My Starting Five of Robotic Helpers
If the components of my smart home came together to form a basketball team!
I’ve written about robots quite a bit. I find them to be a fun, futuristic topic. There is just something magical about having an inanimate object do work for us am I right? Of all the modern advances in tech, I still find myself most amazed by robotic automations.
As most of you may know, I’m also a pretty big basketball fan. As March Madness has recently ended and we gear up for the NBA Playoffs, I was just thinking about what my fictitious basketball team of robots would look like. Please indulge me as I share my appreciation for the robots in my life and get into the mindset of a futuristic basketball coach.
Robot Vacuum
Leading off the lineup is the Roomba Vacuum. I consider this bot to be the star of my fictitious lineup. I thought it would be fair to lump together both my iRobot Roomba Vacuum (the i7+ to be exact) and its partner in robotic cleanliness the iRobot Braava Jet Mop (the 240 to be exact).
These bots are arguably the most hard-working and most helpful in my home. This particular vacuum model even comes with a charging base that automatically empties the dirt from its container. The bag on the charging base only needs to emptied every few months. With its intuitive app and smart mapping system, I just setup a recurring schedule to vacuum my whole home three times per week. I can even use voice commands to order it to clean specific rooms or zones on demand between regular cleanings. It’s really been a game changer in our home, especially to keep pet hair under control.
The robot mop works in a similar way. It’s not as automated as the vacuum, no fancy charging base. But after the vacuum does its thing, I just place the mop on the floor with one of its re-usable cleaning pads attached, press one button, and it starts scrubbing away. When it’s covered the entire room, it returns to its starting place and waits to be retrieved. Note that this isn’t the most advanced mop that iRobot makes (that distinction goes to the m6 model)but it certainly gets the job done in our home.
Litter-Robot
I’ve written about the Litter-Robot in the past, and yes I do still think it’s the piece of technology that has saved me the most time over the years. But I’m moving it to the second spot in my starting robot lineup just because I know not everyone has a cat. It may not be the most useful robot for everyone, but if you do have a cat you will not be disappointed by it.
In fact, we’ve been so happy with ours that we recently bought one for my mother-in-law. There are several models out there, but we really love our Connect 3 model. While having devices connected to wi-fi is never a bad thing, I’d say that phone notifications each time your cat pees are totally overkill.
Smart features aside, this thing makes it so you never have to scoop a litter box again! That is a huge savings of time if you’re used to scooping poop once or twice a day. It may only take a minute to do the scooping, but that effort really adds up over time. It’s not a perfect piece of technology. You’ll still need to monitor it to make sure things are operating smoothly. And yes, you still need to change the bags every couple of weeks. But for the most part, it uses similar mechanics to a cement mixer to easily separate cat excrement from clean litter in a seamless way.
If the Roomba is the flashy point guard of my robot team, consider the Litter-Robot to be the defensive backbone. Reliable, steady, and does the literal dirty work that no other robot or human wants to deal with.
Robot Lawn Mower
This robot is the most recent member of the team for me. When we moved into a new home with a small patch of grass in the backyard, it was one of the first purchases I made.
Mowing the lawn has always been a tedious chore. We upgraded from manual blade push mowers to propelled machines powered by gas and more recently electric batteries. We’ve paid landscapers or neighborhood kids to do it or invested in fancy riding mowers if our lawns were big enough. I’ll admit to really enjoying the riding lawnmower at my parent’s house as a teenager. It was one of the few chores that let me sit and listen to music while completing it.
But the robotic revolution has made its way to our backyard. Our space is small and flat enough for the Landroid (love that name) to be the perfect solution. We opted for the smallest model Landroid S WR165 since our space isn’t that big. The initial setup is a little tedious. It involves running a cable around the perimeter of your lawn with plenty of opportunities to screw things up. But the included instructions and videos are pretty helpful.
Once you’re set up, you can just schedule regular mowing sessions and kick your feet up. There are few things more satisfying than watching robots do your work. I know it defeats the purpose if I’m using my saved time to just stare at a robot, but it’s good to keep an eye on it. The Landroid app lets you keep track of progress and create customized schedules based on your grass type or location.
It’s certainly a bit of a novelty. If we’re keeping with the basketball analogy, this is the hot shot young prospect who really impresses the fans but is still getting a grasp on the fundamentals. They eventually could become a superstar (or a more popular robot in people’s homes) but right now they’re sometimes giving the coach a headache (stuck outside the wire boundary again!).
Smart Refrigerator
This is where we take some liberties. I’m not sure if I’d consider a refrigerator to be a proper robot, but it has enough smarts and tech that I’ll allow it. You can’t have a basketball team without a lumbering brute to take up space in the low post. That’s a refrigerator!
Our old refrigerator (which was new to us in our new home) died just a few weeks after we moved in. After much deliberation, we opted to get a smart fridge from LG. It was the LG LRMVC2306S for those smart fridge aficionados out there. It connects to wi-fi, makes amazing spherical-shaped cocktail ice, and has a window that you can double knock in order to see what’s inside without opening the door. Those are all magical robot things right?
While those features may seem eye-catching, this robot mostly just stays quiet and keeps things cold all day. Nothing too fancy, nothing super noteworthy. It’s the equivalent of a solid average of 10 points and 5 rebounds. A nice journeyman role player. A glue guy to round out your roster. Something every team (and smart home) needs!
Smart Washer & Dryer
All the same caveats apply here as they did with the fridge. Most homes have a washer and dryer. I wouldn’t consider them to be in the same category of an automated lawn mower. But they are still smart and they still save a whole lot of time in our home.
As we did with the refrigerator, we opted for products from LG. No they’re not sponsoring me or anything, they just seemed to have the right combo of reliability and smart tech bells & whistles. Specifically, we have the Turbowash 360 and Turbosteam models respectively.
It’s great having your washer and dryer connected to your wi-fi. You get notifications when loads of laundry are done. You can download and customize new cycles that go beyond the buttons on the machine. Maybe best of all, I get notifications and emails reminding me to run tub rinse cycles or clean lint traps. You know those things that none of us ever actually remember to do?
This dynamic duo could act like a “stretch 4” in our lineup. We even have them stacked so they feel like an extra tall dude. They may be quiet for a while but when laundry day rolls around, they really come to life. They’re tall and demand respect each time you walk past them, even if they haven’t done much in a while. They really keep the defense honest.
There you have it, my starting lineup of robots! There are a few honorable mentions or bench warmers here that I should point out.
Honorable Mentions
Dishwasher - Our dishwasher is not particularly smart. It does have some delayed washing features that feel a bit automated. Yes it is doing manual labor for us, so perhaps it’s a 6th man. Although we could also throw the microwave in as the 6th man…because it heats up quickly when needed?
Smart Lights - Almost every light in our house is a Philips Hue Smart Light. I’m working on the last stragglers, they’ll be updated soon. But yeah, I can’t really count this as a robot. The lights do come on and off automatically and there is some smart tech here, but not a bot.
Google Assistant - A good smart assistant might act as the (assistant?) coach here. Pretty much all of the robots in our home can be controlled via voice commands. This sounds a lot like human basketball players right? They tend to spring into action when the coach barks orders at them. It’s sort of a robot in its own right, but the coach analogy is much better.
Thanks so much for humoring me while I meld together two things that bring me great joy in life, home automation and basketball!