Page 31 - Hacking Roomba

12 Part I — Interfacing

Roomba Scheduler: This model, shown in Figure 1-10, was released in 2005 and is the
same as the Roomba Discovery model, with the inclusion of a special scheduler remote
control and a blue exterior. iRobot has also released an improved Scheduler model. This
improved model is black and has a Dust Bin Alert feature to let you know when its dust
bin is full.

FIGURE 1-10: Roomba Scheduler

What about Scooba?

Scooba is the newest home cleaning robot from iRobot. It is a floor-washing robot. The
robot preps the floor by vacuuming loose debris, squirts clean solution, scrubs the floor, and
then sucks up the dirty solution leaving a nearly dry floor behind. Although it does vacuum,
it’s not a general purpose vacuum cleaner like Roomba (for example, it doesn’t work on car-
pet). The cleaning solution, which has been nicknamed Scooba juice, is a special non-bleach
formula that is safe for sealed hardwood floors.

Scooba apparently contains an ROI port and thus would be compatible with the projects
presented here, but no tests have been performed with it yet. The ROI specification pub-
lished by iRobot makes no mention of Scooba-specific commands.