Kickstarter Thinking Cleaner, WiFi for your iRobot Roomba

[jeroen_]

http://www.automatedhome.co.uk/hardware ... oomba.html

They can need the extra mentions everywhere.

http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/thinki ... irobot-ro/
87 backers, trending towards 79% of goal...

[jeroen_]

A week later.. 97 backers, €10,791 (26% of goal) and a trend of possibly still getting to 52%

http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/thinki ... irobot-ro/

pretty much a flat line with only 1/2 new backers per day.

I think this one of those cases that shows how kickstarter does not mean instant success unless one really advertises really hard already _before_ the kickstarter so that people are all ready to dive into it when one announces the kickstarter

Also in a way shows that most folks are happy with their roombas as they are.

Interestingly Roomba has been running a lot of radio advertising of the last few months here in Switzerland.

[Bwired]

yes very slow
i think its more a matter of how to reach those people

[jeroen_]

yes very slow
i think its more a matter of how to reach those people

Well, how many people think this kind of thing is 'needed'. The roomba is likely needed, because well, they don't want to vacuum. Thus people will invest quite a bit of money there. But why would they then additionally pay for a 'toy' feature. The thing already does what they want it to do. Hence the people who will go for it, is the audience we have here on the forum, and maybe some other related forums.

Advertising with crowdfunding is the most important thing. And that has to be done before the actual crowdfunding is started. If one does not have a following of at least ~30% of the wanted outcome, then one will likely not fill up the rest either, as it is a hype thing: if many people go, others will follow. In this case, the interest was there, but only for people who knew they wanted it already.

Another problem is setting high goals, which might be realistic or not.

The folks who did (well... are still doing) the Kickstarter for Planetary Annihilation (which was very succesful) also tried to do another game: Human Resources and failed (http://www.joystiq.com/2014/10/21/uber- ... -campaign/) likely because of not scoping out who their audience would be, but also because of their previous fail to still not have delivered on PA (the game is there, still unknown when other perks will arrive, likely not before xmas though) and thus folks really not wanting to go down that route again.


For instance another interesting (at least for me) project:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/mool ... ord-keeper

these guys asked to get their deadline extended another 12 days, and now they might almost make it, only 3k to go while already being at 106.000 USD, which is a pretty high number, though spread over 952 funders, that is also 10 times more than the ones for the TC.
Lets see if they make the remaining 3k though only 5 days left this round.

[jeroen_]

It is cool that they didn't give up completely even though the Kickstarter did not work out:

"We are SHIPPING the Thinking Cleaner for Roomba 500/600 NOW!"

As per:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/th ... ts/1105697

And till tomorrow 13th (thus I hope for them that includes the whole Tuesday 13th...) one can still get one

"Your order # is: 100000168"

hence, I'll now have to find and replace the battery in mine so that I can use it when it gets here...

[bartbakels]

Hi,

I also ordered mine. Anyone planning in integrating it into Homeseer 3?

thanks

Bart

[RdP]

Hi guys,

I was thinking of ordering a Roomba for a while, but did not investigate which one I should buy.

Can anyone of you give advise which one I should buy ? It's my birthday the 15th, so I have a compelling event

And I volunteer to create a HS plug-in

Thanks....

[Akatar]

i have a 780. works perfect

[RdP]

i have a 780. works perfect

Yes, but there is no Wifi Module for the 780 yet

[Akatar]

yes there is one
http://www.roowifi.com/compatible-roomba/

[vanisher]

And i have a roowifi for sale

[Akatar]

with a roomba attached?

[RdP]

Okay. Learning all the time

I was thinking of ordering a Roomba 630 with a Thinking Cleaner module. Bad idea or......?

[vanisher]

with a roomba attached?

Without a roomba attached at the moment. With normal household wifi it is working.
But since i have a professional controller based cisco wireless solution @home the roowifi is not stable anymore.
Somehow it get's contained by cisco

[123unlock]

with a roomba attached?

Without a roomba attached at the moment. With normal household wifi it is working.
But since i have a professional controller based cisco wireless solution @home the roowifi is not stable anymore.
Somehow it get's contained by cisco

pff join the club
have here roowifi v1 and roowifi v2

the v1 was getting very hot (not safe for the kids) and the v2 is loosing network connection.. and then falls back to initial ROOWIFI AP name
and guess what.. Cisco Advanced wireless with vlans int he house

but yes.. on the basic netgear it was working okay (if you stay in the low channels)

i just ordered an thinking cleaner too.. lets see if thats working better