After growing a prototype robotic that was efficient at cleansing each laborious flooring and carpets utilizing a comparatively easy carpet-sweeping mechanism, iRobot vice chairman Winston Tao and the iRobot advertising crew have organized a spotlight group in order that Roomba’s engineers can witness the response of potential first prospects.
One nice midsummer day in 2001, Roomba’s engineers, Winston Tao, and a number of other different iRobot folks rendezvoused at an unremarkable, multistory workplace constructing on the Cambridge facet of the Charles River, throughout from Boston. We assembled in a slender room. A protracted desk occupied the room’s heart. Snacks and sodas have been set out alongside the again wall; the lighting was subdued. The dominant function of this cramped chamber was an enormous one-way mirror occupying virtually the whole entrance wall. Sitting on the desk, one may see by means of the wanting glass right into a wonderland of market analysis on the opposite facet. In that a lot bigger, brightly lit room have been comfy chairs, an easel with a big pad of paper, and our employed facilitator. Though this was a well-known trope I’d seen 100 instances on TV, really lurking in an statement room like this felt a contact surreal.
iRobot vs Focus Group
We’d paid perhaps US $10,000 for the privilege of organising some focus teams—most likely essentially the most the corporate had ever spent on a market analysis occasion. However we would have liked to know the way potential prospects would react to our Roomba prototype once they noticed one within the (plastic) flesh cleansing the ground at their ft. On the appointed hour, our facilitator welcomed eight to 10 bona fide extraordinary individuals as they filed into the big room and sat within the chairs. Our mind-child was about to obtain its first important judgment from strangers.
aspect_ratioThis text was tailored from the creator’s new guide, Dancing with Roomba: Cracking the Robot Riddle and Building an Icon (Routledge 2025).Joe Jones
The facilitator ready individuals by encouraging them to state their sincere views and to not be swayed by the feedback of others. “You’re the world’s skilled in your individual opinion,” she instructed them.
At first the facilitator described Roomba with out exhibiting the group any pictures or the machine itself. She was met with skepticism that such a factor would really work. Then she demonstrated one of many prototypes we had ready for the occasion. As individuals watched Roomba go about its enterprise on each carpets and laborious flooring, their doubts ebbed. Even those that said that they might by no means buy such a tool couldn’t assist being intrigued. Because the group dialogue proceeded, soccer mothers (representing “early mass-market adopters”) emerged as essentially the most . They noticed Roomba as a time-saver. This shocked and happy us, as we’d anticipated the a lot smaller market of gadget geeks could be the primary to fall in love.
iRobot constructed about 20 of its third main Roomba prototype, the T100, all with 3D-printed shells.Joe Jones
However we may take neither curiosity nor like to the financial institution. We wanted to know the way a lot prospects would pay. Our facilitator eased into that a part of the gathering’s proceedings. She didn’t inquire immediately however slightly requested, “In case you noticed this product in a retailer, what would you count on the value to be?”
The main target group’s responses have been everywhere in the map. Some individuals talked about a value near the $200 we meant to cost. Just a few people we thought to be saints-in-training anticipated an excellent larger quantity. However most have been decrease. One girl stated she’d count on Roomba to be priced at $25. Later when requested what she thought a substitute battery may cost, she stated, “$50.” That harm. For this girl, attaching our robotic to a battery devalued the battery.
Flooring Cleaner or Robotic?
All through the proceedings our facilitator had been cautious to depart a few issues unmentioned. First, she by no means referred to Roomba as a robotic, calling it as an alternative an “computerized flooring cleaner.” Three separate teams, comprising an mixture of round two dozen individuals, gave their opinions that day. Of those, solely two people spontaneously utilized the time period “robotic” to Roomba.
The second unmentioned attribute was the character of Roomba’s cleansing mechanism. That’s, the facilitator had revealed no particulars about the way it labored. Individuals had seen the demo, they noticed Roomba cleansing successfully, that they had given their opinion in regards to the value. They’d all assumed {that a} vacuum was at work, a number of used that time period to consult with the robotic. However now the facilitator instructed them, “Roomba is a carpet sweeper, not a vacuum.” Then she requested once more what they might count on to pay. On common, focus-group members from all three teams reduce their estimates in half. Individuals who had beforehand stated $200 now stated $100.
