I splurged on an iRobot Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner this Christmas. It’s quite a neat thing to watch working. But I’d like some improvements made to it:

• A light that shows when the Roomba hits a virtual wall, so I can place the wall in just the right spot and at just the right angle to block the robot’s path. My house is full of door-less openings that would make the machine run out of juice if not stopped by virtual walls.
• A “wall following first” mode, so I could be sure it has done the edges of the room before embarking on it’s normal “random” cleaning pattern.
• Detection of area rugs. So far the Roomba gets stuck on our rag rugs and the Christmas tree skirt. Putting up virtual walls for these would be almost impossible.
• Seeing the model of the room that the robot builds up somehow. Also, how much of that model it thinks it has covered and how often.

Other than that I’m pretty happy with this high tech “toy” worker so far.