u/DeepFriarMediaReal

TLDR: Coming from a Roomba I8 this thing is a spaceship. Saying it’s more intelligent would be an insult. It’s not even in the same galaxy as my old Roomba. It does an excellent job, vacuuming and mopping. It doesn’t freak out my cats and set up was relatively a breeze.

I’ll start with my initial positive first impressions and then I’ll move into some things I would like to see improved.

Build quality: This thing is a tank. All the parts feel very high quality. All of the parts I interact with as a user have a reassuring heft and really feel like they are well machined. I can’t even begin to imagine the amount of time they spent getting the lid on the water tank exactly right. I wish they had that kind of lid on normal water bottles. It’s incredible that it has the exact right amount of detention while holding a perfect seal.

Everything from changing bags to getting out the roller to getting out, to accessing the beater brush feels very well thought out and well machined.

Putting the swivel wheel at the back was a very intelligent decision because it won’t get as clogged up with hair compared to having it on the front cough cough Roomba.

The main traction motors are very quiet and seem like they’re able to effortlessly propel the robot. I imagine the actual top speed of this thing is close to 10 miles an hour, but that would be kind of terrifying. I can tell they used significantly more powerful motors to drive the robot than it actually needs. I can see why they aren’t considering a second generation right away because they really spent a lot of engineering time making this thing in absolute unit.

Also compared to my Roomba, this thing is incredibly quiet and does not bump into things.

In terms of build quality, I have basically no complaints other than lack of user serviceability.

Software: in general, the app feels highly polished and well considered. I find the app easy to use perhaps a little light in settings. I would like to have the ability to dial in cleaning intensity for certain rooms on certain days for both vacuuming and mopping. I’m certain they’re working on this.

My home in general is an absolute nightmare for robot vacuum vacuums. I have a very atypical layout, strange thresholds, tight turns and corners in very narrow areas that must be cleaned. Generally, it does a very good job in navigating my home and has yet to get stuck anywhere. The biggest problem I have is there are some areas that get dirty that it just does not seem physically able to access if you look at the photo I posted you’ll notice that a pile of cat litter is on the right side of the litter box to the robots left, and it does not seem to want to pull straight into that spot.

It also staunchly refuses to automatically go under my bed. I bought risers to ensure that it would have about an inch of clearance and yet it will not navigate under their on its own. If I use the app and remote control it under my bed and then start a spot cleaning task. It will do it happily. I try to a few suggestions from this Reddit and also tried a couple of my own ideas, including starting a mapping task from under the bed to no avail. I put in a ticket along with a recording to show them what the problem is. I’m confident that this could be solved with a software update.

I can tell compared to a year ago that the navigation has improved significantly, but I would like to see a little bit more efficiency. It seems to have a little case of ADHD. It’ll start one spot do a bit of cleaning there and then move to another spot and then come back to that spot later I messed with some of the settings, including disabling the beta double pass mopping. Overall, it does vacuum and mop faster than my old Roomba and Bravva M6.

Matic Cues has a hard time seeing where I’m pointing in a small space like my bathroom. But again, I’m certain that with some more software updates, this will be improved.

Hello,

I am currently looking to purchase my first new robot vacuum. Matic is currently above my budget, but I I’m willing to stretch a bit if it means I won’t have to buy a new one for a long time. The new FCC ban on Chinese robots has me concerned about long term support for them, and Matic being American and assembled here gives me some hope. My biggest concern with Matic is repairability.

Having owned used roombas and neatos, I am not afraid to replace parts. I know Matic does not sell batteries, but I was wondering how maintenance is and if anyone has done any repairs. I hope that in the future Matic makes parts available for those of us who are willing to repair our own robots.

Hello Reddit hive mind,

I’m having analysis paralysis overload. My darling Roomba i8 has eaten cat poop for the final time. Alongside at my Bravva M6 has popped its lid open for no reason for the last time. I’m looking for a combo unit with a roller mop and very good obstacle avoidance for under $1000. My home is all hardwood or linoleum at the moment I have no rugs.

