u/StickInTheFACE

I'm still learning and I have one ball, the Motiv Thrill Solid. It has about 100 games on it as of today.

I have finally become consistent enough that I think I can detect it isn't hooking like it used to... Which after 100 games and no maintenance is not surprising, I guess. So I am doing a sous vide detox at 125F right now.

But, what about refinishing/resurfacing?

The factory grit is 5000, but "they" say lane shine is almost 5000 anyway. I'm not good enough to detect a 300 grit difference in ball motion which makes it seem like resurfacing would be pointless.

I can't even find proper Abralon or Siaair pads in 5000 grit anyway, it all seems to be off-brand once you get over 4000.

What would you do, and how often?

I suppose I value the ball motion being consistent more than anything else right now since I am still the biggest variable.

Thanks a million.

I told my P10 Pro Ultra Gen 1 to clean 3 rooms (Clean Genius vac then mop) but it appears to have skipped 2 of them, and gave me the "neglected room" error.

There was no obvious reason it should have had a problem reaching the rooms, the floors were completely clear and there were even multiple paths available. It's a scenario that's always worked well until now

The house was dark though, and the headlight refused to switch on, which is an error I see often. (If I reboot the robot, the headlight works again, for a little while.) Maybe it got confused because the camera image was poor due to lack of light?

Any ideas on how to improve this other than manually rebooting the robot before every use?

I recently picked up the P10 Pro Ultra Gen 1 and wanted to share some thoughts, and see if anyone has figured out workarounds for the problems I have found.

Our home has one long-haired human, one long-haired cat, and one short-haired cat, so the cleaning burden is not too high.

Why Gen 1?

I chose Gen 1 over the Gen 2 because reviews were almost unanimous that Gen 1 obstacle avoidance was superior. I suspected I would be happier with better obstacle avoidance and OK cleaning, compared to Gen 2's worse obstacle handling and better cleaning.

Good stuff

The robot basically does the job -- it gets around the house well, and tolerates it when furniture moves around. Vacuuming and mopping are working fine. Obstacle handling is OK, with the caveat below.

Between Clean Genius and custom cleaning I have all the options I need. The floors are looking good, the family is happy, and I am having fun being the robot wrangler.

I had problems on day one where the robot was basically lobotomized, unable to create a map or do anything at all. This may have been due to my blocking some domains the app wanted to talk with via my ad blocker. I whitelisted everything it wanted to talk to and the problem went away. Or, maybe it was the reboots I did. Not sure.

Overall I feel like the robot was a good value at $350. If it was $600 like at launch, I'd be much more irritated about the problems I have found.

Problem 1: Video features are unreliable

Often I am unable to start the live video feed. It gives a generic failure message and a retry button. Retrying almost never works. If I reboot the robot, immediately thereafter video seems to work fine. (I worry that if I cannot get the video feed to work, the robot may not have access to video itself for obstacle handling, but I have not tested this.)

"Find Pet" mode has also not worked at all. It has actually driven into my fat cat a few times and never detected a pet. I was watching the video feed, there were a lot of clear and well lit cat images, but the robot just couldn't detect him.

The overall impression is that video is flaky and I cannot rely on it if I am going to be away from home and unable to reboot the robot. Video fun features are not why I bought the robot, but I sure wish they worked better.

Problem 2: The headlight doesn't always come on when needed

When it is dark, the headlight should come on, but sometimes it won't come on at all. I have found the robot working in the dark, and when it refuses to turn on the headlight it is obviously more at risk from obstacles. I found it lost in the dark having eaten a cable and dislodged its mops. That has never happened in a lit room, or when the headlight works.

When the headlight won't come on in the dark, if I start the video feed and turn the headlight to Manual and then back to Auto, the headlight stays on as you would expect. I can also get the headlight to come on as expected if I reboot the robot right before sending it out to clean.

So, overall, it feels like the headlight is kind of buggy and the chance of having a problem increases with the time since the last reboot.

Because the headlight seems to be pretty important for obstacle avoidance, this is my number one problem currently.

Problem 3: Washboard base cleaning cycle may not dispense or pump up water

The first time I did a washboard cleaning cycle, the app moved nicely through all the steps... Except the base never dispensed any water, and then never turned on the pump. After I power-cycled the base, the washboard cleaning cycle worked as expected. Again, a problem fixed with a reboot.

Conclusion

My overall impression is that the robot is pretty fun and works well enough. Still, there are some software problems that mean I cannot rely on all of its features working without forcing a reboot. I'd like to not have to think about the last time I rebooted the robot or the dock.

I can put the dock on a smart outlet and power cycle it daily, but there is no way that I have found to automatically reboot the robot. I'd like a way to do a soft reboot from the app, rather than having to lift the robot out of the dock and hold the power button. That would at least let me reboot the robot to restore video features while I was away from home.

Ideally of course, this would all be improved with new software and just work automagically.

I hope this helps someone, and that Mova can continue to make improvements.

When I take a Taylor 14ce out of the box... Assuming I know enough to let it adjust to my climate and set the neck relief correctly... Is the 14ce likely to require a professional setup, or will it be pretty comfy?

I know that getting a setup is always better, but at the 14ce's price if an extra $150 for setup and strings is pretty much required, that additional cost factors into the overall decision, ya know?

Thanks for sharing your experience!

I had taught myself the basics, but I knew there was only so far that would take me, and baby, I have hit that wall.

I had a pretty good idea what I was doing wrong, but was not sure how to fix it. An hour of instruction gave me a long list of changes to work on. It also confirmed I was doing a couple of things correctly, which was nice to hear.

The joint had SPECTO and instant video replay so it was really easy to see what the instructor wanted to show me. Very, very helpful. Very fun, too.

EDIT TO ADD: The coach asked me what my goals were. I said I wasn't really sure, I wasn't a competitive person, probably wasn't interested in a league, just having fun on my own... Looking to hit goals like my first clean game and so on. He laughed and said, "join a league!"

I know the standalone blower is better than the Quik-Lok blower, but the only use I have in mind is pretty light-duty... Drying a car after a wash. If I can get the Quik-Lok blower attachment cheap, will it handle that job?