She does not take, although she can be noisy in other respects. And sometimes she seems to be haying, turning in place as if she chasing her tail. But she is very intelligent and very faithful and, at risk of appearing cliché, I consider her as the best friend of this man.
Cute like a panda, his name is EUFY. It is the same color as our first dog, a black laboratory named Biff, although Eufy has mustaches like a cat.
We only had it a few months now and, I swear, its presence literally lowers my blood pressure. It didn’t take him very long to resume cleaning and capture my heart. While she makes her way in each room, it is a comfort that I almost always doze in my chair.
Some readers probably know that EUFY is the brand name of a range of wireless autonomous vacuum cleaners. Our particular unity, however, is more than a simple robot.
Several months ago, after my wife, Marianne, was injured during her exercise routine, I had to resume all household chores. Before that, we turned into turn for cooking, cleaning, shopping, washing windows, recycling, gardening, whitening, etc. But once everything landed on me, and I discovered that I needed e-tag of firearms while pushing the strong and heavy vertical vacuum cleaner from Marianne through three bedrooms, two bathrooms, the dining room, the kitchen and the family room, I followed the suggestions of two of my neighbors. I ordered a machine that promised both vacuum cleaner and cleaning the entire Shebang in itself.
While robotic vacuums have existed for two decades, they have stayed in my head like funny news for people with too much money (neighbor A) or that simply could not be disturbed by unpleasant tasks (neighbor B). And online horror stories, like Romberba of a family in Little Rock, Arkansas, Run and follow the dog’s poop Throughout their household, I validated my mistrust.
But changing my mind came surprisingly easy and then fast, thanks to recent positive experiences with the driving system for driving artificial intelligence in our car and, of course, at the Ginormous panic dose caused by the sudden incapacity of Marianne.
We did not have an EUFY as a puppy. About the size and shape of a round bathroom ladder, it came ready to use as soon as the box is released. All I have to do is fill the tank with water and half a mud of ground cleaning solution, press Start on the telephone application and it goes.
During the first round, she was very quiet, with the exception of a Whoosh Tonnerre Minutelong when she emptied her internal trash can. With a polished female voice calling for its functions, such as “washing the vadrouilles” or “starting cleaning”, Eufy uses a combination of AI, Lidar (like radar but with laser beams), infrared imagery and GPS, for “self-control” through the house while drawing a precise floor plan which appears as if by magic on the screen.
Marianne sent a text to our children an embarrassing video of me who is sobbing after the robot with a panicked look on my face, and she subtitled my behavior as “clumsy” to rhyme with Eufy. But I just followed the machine to make sure that there was no misstep and that it raised the two heads of mop each time it entered a carpet area. She did it without fail, and I settled in my tilting chair to enjoy and amaze my work.
There are, in fact, robotic dogs that you can buy that sit, begging, will stir up and respond to certain vocal commands. But Eufy is much more similar to my former biff dogs and Frank, who have generally ignored me and did their own business.
Like them, EuFy is broken, even if I have to empty his “dirty water”.
However, unlike a human manufacturing machine designed for a single goal like a dishwasher, which performs its task in the same predictable way, our EUFY is eccentric. Original in an endearing way.
Instead of rolling and going down in a boring straight, EuFy Shimmies! My pragmatic wife says it must come from the vibration of the drummer bar. For me, however, her inflatable and agitated dance makes she believe that she appreciates her work. Like our yellow laboratory, Frank could not stop stirring his tail while digging a hole.
And when, as I am sleepy, I am awake by EuFy tickling my ankles with her mustaches (projections that detect obstructions) while purring under my chair, I remember Frank pressing his muzzle against my knee when he wanted me to caress him.
And when I wake up in the darkest hour of the night, I can see the corridor its green glow, like a reassuring headlight tag.
When Eufy is finished with vacuum cleaner and cleaning, she lies in bed to recharge. The house calms down, and I smile through Marianne’s room, which rolls my eyes to the sky.
My wife did not warm up Biff and Frank right away. But it’s just a matter of time until she also likes Eufy.
Until the whole world does it.
David McGrath is an English professor emeritus at the College of Dupage and author of “Quite far,” A collection of stories from Chicagoland. Send him an email at [email protected].
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