Eight years ago my husband gave me the ultimate romantic gift: a Roomba ‘robot vacuum’. I understand his reasoning. What good are diamond studs if you’re drowning in crumbs and dust bunnies?
At
the time I believed that Roomba was the beginning of a new, futuristic lifestyle. I was convinced that in just a few short
years (unlike my jewel-bedecked friends) I’d have a stable of useful robots
that would tutor my kids in math, fold my laundry, and file my healthcare claims.
Let’s
just say that my Jetson-inspired ‘life-of-leisure’ failed to materialize.
Don’t
get me wrong. Roomba is great, but just
try to get him to suck up 8 ounces of spilled feta cheese and you’ll become painfully
aware of his many shortcomings. These
include, but are not limited to, spewing 5 million microscopic feta cheese particles
into the air.
And
while Roomba can hum along productively while you read the paper, he requires the
same level of supervision as a three year old playing with marbles. Leave him alone for a minute and he gets
stuck in a corner and bangs his head against the wall until his battery runs
out. Robot or not, this is bad
parenting.
Movies
are chock full of awesome robot helpers, but life, so far anyway, isn’t.
So
imagine my excitement when iRobot announced their latest advance in robotics. Finally! I say to myself, a massage robot who can be
programmed to repeatedly tell me that I look like I’ve lost weight.
Nope,
not even close.
iRobot’s
‘Ava’ is basically an iPad attached to a tripod with wheels. She looks a bit like a 6th grade
science project. She’s got Xbox motion
sensors to keep her from falling down the stairs and becoming an even more useless pile of junk. What are her skills? iRobot’s
CEO is not sure yet, but he’s thinking secretarial work, or maybe bartending.
The
last thing I need is a personal mixologist.
Pouring my Friday night drink is one of the highlights of my week.
Quite
honestly, I’m disappointed in so-called American ingenuity. Where is my hovercraft that runs on magnets?!
The future seemed so promising in the
sixties, and all we have to show for it is a run-down Epcot Center.
Given
their lack of progress, US robotics companies should probably give up on the
ambitious ‘Rosie’ approach and set their sights on a more achievable goal, like
single task robots, aka, appliances.
I
already own a crockpot, a Panini maker, a waffle iron, an ice cream maker and a
juicer – all of which do only ONE thing.
I’m pretty sure that I, or my husband, would shell out for, say, a poop-scooping
robot, or a laundry folding robot. If
only to show off to all our friends.
So
here’s my idea. Adapt Roomba so he’s
able to identify dog poop, make him weather resistant and voila, you’ve got “Poo-mba”. Pour your
entire marketing budget into Sky Mall ads.
I know at least seven guys off the top of my head who would snap up a
limited edition Poomba regardless of price.
The
important thing to remember is that these single task robots should be simple
to use. I have enough trouble trying to
figure out how to stream a Netflix movie on my not-so-smart phone; I don’t need
another challenging electronic device. Just
to be clear, we’re talking ‘on/off’ switch and a single remote.
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