iRobot refused to incorporate LIDAR scanners, instead relying on some janky computer vision approach. Robots from Roborock and friends know their position with cm-accuracy at all times, whereas Roombas only have some vibe about which part of the building they are in. This makes them much less efficient at route planning and less reliable at adhering to exclusion zones.
Another upside of LIDAR is that it isn't a camera. The robot sees a one-pixel 360 scan, which is quite enough for navigation, but doesn't have the privacy implications that come with an IoT camera device. I would not take a camera equipped vacuum even for free, and I think I'm not the only one.
I have one, and specifically got one without a camera because I don't want that driving around my house. The first time it went through I made sure to stow cables and such, and I do a quick walk-through to make sure that none of the cats have barfed and that there's no obvious obstacles before I release the hypnodrone.
It still saves me time, which was the reason that I bought it in the first place.
Sadly most new models have both camera and lidar. I can see the use of a camera for avoiding things like cables and pet poo, but I don't think it's worth is especially since all the robots are controlled via the cloud
Yeah this is really my perspective. They were king then refused to reprice or innovate when the market changed and I went with a Chinese brand that did mapping and mopping instead for less.
It’s not exactly easy but it is do-able if you have a compliant vacuum, order a pcb adapter and can boot a laptop into a recent Debian os to flash the firmware. Be careful what you say on the telegram group (I was banned for trying to buy a pcb instead of solder one).
I wish my Xiaomi X20+ was supported. I knew it wasn’t when I bought it, but the price/capability alignment made me go with a dumb "smart" vacuum. There hasn’t been an update in supported robots in almost 2 years, so I’m still holding out hope it will eventually be added when Dennis Giese gets bored and starts looking into stuff again ;)
I have a Roomba with a camera. It navigates very well, including figuring out where it’s at within seconds of being manually moved to a new location on a different floor.
I too have a Roomba with a camera (the 980) and I am mostly satisfied with it (after ten years I guess I got used to its quirks).
I have also recently set-up the LIDAR-equipped 705 for my parents and let me tell you, there is no comparison.
The navigation speed is greatly improved which means cleaning tasks take a lot less time. Furthermore, it works in complete darkness with no problems! The camera-equipped model just bumps into stuff randomly and then gives up when it's too dark.
That would be a dealbreaker for me. I don’t want a mobile camera live-streaming the interior of my home to a Chinese or American cloud service. LIDAR is the only acceptable option for me. I’m OK with having a very rough 2D map of my home stored on a server somewhere.
That's not entirely true. Roombas nowadays do come equipped with LIDAR. iRobot scrapped most of their in-house designs and instead chose to use generic OEM parts to build modern robots in 2025. And they are quite good.
Right now, their chinese OEM bought them and seems to be committed to keeping their robovacs alive.
It is my understanding that US availability of the top models (such as 705 combo) may be limited, so here is a german youtube channel that has a lot of reviews of their newer units and compares them to the old ones (usually the S9 or 980, as those are the best units when it comes to vacuuming): https://www.youtube.com/@frickhelm/videos
> No highres 3d scan of your home being phoned back
You should look at a teardown of one of those sensors. It's a 1D lidar (if you can even call it that, until recently all of those were not ToF but more triangulation/reflection angle) being spun, no high res scans of anything can be achieved using that tech :)