The main target group’s brutal revaluation exploded our world. The enabling innovation that made the vitality funds work, that made Roomba technically and economically possible, was cleansing with a carpet sweeper slightly than a vacuum. Folks had seen that the carpet-sweeper-Roomba actually did work. But they selected to belief typical knowledge about vacuums versus carpet sweepers slightly than their very own apparently mendacity eyes. If we have been pressured to chop the robotic’s value in half, we might lose cash on each unit offered, and there could be no Roomba.
On the finish of the night, earlier than any member of our surprised crew may stagger out the door, Winston stated merely, “Roomba has to have a vacuum.” A shotgun wedding ceremony was within the offing for bot and vac.
Scamp, the earliest Roomba prototype, was in-built 1999.Joe Jones
The subsequent day at work we gathered to debate the main target group’s revelation. A half-hearted try or two to disclaim actuality shortly pale—electrical engineer Chris Casey noticed to that—and we accepted what we would have liked to do. However altering issues now could be an enormous problem in a number of methods. We have been deep into improvement, nearer to launch than kickoff. All {the electrical} energy our battery may provide was already spoken for. None was out there for a brand new system that might possible be extra energy hungry than all of the robotic’s different methods mixed. And the place may we put a vacuum? All of the house within the robotic was additionally absolutely assigned. Our mandate to scrub beneath furnishings and between chair legs wouldn’t allow us to make the robotic any greater.
Making Roomba a Vacuum
One escape hatch beckoned, however nobody was desirous to leap by means of it. Chris articulated what we have been all considering. “We may construct a vestigial vacuum,” he stated. That’s, we may design a tiny, pico-power vacuum—one which consumes virtually no energy and does virtually nothing—strap it on the robotic, and name it achieved. Perversely, that appeared affordable. The robotic already cleaned the ground properly; our cleansing checks proved it. Clients, nonetheless, didn’t know that. They have been all steeped within the dogma of vacuum supremacy. Reeducating the plenty wasn’t potential—we didn’t have the funds. But when we may assert on the field that Roomba had a vacuum, then everybody could be happy. We may cost the value that makes our economics work. Clients would deem that value affordable and wouldn’t need to unlearn their vacuum bias.
Nevertheless it felt incorrect. If we should add a brand new system to the robotic, we needed it—like all the opposite methods—to earn its preserve truthfully, to do one thing helpful. Via additional dialogue and calculation, we concluded that we may afford to dedicate about 10 p.c of the robotic’s 30-watt energy funds to a vacuum. Typical handbook vacuums sometimes gorged themselves on 1,200 watts of energy, but when we may develop a system that offered helpful cleansing whereas consuming solely 3 W (0.25 p.c of 1,200) then we might be ok with including it to the robotic. It simply didn’t appear very possible.
iRobot constructed two an identical second-generation Roomba prototypes, named Kipper and Tipper, certainly one of which is proven right here.Joe Jones
I generally discover that fixing an issue is basically a matter of staring on the downside’s supply. Gaze lengthy and intently sufficient at one thing and, Waldo-like, the answer could reveal itself. So I took one of many crew’s handbook vacuums and stared at it. What precisely made it use as a lot energy because it did? I knew the reply was partly advertising slightly than actuality. There was no easy, goal method to evaluate cleansing efficacy between vacuums. Missing a results-based technique, buyers checked out inputs. For instance, a vacuum with a 10-ampere motor sounds as if it ought to clear higher than a vacuum with a 6-amp motor. However the greater quantity would possibly solely imply that the producer with the 10-amp declare was utilizing a less-efficient motor—the 6-amp (720-W) motor would possibly clear simply as properly.
However even while you corrected for the amperage arms race, a vacuum was nonetheless an influence glutton. Staring on the vacuum cleaner, I started to see why. The vacuum fastened in my gaze that day used the usual configuration: a cylindrical beater brush occupied the middle of a large air inlet. A motor, connected by a belt, spun the comb. One other motor, deeper within the machine, drove a centrifugal blower that drew air in by means of the inlet. To maintain dust particles kicked up by the beater brush entrained within the airstream, the air wanted to maneuver quick. The mix of a large inlet and excessive velocity meant that each second the vacuum motor needed to gulp an enormous quantity of air.
