After creating a prototype robotic that was efficient at cleansing each arduous flooring and carpets utilizing a comparatively easy carpet-sweeping mechanism, iRobot vice chairman Winston Tao and the iRobot advertising and marketing crew have organized a spotlight group in order that Roomba’s engineers can witness the response of potential first prospects.
One nice midsummer day in 2001, Roomba’s engineers, Winston Tao, and several other different iRobot people rendezvoused at an unremarkable, multistory workplace constructing on the Cambridge aspect of the Charles River, throughout from Boston. We assembled in a slim room. A protracted desk occupied the room’s heart. Snacks and sodas have been set out alongside the again wall; the lighting was subdued. The dominant function of this cramped chamber was an enormous one-way mirror occupying virtually your entire entrance wall. Sitting on the desk, one may see by way of the trying glass right into a wonderland of market analysis on the opposite aspect. In that a lot bigger, brightly lit room have been snug chairs, an easel with a big pad of paper, and our employed facilitator. Though this was a well-known trope I’d seen 100 instances on TV, truly lurking in an statement room like this felt a contact surreal.
iRobot vs Focus Group
We’d paid perhaps US $10,000 for the privilege of organising some focus teams—in all probability probably the most the corporate had ever spent on a market analysis occasion. However we wanted to understand how potential prospects would react to our Roomba prototype once they noticed one within the (plastic) flesh cleansing the ground at their ft. On the appointed hour, our facilitator welcomed eight to 10 bona fide strange folks as they filed into the massive room and sat within the chairs. Our mind-child was about to obtain its first vital judgment from strangers.
aspect_ratioThis text was tailored from the creator’s new e-book, Dancing with Roomba: Cracking the Robot Riddle and Building an Icon (Routledge 2025).Joe Jones
The facilitator ready individuals by encouraging them to state their trustworthy views and to not be swayed by the feedback of others. “You’re the world’s knowledgeable in your personal opinion,” she instructed them.
At first the facilitator described Roomba with out displaying the group any pictures or the system 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 individuals watched Roomba go about its enterprise on each carpets and arduous flooring, their doubts ebbed. Even those that said that they might 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 probably 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 can 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 may take neither curiosity nor like to the financial institution. We wanted to understand how a lot prospects would pay. Our facilitator eased into that a part of the gathering’s proceedings. She didn’t inquire immediately however quite requested, “Should you noticed this product in a retailer, what would you count on the value to be?”
The main target group’s responses have been all around the map. Some folks talked about a value near the $200 we meant to cost. Just a few of us we considered saints-in-training anticipated a fair increased quantity. However most have been decrease. One girl stated she’d count on Roomba to be priced at $25. Later when requested what she thought a substitute battery may cost a little, she stated, “$50.” That damage. For this girl, attaching our robotic to a battery devalued the battery.
Ground 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 “automated flooring cleaner.” Three separate teams, comprising an combination of round two dozen folks, 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 concerning the value. 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 instructed them, “Roomba is a carpet sweeper, not a vacuum.” Then she requested once more what they might count on to pay. On common, focus-group members from all three teams minimize their estimates in half. Individuals who had beforehand stated $200 now stated $100.
The main target 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 value in half, we’d lose cash on each unit bought, and there can be no Roomba.
On the finish of the night, earlier than any member of our surprised crew may stagger out the door, Winston stated merely, “Roomba has to have a vacuum.” A shotgun marriage ceremony was within the offing for bot and vac.
Scamp, the earliest Roomba prototype, was in-built 1999.Joe Jones
The following day at work we gathered to debate the main target group’s revelation. A half-hearted try or two to disclaim actuality rapidly pale—electrical engineer Chris Casey noticed to that—and we accepted what we wanted to do. However altering issues now can 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 may provide was already spoken for. None was out there for a brand new system that may probably be extra energy hungry than all of the robotic’s different techniques mixed. And the place may we put a vacuum? All of the area 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 greater.
