After growing a prototype robotic that was efficient at cleansing each laborious flooring and carpets utilizing a comparatively easy carpet-sweeping mechanism, iRobot vp Winston Tao and the iRobot advertising and marketing group have organized a spotlight group in order that Roomba’s engineers can witness the response of potential first clients.
One nice midsummer day in 2001, Roomba’s engineers, Winston Tao, and a number of other different iRobot people rendezvoused at an unremarkable, multistory workplace constructing on the Cambridge facet of the Charles River, throughout from Boston. We assembled in a slim room. A protracted desk occupied the room’s middle. Snacks and sodas have been set out alongside the again wall; the lighting was subdued. The dominant characteristic of this cramped chamber was an enormous one-way mirror occupying nearly the whole entrance wall. Sitting on the desk, one might see by the trying 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-recognized trope I’d seen 100 instances on TV, truly lurking in an commentary room like this felt a contact surreal.
iRobot vs Focus Group
We’d paid perhaps US $10,000 for the privilege of establishing some focus teams—in all probability essentially the most the corporate had ever spent on a market analysis occasion. However we wanted to understand how potential clients would react to our Roomba prototype once they noticed one within the (plastic) flesh cleansing the ground at their toes. On the appointed hour, our facilitator welcomed eight to 10 bona fide atypical individuals as they filed into the big room and sat within the chairs. Our mind-child was about to obtain its first crucial 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 contributors by encouraging them to state their trustworthy views and to not be swayed by the feedback of others. “You’re the world’s professional in your personal opinion,” she advised them.
At first the facilitator described Roomba with out exhibiting the group any photographs or the machine itself. She was met with skepticism that such a factor would truly work. Then she demonstrated one of many prototypes we had ready for the occasion. As contributors watched Roomba go about its enterprise on each carpets and laborious flooring, their doubts ebbed. Even those that acknowledged that they’d 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 might take neither curiosity nor like to the financial institution. We would have liked to understand how a lot clients would pay. Our facilitator eased into that a part of the gathering’s proceedings. She didn’t inquire instantly however quite requested, “If you happen to noticed this product in a retailer, what would you anticipate the worth to be?”
The main focus group’s responses have been everywhere in the map. Some individuals talked about a worth near the $200 we supposed to cost. A number of of us we thought to be saints-in-training anticipated an excellent larger quantity. However most have been decrease. One lady stated she’d anticipate Roomba to be priced at $25. Later when requested what she thought a substitute battery may cost, she stated, “$50.” That damage. 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 go away a few issues unmentioned. First, she by no means referred to Roomba as a robotic, calling it as a substitute an “computerized ground cleaner.” Three separate teams, comprising an combination 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 worth. They’d all assumed {that a} vacuum was at work, a number of used that time period to discuss with the robotic. However now the facilitator advised them, “Roomba is a carpet sweeper, not a vacuum.” Then she requested once more what they’d anticipate to pay. On common, focus-group members from all three teams lower their estimates in half. Individuals who had beforehand stated $200 now stated $100.
The main focus group’s brutal revaluation exploded our world. The enabling innovation that made the power finances work, that made Roomba technically and economically possible, was cleansing with a carpet sweeper quite 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 quite than their very own apparently mendacity eyes. If we have been compelled to chop the robotic’s worth in half, we’d 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 group might 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 inbuilt 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 light—electrical engineer Chris Casey noticed to that—and we accepted what we wanted to do. However altering issues now could be an enormous problem in a number of methods. We have been deep into growth, nearer to launch than kickoff. All {the electrical} energy our battery might provide was already spoken for. None was accessible for a brand new system that may possible be extra energy hungry than all of the robotic’s different methods mixed. And the place might we put a vacuum? All of the house within the robotic was additionally totally assigned. Our mandate to scrub below furnishings and between chair legs wouldn’t allow us to make the robotic any larger.