Accelerating all that air took appreciable energy—the physics was inescapable. If we needed a vacuum that sipped energy slightly than guzzled it, we needed to transfer a a lot smaller quantity of air per second. We may accomplish that—with out decreasing air velocity—if, as an alternative of a large inlet, we used a slender one. To match the handbook vacuum’s air velocity utilizing solely a 3-W motor, I computed that we would want a slender opening certainly: solely a millimeter or two.
That immediately disqualified Roomba from utilizing the usual vacuum configuration—we couldn’t put our bristle brush in the midst of the air inlet. That will require an inlet perhaps 20 instances too large. We’d have to seek out one other association.
A Micro Vacuum that Doesn’t Suck
To check the narrow-inlet thought I turned to my favourite prototyping supplies: cardboard and packing tape. Utilizing these, I mocked up my thought. The inlet for my check vacuum was so long as Roomba’s brush however solely about 2 millimeters large. To supply suction I repurposed the blower from a defunct warmth gun. Then I utilized my jury-rigged contraption to crushed Cheerios and a wide range of different dust stand-ins. My novel vacuum was surprisingly efficient at choosing up small particles from a tough floor. Utilizing an anemometer to measure the velocity of the air dashing by means of my slender inlet confirmed that it was, as desired, as quick because the airstream in an ordinary vacuum cleaner.
The subsequent step was to by some means shoehorn our microvacuum into Roomba. To kind the slender inlet we used two parallel vanes of rubber. Small rubber bumps protruding from one vane spanned the inlet, stopping the vanes from collapsing collectively when vacuum was utilized. We positioned the air inlet parallel to and simply behind the comb. The one believable house for the vacuum impeller, motor, and filter (wanted to separate the dust from the flowing air) was to take over a nook of the mud cup. Drawing on his now well-honed expertise of packing large issues into tiny areas the place that they had no enterprise becoming, mechanical engineer Eliot Mack managed by some means to perform this. However we did get assist from an outdoor marketing consultant to design the intricate form the impeller wanted to maneuver air effectively.
Usually, common vacuums carry out higher on carpet than on laborious flooring. However Roomba inverted that relationship. Our vacuum operated like a squeegee, pulling dust from tile, linoleum, and picket flooring. Nevertheless it was much less efficient on different surfaces. The sweeper mechanism did the heavy lifting when cleansing carpet.
iRobot launched its first manufacturing model of the Roomba in September 2002.Joe Jones
Regardless of the crew’s reluctance so as to add a vacuum and regardless of the unit’s low power, the vacuum genuinely improved Roomba’s cleansing skill. We may show this convincingly. First, we disabled Roomba’s new vacuum by disconnecting the ability after which cleaned a tough flooring relying solely on the carpet-sweeper mechanism. If we then walked throughout the ground barefoot, we might really feel a certain quantity of grit underfoot. If we repeated the train with vacuum energy on, the ground was pristine. Naked ft would detect no grit in anyway.
The Roomba contributors current on the event of the five hundred,000th Roomba embody Steve Hickey, Eliot Mack [front row], Paul Sandin, Chris Casey, Phil Mass, Joe Jones, and Jeff Ostaszewski [back row].Joe Jones
Years later I realized that the main target group had a again story nobody talked about on the time. Whereas the Roomba crew had swallowed the carpet-sweeper idea hook, line, and sinker, Winston had not. He was uneasy with the notion that prospects could be cleaning-mechanism agnostic—considering as an alternative that they merely wouldn’t imagine our robotic would clear their flooring if it didn’t have a vacuum. He discovered at the very least oblique assist for that place when he scoured advertising knowledge from our earlier collaboration with SC Johnson.
However Winston, well-attuned to the engineering psyche, knew he couldn’t simply declare, “Roomba has to have a vacuum.” We’d have pushed again, most likely saying one thing like, “What your business-school-addled mind doesn’t admire is that it’s the carpet sweeper that makes the entire idea work!” Winston needed to present us. That was a key objective of the main target group, to show to the Roomba crew that we had made a deal-breaking omission.
Dancing With Roomba is now available for preorder.
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