Making Roomba a Vacuum
One escape hatch beckoned, however nobody was desirous to leap by way of it. Chris articulated what we have been all considering. “We may construct a vestigial vacuum,” he stated. That’s, we may design a tiny, pico-power vacuum—one which consumes virtually no energy and does virtually nothing—strap it on the robotic, and name it performed. Perversely, that appeared cheap. The robotic already cleaned the ground nicely; our cleansing exams proved it. Prospects, nonetheless, didn’t know that. They have been all steeped within the dogma of vacuum supremacy. Reeducating the lots wasn’t attainable—we didn’t have the funds. But when we may assert on the field that Roomba had a vacuum, then everybody can be glad. We may cost the value that makes our economics work. Prospects would deem that value cheap and wouldn’t should unlearn their vacuum bias.
But it surely felt mistaken. If we should add a brand new system to the robotic, we wished it—like all the opposite techniques—to earn its preserve actually, to do one thing helpful. By additional dialogue and calculation, we concluded that we may afford to dedicate about 10 % of the robotic’s 30-watt energy finances to a vacuum. Typical guide vacuums usually gorged themselves on 1,200 watts of energy, but when we may develop a system that offered helpful cleansing whereas consuming solely 3 W (0.25 % of 1,200) then we’d be ok with including it to the robotic. It simply didn’t appear very probably.
iRobot constructed two an identical second-generation Roomba prototypes, named Kipper and Tipper, one in all which is proven right here.Joe Jones
I typically discover that fixing an issue is basically a matter of staring on the drawback’s supply. Gaze lengthy and intently sufficient at one thing and, Waldo-like, the answer might reveal itself. So I took one of many crew’s guide 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 solution to examine cleansing efficacy between vacuums. Missing a results-based methodology, customers 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 greater 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 nicely.
However even whenever 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 mounted 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 way of the inlet. To maintain filth particles kicked up by the beater brush entrained within the airstream, the air wanted to maneuver quick. The mixture 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 wished a vacuum that sipped energy quite than guzzled it, we needed to transfer a a lot smaller quantity of air per second. We may accomplish that—with out decreasing air velocity—if, as a substitute of a large inlet, we used a slim one. To match the guide vacuum’s air velocity utilizing solely a 3-W motor, I computed that we would want 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 midst of the air inlet. That might require an inlet perhaps 20 instances too large. We’d have to search out one other association.
A Micro Vacuum that Doesn’t Suck
To check the narrow-inlet concept I turned to my favourite prototyping supplies: cardboard and packing tape. Utilizing these, I mocked up my concept. The inlet for my check vacuum was so long as Roomba’s brush however solely about 2 millimeters large. To supply 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 selecting up small particles from a tough floor. Utilizing an anemometer to measure the velocity of the air speeding by way of my slim inlet confirmed that it was, as desired, as quick because the airstream in a regular vacuum cleaner.
The following 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 area 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 abilities of packing huge 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 outdoor marketing consultant to design the intricate form the impeller wanted to maneuver air effectively.
Usually, common vacuums carry out higher on carpet than on arduous flooring. However Roomba inverted that relationship. Our vacuum operated like a squeegee, pulling filth from tile, linoleum, and picket 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 crew’s reluctance so as to add a vacuum and regardless of the unit’s low power, the vacuum genuinely improved Roomba’s cleansing potential. We may display this convincingly. First, we disabled Roomba’s new vacuum by disconnecting the ability after which cleaned a tough flooring 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 ft would detect no grit by any means.
The Roomba contributors current on the event of the five hundred,000th Roomba embrace 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 crew had swallowed the carpet-sweeper idea hook, line, and sinker, Winston had not. He was uneasy with the notion that prospects can be cleaning-mechanism agnostic—considering as a substitute that they merely wouldn’t imagine our robotic would clear their flooring if it didn’t have a vacuum. He discovered at the least oblique assist for that place when he scoured advertising and marketing information 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 admire is that it’s the carpet sweeper that makes the entire idea work!” Winston needed to present us. That was a key objective of the main target group, to display to the Roomba crew that we had made a deal-breaking omission.
Dancing With Roomba is now available for preorder.
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