I have three cats that are expert at spreading liter as far and wide as they possibly can. I also like to go around barefoot and really value having a solid mop.

The wrinkle is I’m very sad to be leaving the older style Roomba’s with their ease of repairability and cheap parts. I know something newer with an auto clean and empty base is going to be more complicated and more prone to failure.

From my research and browsing this Reddit and looking at AliExpress at replacement parts, it seems that Roborock, Dreame/Mova, and Ecovacs all seem to have the best parts availability and repairability.

Roborock seems to have the best app, Dreame/Mova seem to be a pretty good bang for the buck, and Ecovacs has been in the roller mop combo game the longest.

I really want something that will last a very long time and will be relatively easy to repair down the road when the warranty is expired and I need to put a new battery/motor in the robot. The other big deal is that my home is very difficult to navigate at least for my Roomba. I don’t have any major thresholds, but I live in a small condo with very tightly packed furniture and a non-standard layout. I’m currently leaning towards the Curv 2 Flow, but I have heard that warranty in customer service repairs from Roborock are not the best in the US. Any thoughts?

Hello Reddit!

I have a mysterious issue that I cannot seem to solve on my own. I have a multitude of IOT devices in my home. At 3:18am on 6/27 the following devices ceased being able to access their cloud service but remained connected to my wifi. I know I have a lot of IOT devices. This stuff tends to slowly accumulate in this world. The Wifi food bowls may seem excessive but when you have 3 cats each with a separate diet, and one of them being 16, you do what you must. Also we travel and having the internet connected food bowls provides a surprising amount of certainty that your babies are fed.

Lg Thermostat

3 Govee smart plugs

3 PawsPik RFID food bowls

I have confirmed that these devices still function, and I can see them on my network via the router portal. My Router is an Asus RT-BE82U. It's a pretty standard network setup except for a PiHole configured on my NAS as the DNS. I did confirm that there are absolutely no blocks of any kind of the Pihole instance, up to and including disconnecting my NAS entirely to ensure this is not a factor.

Trouble shooting I have done so far,

Factory reset every device including the router,

Do a complete fresh network setup not using the Pihole with a different SSID and password

Switch router to an old one I have in the closet and the Xfinity router,

Use a network spectrum analyzer on my mac to make sure there is room in the 2.4Ghz band.

Creating a separate IOT 2.4Ghz network and trying to connect them there

A few other things to note,

I have a few other 2.4Ghz IOT devices that are completely functional (Roomba, GE washing machine, google home)

My other devices work flawlessly. I genuinely have no clue what else I could do besides just RMAing the food bowls, but that would not explain the rest.

The food bowls have a backup bluetooth LE connection to my phone so I am able to control them locally which is how I found out that they suddenly stopped working at 3am.

Any help is appreciated!

Ahoy Reddit!

Looking for some advice/optimization.

I currently have a unraid setup in a QNAP nas that I am looking to upgrade and do not want to toast my data.

(please don't smite me for not doing this the most optimal way, I am asking for help for a reason)

Currently I have a dual disk raid0 (8tb total, 2 WD 4tb NAS disks) with a 16TB usb external HDD for parity. I built it this way for maximum data transfer speeds and storage capacity. I currently have about 5tb of content. I recently came across an old Lenovo laptop that has significantly more compute than my QNAP. My QNAP has a dual core Celeron and the laptop is rocking an 8th gen i5. I also have a large SSD cache. I plan on moving the 16gb of ram I have in the QNAP into the Lenovo for a combined 24gb of ram. I will be moving the drives into a DAS to play nice with the laptop.

Here is my question. Is there a more optimal way to arrange the drives so I get a decent balance of storage and speed. I know RAID1 is the most data safe way to go, but I need the space and figure that if something happens to one of the other drives I have the parity. Should I also be doing an addiditonal backup? I do move the most imporatnt things to a cloud drive a few times a year, but would like to avoid having to re-do everything. Is there an easy way to switch this up safely if that is needed.

Thank you!