While up in Portland, Oregon this past weekend for my brother’s birthday, Glenn, Michele and I made a day’s excursion to the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum, the current home of the “Spruce Goose” and a huge variety of other aircraft. All pretty cool and definitely a worthwhile visit, but it’s a little annoying that they charge extra (and separately) for tours inside two of the aircraft: a B-17 bomber (“Flying Fortress”) and the Spruce Goose itself.
Click through for pictures:
For years I’ve dismissed those little semi-autonomous, robotic sucking machines. It sounded like they weren’t really worth the trouble since they couldn’t really run for very long, pick up much debris in their tiny compartments, deal with furniture without missing spots or getting stuck or trapped. With all the need to supervise, it sounded easier and quicker to do it yourself. But then recently I stumbled on a review of a new model and was intrigued by the improvements and the possibility of a little machine to help keep up on all that cat hair my two furry friends are always producing.
A fun video showing my new little helper in action (1.5 minutes, 24 MB)
It’s the BotVac 80/85 from Neato. Unlike its more well-known competitor (iRobot Roomba), this robotic vacuum cleaner does not just follow a random walk around the room, bumping haphazardly from one obstacle to the next. The BotVac uses laser sensors to map out the shape of each room and build up a floor plan as it goes about its business. When it encounters obstacles like tables and chairs, it will actually work to navigate around each leg, vacuuming under and around as much as it can. It’s pretty amazing (and mesmerizing) to watch it navigate around the house, room after room, following its little internal rule sets to deal with various obstacles as they come up.
It’s not quite a replacement for a full-size vacuum cleaner but it certainly does an amazing job considering that you can just start it up and let it go while you go about doing other things. (You also do need a normal vacuum cleaner to clear out its filter.) It’s pretty cool though to come back and find everything freshly vacuumed! And it’s not really that loud (certainly much less than a full size vacuum) and it’s not too annoying to have it going about it’s business while you do other things.
One limitation with the BotVac is that at about four inches tall, it can’t fit under some furniture, particularly couches. (The Roomba design has a lower profile and can fit under more furniture.) Also, the BotVac can get itself stuck at times and need help. This happens sometimes with furniture that offers just enough clearance for it to partially slip under but not quite enough for it to fit entirely under. Often this goes fine and it will just work its way around, but other times it’ll get itself wedged in and need to be pulled out. When it does get stuck or trapped, it will cut power to its vacuum and call for help by chiming. It’ll then sit and wait quietly for a while before chiming now and again.
Here’s a much more mixed review of the BotVac that comes out in favor of the Roomba. Some more reviews: BotVac 85 vs. Roomba 880 (favors the BotVac) and iRobot Roomba vs Neato Botvac (favors neither).
Note that the BotVac 85 is really just the same model as the 80 but it comes with two extra filters included. (This wasn’t obvious to me.) Both the 80 and 85 come with the two different brush types.
Now… what should I name him?
UPDATE (1/28/2015): The BotVac is still running but I have seen more of its deficiencies. One thing that happens is that it essentially becomes a little senile with a low battery charge: it often has become unable to find its way back to its charge station with its battery runs low. It will repeatedly and aimlessly search a small area (a couple of square feet) and after a long while finally give up and call for help – this without any obstacles in the way. My guess is that it lets the voltage level drop too far on the battery now and is unable to sufficiently power its electronics and sensors. At first it only happened occasionally, then it started happening almost every time. But then, more recently (April 2015), it’s been working properly again! Weird. Anyway, when it does “go senile”, I have to pick it up and manually dock it at its charge station. (If I let it continue its search for the dock right in front of it, it will just wander off again.)
The other issue (and this is more annoying) is that its methodical method of covering a room means that it will get into try over and over again (unsuccessfully) to reach some particularly difficult spot (due to furniture) and waste a lot of its battery charge or even eventually get itself wedged in or otherwise stuck. Bringing it back out again will often lead to it just finding its way right back into that spot. I’ve since got into the habit of leaving some strategically placed pillows or other items to prevent it from getting into those spots. This is where I imagine the Roomba might do better with its random walk pattern: it probably won’t get stuck obsessively trying to reach the same spot.
Lastly, as I mentioned earlier, the biggest problem with the BotVac is the little laser assembly sticks up in the center of the unit. This protrusion isn’t accounted for when the unit tries to go under some furniture so it can end up wasting energy trying over and over to get under some furniture or even getting wedged under such furniture.
However, the BotVac does still do a good vacuuming job and it’s great to be able to set it off running while you take care of other things.
I’ve been trying out a new pair of sunglasses with a built-in video/photo camera, the Pivothead Recon. The Recon (actually now called the Kudu) is one of several styles of camera glasses from Pivothead. The glasses can record video at 1080/30 or 720/60 fps as well as take still photos (up to 8 MB). They can even capture stills while you’re recording video. They have interchangeable shades, including the photo-chromatic kind (adjusts to brightness).
The camera functionality works pretty well except that they currently have some issues with their various focus modes. The continuous focus mode hunts for focus a lot, the fixed focus mode is set to a focus point that’s too close so most of the time everything is very softly focused, but I’m getting the best results with the auto-focus mode which sets a focus when you start recording and holds that for the duration of the recording.
