Sitting in my kitchen, I can hear the robot vacuuming and mopping upstairs. Although vacuuming is not a chore I particularly dislike, it is convenient to think that it can be done when you are not at home.
As one of the older millennials, I feel like I still hold on to some pride to do things without too much technology involved. Smart technology only makes me suspicious. I do not need a smart fridge, a smart coffee machine or a smart rice cooker. The Google Home in my house has been off and disconnected from electricity since its entrance. I think the only thing about smart technology that I read about, is the fact that they tend to record way more information then necessary. We already live without curtains, no further transparency is needed.
But a vacuum robot seems weirdly benign. As a word, robot conjures more old-school images of machines that buzz and blink when you turn them on. Humans are in full control, the machine is not meant to think along but merely follow orders or a program. And sure, any simple machine these days involves an app which opens it up again to much more information than it probably needs. But that big bad company seems far away and the robot certainly cannot make use of any information that is on my phone. And seeing the cleaning lines on the map appear almost fully equally spaced is very satifying.
At the same time, I mainly like the convenience of the robot because I usually do not turn it on myself. Having someone else takes care of the whole process, makes it all even more seamless and automatic. Alas, I am on my own again for a couple of weeks and thought I should not need to resort to old school vacuuming.
So I took the robot from its docking station, wetted the mop as expected, checked its water and sent it of on its cleaning journey. I fiddled with the necessary map I needed to put it on, then I thought I had put everything away but somehow the robot really wanted to have a hangout session with our drying rack. All in all, it took some time before everything was right as it should be and the cleaning lines started appearing on the map.
The old adagio is still true. Everything is automated but nothing happens automatically. Well, at least not when I am by myself.
Bitesized Writing 
Hmmm seems like my previous comment failed to post 😦 But couldn’t agree more! Since when do we need WIFI to fry potatoes?? Stumbled upon this beautiful airfryer once only to find out that WiFi is necessary to make it work…. What happened to just plugging it into a socket and let it do its thing? 😦
And I agree that it feels amazing when someone else ‘ does the cleaning’ for you… So I still prefer outsourcing it to a human being hehe Because household items asking for permission to use your mic and camera, are much less trustworthy xD
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