After a few days with Claude trying to make navigation and positioning precise and accurate, I now understand why my robot vacuum is so dumb.
- I carried the robot to another room and for 10 minutes it couldn't figure out where it was. A vacuum in that situation honestly asks you to build the map again
- the camera sometimes confidently reports that the robot flew off 133 metres. Had to write a filter that doesn't believe jumps over half a metre
- there's a 30 cm blind zone in front and nothing at all behind. The robot pushed its rear into a wall for 70 seconds thinking it was driving. Now it's clear why the vacuum has a bumper it keeps kicking things with: it's the cheapest and most reliable sensor
- while exploring the flat the robot leaves a room without finishing the corners and then comes back. Exactly like the vacuum
And that's one flat, good light and a robot that knows everything about itself: geometry, turning radius, where the camera is. A $2000 vacuum has a lidar, a bumper and cliff sensors and it still gets stuck under the sofa. I respect it now.