The exposure isn’t always ideal but then it’s pretty amazing that they can cram all this functionality in a sunglasses frame (rather than having a bulky camera mounted on your helmet). Another issue though is that the little LED lights on the inside of the frame aren’t really visible while you’re wearing them so you have to pull them half off to verify that they’re on and/or recording. Given that a) you can’t start recording until a couple of seconds after you hit the power button and b) they automatically shut off when idle after 30 seconds or so, it’s easy to think you’ve started recording, when you haven’t. (This keeps happening to me.) It would be better if the little rocker switch to start/stop a video or take a photo would actually power them up, rather than having a separate power toggle button.
The glasses aren’t very adjustable for different faces. Mine tend to sit high on my nose and the camera points up a little high but this ends up working out to a good angle for mountain biking. Yes, that picture was taken using the glasses, but I titled my head down (and still heavily cropped it to frame it well). Without doing that, the center of the shot would actually be well above my head. But as I say, that has to do with individual fit and it works out fine for me while on a bike.
The Pivothead charges via USB and you can get a combination external battery pack and WiFi hub (Pivothead Air Sync) that allows you to charge it up and download your shots when you’re out in the field. It’s also useful as extra power for any USB-chargeable device.
Here’s some sample video showing some of its strengths and weaknesses. (Also, this video was shot with these glasses as well.) Both videos have of course been downsized and compressed for web presentation:
Note the challenges in dark, high contrast lighting in the trees and how quickly (or slowly) it can adjust to changing lighting. Obviously it does much better in brightly lit scenes. Also, it would be awesome to have some optical stabilization but that would be asking a lot at this point, particularly in the frame of a pair of sunglasses. Really I just hope they can fix the other focus modes and improve the start/stop method.
Pictures and a bit of video from a day at the Bay Area Maker Faire:
I went down to the NASA Ames Research Center / Moffett Field this morning to watch the flyover of the space shuttle Endeavour on its way to a museum in southern California.
There were a number of booths set up showing some of the science and technology developed at Ames to support the shuttle program as well as a number of guest speakers including a couple of shuttle astronauts. Unfortunately, the host speaker built up expectation a bit much by describing how the shuttle and its 747 carrier were expected to come down the length of the runway potentially as low as 200 ft. As the supposed 20,000 of us were gathered along the length of the runway, this would have been quite spectacular to see. Alas, the pilots clearly had other plans.
After we were told the shuttle was approaching, it was the escort jet that became first visible and we were all watching *it* as the shuttle itself made a stealthy approach hidden behind the large hanger frame on the opposite side to the runway. It was nearly on top of us when it popped into view and everyone turned (and hastily swung their cameras around) to see it fly over — at a more mundane 1500 ft or so.
Here’s a short video I created of the event:
Still it was fun to get to see it with the big crowd and to hang out with others while waiting for its appearance! I was there with the Geek Club Meetup group.
Here’s a great time-lapse video of the shuttle being maneuvered along the streets of Los Angeles.
Saturday was my first day of making over 60 kWh of sunny power in a single day! Yay!
With my average daily consumption down in the 20’s of kWhs (at least before the heat pump went in), PG&E is clearly going to be paying me! And that’s using all this free electricity to heat the house (heat pump = no propane!) and to charge my Nissan LEAF (electric car = no gas!) Sweet.
It’s tough to know what my consumption is any more because a) PG&E doesn’t provide daily usage data once you switch to a time-of-use meter (lame) and b) it would only read net usage (after solar production) so I still wouldn’t know. Yeah, SunPower does offer a consumption monitoring hookup but I’m still trying to find out through my installer how much they would charge and I guess there’s some question about whether it can handle both my main and sub-panel.
All I do know is that I’m making more than I use. Double-sweet.
Okay, well… more like 9200 basic watts, but still….
So one of the first things I wanted to do when I finally bought a house was put in a solar PV system.
My system consists of forty SunPower E18 230 watt panels. For the fastest return on investment, you want to size a system based on your yearly consumption to just keep you out of the more expensive rate tiers. However, at 9.2 kW DC, my system is much larger than necessary because I just love the idea of offsetting * all * of my electricity consumption with solar generation. (And even get a little compensation from PG&E for any net excess for the year.)
I already drive an electric car (a Nissan LEAF) for nearby destinations but I fully expect that in a couple more years I’ll be able to trade in for something that will let me do all my driving via electricity. I’m also looking to get a heat pump installed soon to avoid needing to use propane as much. So I expect to be able to use much more of what I’m now generating.
It’s December now — winter in the northern hemisphere and so the sun is low in the sky and the days are short but the system is already generating around 5500 watts AC at peak in full sunshine and even 2100 watts when cloudy/overcast. Sweet! All told, it’s generating over 30 kWH on a sunny day — and it’s winter! That’s much more than my current average daily consumption. Of course that’s with me not commuting right now (so not charging the car as much) and no electric heat pump yet.
In summer, the peak production should be closer to 8000 watts AC and the days will be longer but the mornings can often be foggy in the summer here. And of course there will be days with little sun. It’ll be fun to see how my little power plant does over the course of the year though!
By the way, Solar Technologies was a great installer and I highly recommend them! And remember, you can even have solar installed with no money down with a lease: you replace your monthly electric bill with a smaller lease payment!
Plugincars.com recently put out a couple of “guides” that make fun of all the anti-EV arguments — they’re up to two chapters now. Kinda fun:
http://www.plugincars.com/ev-haters-guide-chapter-2-107607.html
http://www.plugincars.com/ev-haters-guide-hating-electric-cars-107560.html
I definitely encounter these folk now and again — one today at a biking group lunch of eight or so who were otherwise enthusiastic.