Has anyone installed robot vacuum under a kitchen cabinet?

[tadgh78]

Hi, first time poster long time lurker. I was thinking of cutting a flap under one of my kitchen cabinets to create a miniature "bat cave" for my robot vacuum. I'd like if it could go in an out and not take up floor space in my kitchen. Has anyone done this?

Thanks,

Tadgh

[vic7767]

The flap would not be able to be lower than the home base IR red and green buoy signals so the Roomba can detect the base.

[glnc222]

I looked into this a little long ago with respect to Neato robots but never built any. Thread http://www.robotreviews.com/chat/viewto ... =furniture
It would seem to be possible but as usual the devil's in the details of the technical requirements.
One thing is the robot needs to detect the base in order to return for charging, and if it is recessed inside a cabinet that might pose a problem. The docks all work differently on the various brands. Dyson detects the dock by visual pattern recognition of the surface. Samsung docks have a coded IR signal emitter. Neato docks have a patterned reflector for IR behind smoke plastic, detected by lidar beam. Not sure how Roomba's work.
A fancy cabinet could always be made with a mechanism to push the dock out in front when cleaning, on a tray which is withdrawn with the bot on it. Yet more robotics... Of course, manual use and stowage requires only cabinetry.

[TechGuy]

I will never put a Roomba in an area which is subjected to water getting on top of Roomba like kitchen or bathroom.
It is better safe than sorry.

[tadgh78]

Thanks guys. The vacuum in question is a Deebot. I think the robot finds the base-station by IR beacon, because if I place a piece of cardboard on front of the base station the robot can't find it, but a piece of clear plastic doesn't seem to cause a problem with finding the base-station. However the robot reverses almost as soon as it touches the plastic.

I was hoping I could just cut a simple flap in the baseboard under my kitchen cabinet and the robot would push in and out by itself like a tabby through a cat flap. But that won't work as the flap would need to be both see through and of a very, very light material or else the robots obstetrical avoidance mechanism will kick in and cause the robot to reverse course.

[ssllii]

I am thinking the same for my roomba, parking it under a kitchen cabinet. I am even ok without a flap/door to hide behind the toe kick area.
The biggest issue I see is once the dock/emitter is deep underneath the cabinet, the chance for the roomba to find it will be very small.
Has anyone built a roomba garage under a kitchen cabinet?

[Brett]

... The biggest issue I see is once the dock/emitter is deep underneath the cabinet, the chance for the roomba to find it will be very small ...

This is not really so. (I'm assuming you are talking about a non-navigating model here.) When it is time to dock the robot keeps on cleaning with unchanged behaviour, only difference it looks for the IR tractor beam that comes out the front of the dock. When it crosses it, it follows it. No change...

[ssllii]

I currently have the dock out on the floor, the roomba usually had no problem docking automatically.
What I am afraid of is if I tug the dock under the cabinet and fairly deep into it, the roomba may have problem running across the IR beam and never finds home. It may be worthwhile to run some experiments.

[ps0001]

I don't know if this answers your question, but I have my i7's dock against the wall under a piece of furniture. It is centered under the furniture, which is about 24" deep. There is approximately 24" of clearance on either side of the base and about 8" of clearance from the floor to the bottom of the furniture. The Roomba docks fine with this configuration.

[Brett]

What I tried (maybe unsucessfully?) to say is that the "beam" is just a straight line - a beam of infra-red light.

Lets say you set it up in a space too small for the roomba to get into - it will find the beam, follow it till it keeps bumping stuff, and fail to dock. So as long as there is enough space for the Roomba to manoeuvre a bit as it approaches the dock it will be fine. I'd say not less than 1.5x of the roomba diameter, but preferably 2x the roomba diameter.