It doesn’t tell anyone about where I live. It doesn’t nag me. It just bumps around with a certain charm to it, gets under some things, fails to get under others, and gets stuck under the recliner because of the tapered height.

It’s not smart. You need to be smarter than it is. And in that way, it will help me keep the place clean enough, which seems to already be cleaner than before. Sure, I spot cleaned a few areas, but it actually showed me where I had to without being irritating.

I think ‘Rover’ is a good name. It’s what it does. ‘Magellan’ it is not.

There’s something to be said for technology that is just smart enough.