Samsung's Hauzen Cleaning Robot keeps floors, homeowners happy

Samsung's no stranger to automated floor sucking creatures, but the latest from the outfit is looking to give your Roomba a real run for its money. The Hauzen VC-RE70V sports a fairly attractive shell along with a built-in camera to "see" where it's going; better still, it can reportedly snap pictures of rooms as it goes in order to build a map of your domicile in its "brain" and keep things quick on subsequent cleanings. Just like your Automower, this thing will also automatically move to its recharging station when it feels weak, giving you one less reason to even roll out of bed the day the in-laws are set to arrive.

[Via I4U News]

[Raheem @ Mar 20th 2008 9:05AM]

Definately need this. With wifi to stream music while it goes around the house! Lol.

[Chuckles McGee @ Mar 20th 2008 11:27AM]

I for one, welcome our coming Cleaning Robot overlords.

[Jonathan Worrel @ Mar 21st 2008 12:07AM]

I remember when the Roomba (or was it?) came out in 2000. I was 9 years old, and I remember seeing a news report on ABC on January 1st talking about some new vacuum that looks exactly like the one pictured above, and I thought "wow this is going to be a great generation to grow up in." I don't know, just a flash from the past :)

[michas_pi @ Mar 20th 2008 9:11AM]

I want to witness an army of these things and an army of Roombas have a /cleaning royale with an Automower as a referee.

It would be epic.

[Dan Davis @ Mar 20th 2008 9:12AM]

Apparently it's also a fantastic lover! (follow the link)

[Jim @ Mar 20th 2008 12:19PM]

Somebody call Buster Bluth!

[Mredraider @ Mar 20th 2008 9:12AM]

Any competition iRobot can get is good competition. I'm on my third roomba under warranty, and it's dust bin has been back-ordered for 6 months... leaving it a useless object in the corner of my room while I bust out the old Hoover.
Anyone know of a good "make your own vacuum robot" kit that I could pimp out with better parts so it would... you know... suck.

[sdh @ Mar 20th 2008 9:16AM]

I really like these products but I never bought one because they sometimes behave stupid cleaning the same spot several times and wasting battery doing it. Couldn't they ship this with a software that lets you map your room so the robot can track itself on the map?

[Gordy @ Mar 20th 2008 9:21AM]

Roomba works fine for me. By the way, it also docks itself when battery is low, so that's no big deal. Competition is good.

[palehorse @ Mar 20th 2008 10:18AM]

My retarded Roomba - which we've named "Robby" - never finds its way back to the base to recharge... I always have to go searching for the damn thing and hand-carry it back to its base.

They need to put a USB port on these things and make their firmware upgradeable. As it stands, mine is too "dumb" to ever be of much use...

[ScareyJ @ Mar 20th 2008 11:18AM]

We run a pair of the 530's and love them, but have to agree with the poor self docking. They tend to have to stumble upon the dock. Otherwise, we love them. (though we're open to checking out this new one too)

[Jonyah @ Mar 20th 2008 9:30AM]

I don't get these things. They aren't much bigger than the storage chamber in my Dyson and I can fill that up with just a couple of rooms (mainly from wool rugs that shed like no tomorrow). Where do these store all the crap they pick up? It would be more work following this around to empty five times while it vacuums my place.

[engadget @ Mar 20th 2008 9:46AM]

The idea is that you run these every day, so there's not likely to be nearly as much stuff to pick up as if you only use the vacuum once a week ( or every couple of weeks ).

You still need to run the full-size vacuum every now and then, but not nearly as much.

[adrian @ Mar 20th 2008 11:09AM]

Hey Jonyah,

You seem pretty messy to me. You must only vacuum once a week at the most.

I have Roomba, it goes round the same room every day. I don't even see it do it. I switch it on when I leave the house, it is back in its recharging station when I get back. It picks up crap that the eye cannot even see. We are a dust free house.

My OCD is getting better too.

Your Dyson ownership is a betrayal of EU grants that have been provided to incentivise manufacturers to employ Europeans,ll only to have the entire operation move to Malaysia.

It serves you right to not have understood that that piece of crap sucks stuff from wormholes on the far edge of distant galaxies for you to empty into Earth's trash. Shame on you. Repent.

[Jonyah @ Mar 20th 2008 11:31AM]

Once a week is all that is necessary, though I do have to mention that our first floor is 100% hardwood, so sweeping happens much more. I can vacuum the rugs all day long and continue to get "fuzz" out of them. That's just what happens with high quality wool rugs. If you have to run your roomba everyday, I say you're the dirty one.

I could also care less about EU grants, or whatever crap that is you're talking about. As 99% of people (less that admit it), I only care about myself, lol.

[dmf86 @ Mar 20th 2008 9:35AM]

That's some cool gadget ;)

[Yessir @ Mar 20th 2008 9:44AM]

Hauzen? Sounds like a secret German WWII weapon.

