Despite all the marketing materials and pack of sensors and other technology guided by sophisticated AI the consumer grade robots are not quite there yet. While my new little assistant was able to get around the house quite well and map the place it got already confused by a few things on it's first cleaning run.
The first thing wasn't so much of the shortcomings of it's intelligence, it was just a demonstration of such designs issues. While cleaning the carpet it got stuck on some strings the cats had pulled out of it. The long string, still attached to the carpet from the other end got strangled around it's tires and it was helplessly going in circles trying to get free. Easy solution was to go through the carpet and carefully cut out all the loose strings. I hope the cats wont produce any more traps for it.
The other situation was more about it's situational awareness of it's surroundings and ability to navigate (not even so) complex environment. At the mapping run it was able to chart the under the table space just fine, but on the cleaning run it managed to get itself trapped there. It can barely fit there between the chair legs, but for some reason it didn't seem to get out anymore. After a while watching it struggle and hoping it would eventually find it's way out I had to finally remove one of the chairs so it was able to continue it's duties.
Maybe I should define the table area as "no-go zone" so it won't get trapped there again. I can always move the chairs and only then instruct it to clean under the table.