Making Roomba a Vacuum
One escape hatch beckoned, however nobody was desperate to leap by it. Chris articulated what we have been all pondering. “We might construct a vestigial vacuum,” he stated. That’s, we might design a tiny, pico-power vacuum—one which consumes nearly no energy and does nearly nothing—strap it on the robotic, and name it accomplished. Perversely, that appeared cheap. The robotic already cleaned the ground properly; our cleansing assessments proved it. Clients, nonetheless, didn’t know that. They have been all steeped within the dogma of vacuum supremacy. Reeducating the lots wasn’t potential—we didn’t have the funds. But when we might assert on the field that Roomba had a vacuum, then everybody could be glad. We might cost the worth that makes our economics work. Clients would deem that price cheap and wouldn’t need to unlearn their vacuum bias.
But it surely felt mistaken. If we should add a brand new system to the robotic, we needed it—like all the opposite methods—to earn its hold truthfully, to do one thing helpful. By additional dialogue and calculation, we concluded that we might afford to dedicate about 10 p.c of the robotic’s 30-watt energy finances to a vacuum. Typical handbook vacuums usually gorged themselves on 1,200 watts of energy, but when we might develop a system that supplied helpful cleansing whereas consuming solely 3 W (0.25 p.c of 1,200) then we’d be ok with including it to the robotic. It simply didn’t appear very possible.
iRobot constructed two similar second-generation Roomba prototypes, named Kipper and Tipper, one in every of which is proven right here.Joe Jones
I typically 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 group’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 and marketing quite than actuality. There was no easy, goal method to examine 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 larger 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 once 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 the inlet. To maintain filth 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 quite than guzzled it, we needed to transfer a a lot smaller quantity of air per second. We might accomplish that—with out lowering air velocity—if, as a substitute of a large inlet, we used a slim one. To match the handbook vacuum’s air velocity utilizing solely a 3-W motor, I computed that we would wish a slim 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 course of the air inlet. That may require an inlet perhaps 20 instances too huge. We’d have to search 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 take a look at vacuum was so long as Roomba’s brush however solely about 2 millimeters huge. To offer 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 filth stand-ins. My novel vacuum was surprisingly efficient at choosing up small particles from a tough floor. Utilizing an anemometer to measure the pace of the air speeding by my slim inlet confirmed that it was, as desired, as quick because the airstream in a typical vacuum cleaner.
The subsequent step was to one way or the other shoehorn our microvacuum into Roomba. To type the slim 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 filth from the flowing air) was to take over a nook of the mud cup. Drawing on his now well-honed expertise of packing massive issues into tiny areas the place that they had no enterprise becoming, mechanical engineer Eliot Mack managed one way or the other to perform this. However we did get assist from an out of doors guide to design the intricate form the impeller wanted to maneuver air effectively.
On the whole, common vacuums carry out higher on carpet than on laborious flooring. However Roomba inverted that relationship. Our vacuum operated like a squeegee, pulling filth from tile, linoleum, and wood flooring. But it surely 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 group’s reluctance so as to add a vacuum and regardless of the unit’s low power, the vacuum genuinely improved Roomba’s cleansing capability. We might display this convincingly. First, we disabled Roomba’s new vacuum by disconnecting the ability after which cleaned a tough ground relying solely on the carpet-sweeper mechanism. If we then walked throughout the ground barefoot, we’d really feel a certain quantity of grit underfoot. If we repeated the train with vacuum energy on, the ground was pristine. Naked toes would detect no grit by any means.
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 group had swallowed the carpet-sweeper idea hook, line, and sinker, Winston had not. He was uneasy with the notion that clients could be cleaning-mechanism agnostic—pondering as a substitute that they merely wouldn’t consider our robotic would clear their flooring if it didn’t have a vacuum. He discovered a minimum of oblique help for that place when he scoured advertising and marketing 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, in all probability saying one thing like, “What your business-school-addled mind doesn’t recognize is that it’s the carpet sweeper that makes the entire idea work!” Winston needed to present us. That was a key goal of the main target group, to display to the Roomba group that we had made a deal-breaking omission.
Dancing With Roomba is now available for preorder.
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