Home robotics company finally answers the teeming masses clamoring for a robot to clean "all that icky stuff" in their rain gutters.
Living in New York City, we have a limited familiarity with rain gutters. We know that they’re gross, a pain to clean, and that little old ladies like paying young, strapping men to clean them for a quarter (at least that’s what the TV tells us).
But we suspect our suburban brethren hate the task of cleaning gutters enough that there is a niche market of people looking for a robot to do the job instead. Needless to say, if there is a niche market that robots could serve, iRobot will come to the rescue. One of two new robots announced at the DigitalLife show here in New York, the Looj is a narrow, tank-styled, gutter-shaped robot designed to wreak havoc on the gunk in your gutter, without making you touch any of it.
The demo we saw was relatively simple: just climb a ladder to your gutter, drop the robot in and remove the detachable handle, then use the handle (which doubles as a remote) to control the forward and backward movement of the robot as the hard plastic fins on the motorized auger displace the debris from your gutter. There is even an included, yet admittedly un-stylish, holster (or belt clip, for the low-end model) for the robot to attach to your belt while climbing the ladder.
The auger spins at 500 RPM, and had no problem blasting leaves out of the gutter during the demo, and while iRobot claims it can “break up sludge and clogs,” we didn’t see any sludge being broken up and flung across the room (thankfully).
The Looj is powered by an archaic 7.2V Nickel Cadmium rechargeable battery that takes about 15 hours to charge. iRobot claims a full charge will operate the Looj for 30 to 45 minutes (depending upon the amount of debris and sludge in the gutter), which they say equates to 250 linear feet of gutter cleaning.
The Looj is expected to be available by the end of October, and will come in three packages: The Looj 150, the Looj 130 and the Looj 120. The 150 includes the holster, an extra battery and a replacement auger, while the 130 only includes the holster and the 120 a belt clip. They will be retail for $170, $130 and $120, respectively.
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