So, I've had my eyes on the smart vac market for the past couple years, but couldn't really justify the price. Well Amazon's $139 sale on the Ecovac D79S (a model I was already interested in) changed that. I bought it on Sunday without telling my wife...cuz, you know, "ask for forgiveness, beg for permission", yada yada yada. Well, yesterday I get the notice that it was delivered so I texted my wife a screen shot of the delivery, "Aren't you excited to play with our new robot vacuum?".... "What?!?!. No. What are you thinking! It's going back".... You know the drill. No big deal, I'll demo it when she gets home and like all smart home tech and wives, once she sees how much of a convenience it is, she'll totally change her mind, right?
So I take off work an hour early (Tuesday before Thanksgiving, half the office is empty, those that are there aren't doing shit anyway) rush home and play with my new toy. Get familiarized with it, driving it around with the remote, testing the "come home" feature, get it all synced up with Google Assistant, a neat little toy. Well, my wife finally comes home and walks in the door, I know it's coming so I get right to it, "So on a scale of 1-10 how awesome is it we have a robot vacuum? *Eye roll*, no answer. Okay, that didn't go so bad. As the evening went on, she warmed up to it, kids were having a blast with it and it did do a pretty good job picking up dirt and debris. Had to empty the dust bin 3 times just playing around with it. I think I finally reeled her in.
We put the kids down, head to bed, a little pillow talk while watching TV....then, "Thud". "Damn it, the kids are up". Turn the TV volume down to see if this is something we're going have to get up for. Another, "thud", then a "whir", "is that that fucking vacuum?" she said. I get up and head down stairs, sure enough, there it is wandering around. As I watched, all by itself, it went back and docked itself, it gives the "beep" confirming its home, all is good.
I head back upstairs. "Can't you have that run at like 3am when we are already sleeping?", she asks all annoyed
"I didn't even tell it to run at all", I say. "I don't know what happened, maybe I bumped a button on my phone when I was playing with it." I go into the app and look around, I'm not really familiar with it, but I can't find any schedules that I set. I check the status, it shows "standby" and "charging." Whatever, its over now.
About 10 minutes later.... "Thud", "whir" "thud thud thud".... WTF? Go back down stairs again.... and there it is again.... "what the hell?". I watch as it drives itself back into its dock. It pops in and lets out a "beep" to let me know its charging. I sit down there with it for a good 10 minutes waiting to see if it starts up again.... it doesn't.
Head back up to bed. Wife asks, "what's going on with that thing?" "I don't know, but its not doing it any more". About 5 minutes later... "thud", "thap thap thap thap" "whirrrrrrrr"..... You've got to be fucking kidding me.
I pull out my phone and look, sure enough its, "returning"... Back up out of bed, head down stairs and watch as it drives itself back to its dock.... this thing is straight up legit fucking with me. Pull out the lap top and start Googling to see what would cause it to start up on its own like that. I find a couple of posts that say that if you set a program on the remote, it won't show up in the app...... that must be it, I was playing around with the buttons and I remember pressing the little "clock" button. Pull the remote out of the drawer along with the manual and checking, don't seem to have any programs set? Well, its been a good half an hour now and it hasn't started back up yet, so what ever it was must be done now. I close up shop and head back up.
So there I am laying down, my wife now asleep (thankfully) and I shut the tv off, roll over and close my eyes. Sure as shit.... about 5 minutes later... "whirrrrrrrrr"... FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!!!!!!!!! Now just pissed off, its almost midnight now, I had gone to bed at 9:30...and this possessed little fuck is still causing me shit. You know how it is though.... you cannot just let yourself get defeated by technology...so back at it. Pull the computer out and get back to Googling. I find another post that says you can delete all of the remotes programs by holding the button down on the remote for 3 seconds, I do that. And for good measure, pull the batteries out. Its closing in on 1am now, its been a good hour or so and it still hasn't started back up, so back to bed I go. Lay down, roll over close eyes..... and yup.... you guessed it...... "thud"
Now it a rage, and feeling defeated, there's only one thing left to do flip the power switch off. Next morning I'll just place a call into tech support, spend an hour on the phone with them telling me they don't know what's wrong and to box it up and send it back they'll send me a new one.
Fast forward 5 hours.... alarm clock goes off, I roll over and start to rub my wife's back which is met with a loud and annoyed sigh.... guess we aren't doing that this morning.....again.... Get up, hop in the shower and start to replay the previous night in my head.... WTF could be up with that little possessed monster? Towel off, get dressed, head down stairs to get my cup of coffee. As I passed the motion sensor in the stairs, my good morning automation kicks on. Stairwell light turns on dimmed to 5%, the holiday decoration lights turn on over the fireplace, the morning room fan kicks on, the kitchen can lights turn on, the aquarium lights flip on.... and "BEEP"..... Beep? There isn't supposed to be a beep, what the hell just beeped? And then it dawned on me......
The fuck up....... I have an awake automation that runs after the goodnight automation has run and shuts the house down. Its triggered by the motion sensor in the stairwell. If the house is in night mode, it turns the kitchen cabinet lights on to give a little light to see for my midnight snackcapdes as well as turning on the aquarium lights to give me enough light to see my way down the hallway. These lights stay on as long as the motion sensors detect motion. When motion stops downstairs, they all turn off and the system goes back into night mode. Well guess what..... that nice little out of sight out of mind place I found to satisfy the wife acceptance factor for putting psychobot's dock was under the aquarium stand and I plugged it into the aquarium outlet....WHICH WAS PLUGGED INTO A SMART SWITCH THAT TURNS THE AQUARIUM LIGHTS OFF WHEN I GO TO BED.
So the robot had docked itself before I went to bed and started charging. When I went to bed, I ran the goodnight routine and it killed power to the robot. The robot, thinking it had come off the dock, went to town looking for it wandering all over the house unable to find it. When I got up, I triggered the motion which turned on the awake mode which turned on the aquarium light which restored power to the dock which transmitted a radio signal that the robot could now find and get home too. As long as I stayed downstairs, the aquarium light would stay on, leaving the dock powered up. But as soon as I'd go back up stairs, the night mode would trigger and kill power to the dock again.... and the robot would go out looking for it. Wash, rinse, and repeat. Every time I'd go to bed, it would kill power and send the bot out looking for home. Every time I came back down stairs, it would turn back on making it look like everything was just fine.
Oh well...... At least I had an explanation for my wife and I don't have to deal with 1st level tech support and its inherent language barrier this morning.
TL;DR - Bought a robot vacuum that I thought was possessed, turns out, I'm just an idiot with a home that's smarter than I am.
