The Robot Vacuum That Ate My Daughter's Socks

I bought a Lefant M210 because it was the cheapest robot vacuum on Amazon that had more than 4 stars. The reviews said 'great for the price.' This is code for 'it technically turns on.'

First run: it cleaned about 60% of the living room, got stuck under the couch, beeped for help, and I had to rescue it. Second run: it ate one of my daughter's socks, made a horrible grinding noise, and stopped. Third run: it bumped into the same chair leg 14 times in a row, gave up, and went back to the charging dock. Assertive.

The Lefant navigates by running into things and turning. That's the whole algorithm. Hit wall, turn 45 degrees, go straight, hit another wall, turn, repeat. It's like watching a Roomba from 2005 but without the nostalgia. It misses entire rooms. It gets stuck on rug edges. It fills up its dustbin — which holds approximately two tablespoons of debris — every 15 minutes.

The roborock Q7 Max has LiDAR. It scans your apartment. It builds a map. It knows where the walls are. It knows where the furniture is. You can draw no-go zones in the app so it doesn't eat socks or attack the dog's water bowl. It has 4200Pa suction, which is enough to pull crumbs out of grout lines.

I spent $130 on a robot that bumps into furniture and eats socks. For $230 more, I could have had a robot that actually knows where it's going. I analyze market inefficiencies for a living but couldn't spot the inefficiency in buying the cheapest vacuum with a microchip.