Many of the modern Roombas come with Smart Mapping technology. There are many advantages of a smart mapping Roomba. A smart mapping Roomba can learn what your house looks like and works accordingly. It creates a map layout of your home so that it can work more efficiently the next time it goes for a run.
How Vacuum Robots Navigate.
Robot vacuums navigate with the help of multiple sensors. Each sensor has a specific function. There are multiple sensors on a Roomba, these include,
1> Sensors are present on the edges of a robot vacuum which send infrared rays out in all directions, these rays hit an obstacle and come back to the sensor. This lets the robot vacuum know that there is an obstacle in the way. By doing this, the robot navigates around the obstacle.
2> A floor-tracking sensor is found at the bottom of Roomba to look for dust and other particles. The floor-tracking sensor also helps in mapping the entire home.
3> There is a bumper sensor on the front
4> Some sensors also align the robot to the charger on the docking station
Mapping the House.
A vacuum robot can map a house in one go. But it would not be very efficient as it does not go through all the paths. For efficient mapping, a robot must be run 3 or 4 times. Make sure each door is open and no obstacle is blocking its path anywhere. A thorough cleaning of a room before running a Roomba can increase its efficiency significantly.
Does a Roomba automatically map your house?
No, a Roomba doesn’t automatically remember your house. The smart mapping Roomba comes with a companion app. The companion app contains many features, one of the features is smart mapping. The ‘Smart Mapping’ feature allows the robot to remember each place it went, each turn, and each wall of the house. After each run, it improvises its previous path and creates a new and better path.
Mapping and Navigation Technology.
Robot vacuums use technologies and techniques like vSLAM and iAdapt to navigate around and map the area efficiently. Samsung Powerbot is camera-based, which means that it will not work/map efficiently in dim lighting. Brands like Neato Bovac use light detection and ranging system (Lidar).
This means that they won’t perform very well near dark walls. In order to get the most orderly and well-organized maps, you need to make sure that the robot vacuum can navigate correctly.
Laying out the Map.
A Roomba will layout the map of your house once it is set to ‘Clean All Areas’. In this setting, the Roomba will go through all the open spaces found in your home. It will cover every single door, tile, and hallway in your house. After this, it will forge all the data into a map diagram.
The Roomba will look for new additions to the map if only it is set to this mode. If the mode is set to ‘Clean a specific area’ then Roomba will not look for new additions to the map. A robot can map an area only if it is reachable. A blockage or an obstacle in the path of a robot can severely affect the map-making capacity of the robot. It also affects the robot's ability to clean the house.
Thus, to get a clean, efficient, and well-made map, you need to remove any obstacles in doorways or hallways. The location of the home base should not be changed as many Roombas use their bases as a reference point.
Completion of Mapping.
After the vacuum robot completely maps out your home, it will send you a message or a notification via the companion app. You can make as many changes to the map you want from there. You could add custom rooms if the robot didn't find a room for some reason. You could also edit the rooms mapped out by the robot if it missed a detail.
You could also create virtual walls which act as a barrier for the robot and won’t let them pass through. Virtual walls are used to keep robots away from specific areas or to prevent them from getting stuck.
A Roomba will also tell you which areas it found the dirtiest and which areas it found the cleanest. It might also notify you about any issues it encounters during its run. A vacuum robot will constantly improve the mapping of your house after each run, so it would automatically cover the details it missed previously. That means you don’t have to edit the map yourself, you just have to let your Roomba have a few runs.
Reverting of Map to a Previous Version.
What if the robot did a perfect job in mapping your house but after having one run, it changed the map to an inferior version? The answer is simple, if you are not happy with the change, then you can simply revert it to any of its previous versions by using the ‘Revert’ feature.
Storage of Maps.
The maps are stored in cloud storage. This means that even if you uninstall the companion app, the map will still be there. If the bot is connected to the internet, then it will have access to the map stored in the cloud and will persist its efficiency and effectiveness. A vacuum robot can store multiple maps. This means that if your house has 2 floors, then you can set the Roomba on the second floor and it will forge its map without forgetting or deleting the map of the 1st floor.
Conclusion.
A Roomba takes about 3 to 5 runs for complete and efficient mapping of a house. The Roomba can be commanded to perform specific tasks through the companion app. The map made by Roomba can be accessed through the companion app. The map laid by Roomba is stored in the cloud. A Roomba can make multiple maps. A Roomba has many features, but ‘smart mapping’ is the most revolutionary and efficient feature introduced!
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