[no subject]

> But i can't personally complain, my Roomba has been fabulous,
> and picks up much more than my Karcher model.

The DirtDog picks up a lot more dirt than any of my 110VAC vacuums except
for the Hayden central vac with the 110VAC electrically powered brush.
Since I've been running them every few days, the trays hardly ever overflow
now.  I think I will investigate their programming options because the I
need to trim the length of the cleaning cycle, which is set for a single
robot, to reflect my use of five of them.  As it stands now, I am probably
just wearing them out prematurely cleaning areas that have already been
cleaned.  For the moment, I close the doors between the rooms to keep them
from cleaning previously cleaned areas.

> I'm looking to add some more logic to my Home Automation system -
> running HAL and  MyServant software
> (http://www.futuretouch.com.au/gotosoftware.htm) so that it will detect
> how much activity occurs in the living room and automatically sends the
> IR codes to kick off the Roomba whenever appropriate.  I can't
> necessarily tell if someone's been sitting on the couch waving their
> hands for an hour, or people have been walking on the carpet for an
> hour, but it doesn't hurt to auto vacuum anyway.

The Red 4300 has a "dirt sensor" built in that detects when the Roomba is
picking up dirt.  Not a terribly useful feature since, as you point out, you
want to know if there's dirt *before* the Roombas are dispatched.  I have a
slightly different interest in being able to monitor the Roomba remotely via
HomeVision.  I'm trying to figure out how I can detect the Roomba's "last
known location" so that when it eats a Kleenex under the bed and dies, I
know which bed to look under.  I guess the next step is to locate a Roomba
developer's forum, since I can't be the only one who has to send out a
search party every now and then and locating MIA Roomba.

--
Bobby G.