One nice midsummer day in 2001, Roomba’s engineers, Winston Tao, and several other different iRobot folks rendezvoused at an unremarkable, multistory workplace constructing on the Cambridge aspect of the Charles River, throughout from Boston. We assembled in a slim room. An extended desk occupied the room’s middle. Snacks and sodas have been set out alongside the again wall; the lighting was subdued. The dominant characteristic of this cramped chamber was an enormous one-way mirror occupying virtually your complete entrance wall. Sitting on the desk, one might see by way of the wanting glass right into a wonderland of market analysis on the opposite aspect. In that a lot bigger, brightly lit room have been comfy 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 establishing some focus teams—most likely essentially the most the corporate had ever spent on a market analysis occasion. However we would have liked to know the way potential clients would react to our Roomba prototype after they noticed one within the (plastic) flesh cleansing the ground at their toes. On the appointed hour, our facilitator welcomed eight to 10 bona fide odd individuals 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 Robotic Riddle and Constructing an Icon (Routledge 2025).Joe Jones

The facilitator ready contributors by encouraging them to state their sincere views and to not be swayed by the feedback of others. “You’re the world’s professional in your personal opinion,” she advised 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 contributors watched Roomba go about its enterprise on each carpets and laborious 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 essentially 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 might take neither curiosity nor like to the financial institution. We wanted to know the way a lot clients would pay. Our facilitator eased into that a part of the gathering’s proceedings. She didn’t inquire instantly however fairly requested, “In the event you noticed this product in a retailer, what would you count on the value to be?”

The main focus group’s responses have been all around the map. Some individuals talked about a worth near the $200 we supposed to cost. A couple of people we thought to be saints-in-training anticipated a fair greater quantity. However most have been decrease. One lady 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 harm. For this woman, attaching our robotic to a battery devalued the battery.

Ground Cleaner or Robotic?

All through the proceedings our facilitator had been cautious to depart a few issues unmentioned. First, she by no means referred to Roomba as a robotic, calling it as an alternative an “automated ground cleaner.” Three separate teams, comprising an mixture of round two dozen individuals, 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 worth. They’d all assumed {that a} vacuum was at work, a number of used that time period to check with the robotic. However now the facilitator advised 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 reduce their estimates in half. Individuals who had beforehand stated $200 now stated $100.

The main focus group’s brutal revaluation exploded our world. The enabling innovation that made the power funds work, that made Roomba technically and economically possible, was cleansing with a carpet sweeper fairly 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 fairly than their very own apparently mendacity eyes. If we have been compelled to chop the robotic’s worth 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 shocked crew might stagger out the door, Winston stated merely, “Roomba has to have a vacuum.” A shotgun wedding ceremony was within the offing for bot and vac.

Scamp, the earliest Roomba prototype, was in-built 1999.Joe Jones

The subsequent day at work we gathered to debate the main focus group’s revelation. A half-hearted try or two to disclaim actuality shortly pale—electrical engineer Chris Casey noticed to that—and we accepted what we would have liked 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 might provide was already spoken for. None was out there for a brand new system that might doubtless be extra energy hungry than all of the robotic’s different methods mixed. And the place might we put a vacuum? All of the area within the robotic was additionally totally assigned. Our mandate to scrub beneath 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 wanting to leap by way of it. Chris articulated what we have been all considering. “We might construct a vestigial vacuum,” he stated. That’s, we might design a tiny, pico-power vacuum—one which consumes virtually no energy and does virtually nothing—strap it on the robotic, and name it accomplished. Perversely, that appeared cheap. The robotic already cleaned the ground nicely; our cleansing exams proved it. Clients, nevertheless, didn’t know that. They have been all steeped within the dogma of vacuum supremacy. Reeducating the plenty wasn’t attainable—we didn’t have the funds. But when we might assert on the field that Roomba had a vacuum, then everybody can be glad. We might cost the value that makes our economics work. Clients would deem that value cheap and wouldn’t should unlearn their vacuum bias.

Nevertheless it felt improper. If we should add a brand new system to the robotic, we wished it—like all the opposite methods—to earn its maintain actually, to do one thing helpful. By way of additional dialogue and calculation, we concluded that we might afford to commit about 10 p.c of the robotic’s 30-watt energy funds to a vacuum. Standard guide vacuums usually gorged themselves on 1,200 watts of energy, but when we might develop a system that supplied helpful cleansing whereas consuming solely 3 W (0.25 p.c of 1,200) then we’d be ok with including it to the robotic. It simply didn’t appear very doubtless.

iRobot constructed two similar second-generation Roomba prototypes, named Kipper and Tipper, considered one of which is proven right here.Joe Jones

I typically discover that fixing an issue is essentially a matter of staring on the drawback’s supply. Gaze lengthy and intently sufficient at one thing and, Waldo-like, the answer could 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 fairly than actuality. There was no easy, goal technique to evaluate cleansing efficacy between vacuums. Missing a results-based technique, 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 may solely imply that the producer with the 10-amp declare was utilizing a less-efficient motor—the 6-amp (720-W) motor may clear simply as nicely.

However even if 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 grime 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 fairly than guzzled it, we needed to transfer a a lot smaller quantity of air per second. We might accomplish that—with out lowering air velocity—if, as an alternative 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 wish 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 course of the air inlet. That may require an inlet perhaps 20 instances too vast. 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 vast. To supply suction I repurposed the blower from a defunct warmth gun. Then I utilized my jury-rigged contraption to crushed Cheerios and quite a lot of different grime stand-ins. My novel vacuum was surprisingly efficient at choosing up small particles from a tough floor. Utilizing an anemometer to measure the pace of the air speeding by way of my slim inlet confirmed that it was, as desired, as quick because the airstream in a typical vacuum cleaner.

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The subsequent step was to in some way shoehorn our microvacuum into Roomba. To kind 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 grime from the flowing air) was to take over a nook of the mud cup. Drawing on his now well-honed abilities of packing large issues into tiny areas the place that they had no enterprise becoming, mechanical engineer Eliot Mack managed in some way to perform this. However we did get assist from an out of doors guide to design the intricate form the impeller wanted to maneuver air effectively.

Typically, common vacuums carry out higher on carpet than on laborious flooring. However Roomba inverted that relationship. Our vacuum operated like a squeegee, pulling grime from tile, linoleum, and picket flooring. Nevertheless it 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 energy, the vacuum genuinely improved Roomba’s cleansing skill. We might reveal this convincingly. First, we disabled Roomba’s new vacuum by disconnecting the ability after which cleaned a tough ground 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 toes would detect no grit in anyway.

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 discovered that the main focus 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 clients can be cleaning-mechanism agnostic—considering as an alternative that they merely wouldn’t consider our robotic would clear their flooring if it didn’t have a vacuum. He discovered a minimum of oblique assist for that place when he scoured advertising knowledge 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, most likely saying one thing like, “What your business-school-addled mind doesn’t respect is that it’s the carpet sweeper that makes the entire idea work!” Winston needed to present us. That was a key function of the main focus group, to reveal to the Roomba crew that we had made a deal-breaking omission.

Dancing With Roomba is now out there for preorder.