[Nate @ Mar 20th 2008 9:50AM]

I would have named it: 'Suck-it-Easy'

[y3k.nik @ Mar 20th 2008 11:10AM]

Sorry Nate,

But that just sounds a bit too wrong!

[Nate @ Mar 20th 2008 1:05PM]

You're right. It should be "Sucks-it-easy"

Better?

[Dechen @ Mar 20th 2008 10:03AM]

Where can one buy this?

[Rynth @ Mar 20th 2008 10:36AM]

The only time when a gadget should Suck to make it good.

[BorgKing @ Mar 20th 2008 11:01AM]

Had my Roomba for just over a year, and only need it to run twice a week (no pets or kids at my house). It covers about 1200 sq.ft. every time, and runs for about hour on a full charge. Needs emptying about once every 3-4 weeks. However - recently it has not been charging properly when it gets back to base so I need to let it run down completely to get it to reset its power manager and charge properly.

It may just be end of life for the battery, but it has not had a long life, 150 recharges or there abouts. I am not too pleased with that. I might buy this Samsung instead of a new Roomba battery purely because they are a better known brand, and iRobot need the competition to improve their offerings.

[David @ Mar 20th 2008 12:30PM]

iRobot is pretty well known, they made their name making mine-sweeping and drone robots for the US Department of Defense.

[Leo @ Mar 20th 2008 11:13AM]

COUGH*ripoff*COUGH

COUGH*competition-is-good*COUGH

[RP @ Mar 20th 2008 3:29PM]

LOL

[Clasifyd @ Mar 20th 2008 11:17AM]

Our Roomba tends to make itself useless. We would start it as we left the house, only to find it stuck in the track on the sliding glass door every time we came home. We decided to run it while we were in the house once, and despite how much coercing, it would make a b-line right to the door every time we start it.

On a positive note, we have a very clean door-track!

[johnmc @ Mar 20th 2008 1:01PM]

Maybe it's trying to escape? How about letting it get a taste of the outside world for a while and see if that as any effect - let it see just how good life indoors actually is.

[Russ @ Mar 20th 2008 12:19PM]

Well, the one site I looked at for pricing came up at about $742.00...I don't think Roomba has a whole lot to worry about. But if the price is a reflection of the sinking US dollar, you might want to buy your imported toys while you still can...

[davisbacon @ Mar 20th 2008 1:34PM]

Hi, I currently have a Roomba and love the way it works. If you have obstacles, the control towers limit its travel etc, and I recommend using them. The amount of dust that it retrieves is impressive to say the least. Its well built and most of the parts inside can be rebuilt.

Try one, it'll bring smiles to your face...

[James @ Mar 20th 2008 2:01PM]

Competition is good. I have a Roomba and love it, it isn't perfect, but it beats the heck out of sweeping and vacuuming all the time. I initially bought it just to sweep up the kitty litter that gets tracked around the laundry room but found that it does a nice job of vacuuming the whole downstairs. I have it scheduled to run automatically every day while I'm at work, it's so nice to come home to a clean house with Roomba back on its charger. Took a few days to fix the places it got stuck but now 90% of the time it finds the charger. Amazing how much crap it picks up, I have to empty the bin every couple days.

[ssskit @ Mar 20th 2008 2:56PM]

Well, I've owned two Roombas and haven't used either one. Unless you have a house that has absolutely no cords laying around, you're screwed.

[Michael @ Mar 20th 2008 3:18PM]

Why would you buy a second roomba after not using the first one? Cords are a problem...but if you keep you place fairly clean it shouldn't be a problem. It only vacuums, it doesn't pick up after you.

My roomba chased a mouse from under our new couch, if it wasn't for Cootie (my girlfriend named it) we'd never had known there were mice.

[James @ Mar 20th 2008 4:37PM]

Cords were a problem for me at first, but I got one of those rubber cord covers for one that had to go across the floor, then I tucked the speaker cables under the baseboard trim and that took care of that. If you have a cord dangling on the floor behind a desk on the way down to the outlet, bundle it up with a twisty tie so it doesn't drag on the floor. Lots of cords and I had few problems tidying them all up so the Roomba wouldn't eat them.

[SARA BOWLDEN @ Mar 20th 2008 5:51PM]

The 5XX Roomba series doesn't eat cords.

Sara

[Doug @ Apr 1st 2008 9:18AM]

What these things need is a way to empty their own dustbins. How 'bout it science?!

[Mredraider @ Mar 20th 2008 12:40PM]

hopefully the reply will work this time.

@Doug: Look up Roomba's intellibin.

[Doug @ Mar 20th 2008 1:28PM]

As far as I can tell, Intellibin is just a light that tells you when the Roomba dustbin is full. I said I want the robot to empty it's own bin.