iRobot promises its new Roomba won’t smear dog poop all over

They finally did it, folks.

It’s been five, long shit-smeared years since the world was shocked to discover that iRobot’s fancy robot vacuum cleaners were prone to tracking dog poop all over owners’ homes. Now, the company behind the pricey Roombas promises it’s found a solution: Say hello to the $850 Roomba j7+ Robot Vacuum with Genius™ 3.0 Home Intelligence.

According to a Sept. 9 iRobot press release, the latest Roomba is equipped with the fancy sounding “PrecisionVision Navigation” which, in theory, allows it to avoid your furry friends’ unwelcome leavings.

“Backed by the Pet Owner Official Promise (P.O.O.P.), iRobot will replace any Roomba j7+ that doesn’t avoid solid pet waste,” reads the press release — with an unstated emphasis on solid. Presumably, anything that splatters isn’t covered, and the fine print does make clear this offer is good for only one year after purchase.

Even so, this will surely be a welcome addition, as waking up to discover a poop-plastered home is apparently a common occurrence among pet owners with Roombas.

“Quite honestly, we see this a lot,” an iRobot spokesperson told the Guardian in 2016.

Bad robot! Bad!
Credit: irobot

And to be clear, as described by one victim, we’re talking about an absolute disaster when this does happen.

It will be on your floorboards. It will be on your furniture legs. It will be on your carpets. It will be on your rugs. It will be on your kids’ toy boxes. If it’s near the floor, it will have poop on it. Those awesome wheels, which have a checkered surface for better traction, left 25-foot poop trails all over the house.

That it took this long for an internet-connected vacuum to finally recognize and avoid poop speaks volumes to the janky internet-of-things world we all find ourselves living in — and iRobot’s CEO isn’t shy about admitting it.

“Smart home products often fail to live up to consumer expectations when they lack context of the home, cannot learn independently and require complex programming for basic functionality,” explained Colin Angle in the Roomba j7+ press release.

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Maybe, just maybe, the latest addition from iRobot will start to turn that around. And hey, if not, at least the company will replace your gunked-up Roomba, free of charge.