Immense gratitude to @VacuumWars for shining a spotlight on Ascender project. Founded in 2022, we're newcomers next to giants like iRobot, Ecovacs, and Dreame. Yet, our dynamism and passion drive us to create the ultimate robot for everyone. With support from leading VCs, we've assembled an elite robotics team, overcoming significant challenges to develop this groundbreaking robot vacuum. Crucially, Ascender is supported by one of the top robot cleaner manufacturers, ensuring robust supply chains, exceptional product quality, and strong brand presence. Keep an eye out-Ascender is gearing up for its Kickstarter debut! A huge thank you to everyone involved!
I'm curious to know how this could work with different floor types, and how much battery is lost due to the climbing action, and how it differentiates between different rooms. I would like it to clean the halls in our apartment building, but I wouldn't want it to do the mopping action on the garage floor. I also wouldn't want it to try and enter peoples rooms
Exactly! Kickstarter is a complete gamble at this point. You'll be lucky to get your product 2 year after the promised deadline. But... Now I'm not sure about what to do. I wanted to upgrade my old Xiaomi Mijia to the new spinning-style vacuum mop with a base fill\empty station... But that one is about $700, and now I'm thinking about waiting for this stair-climber to be tested before I upgrade. My main floor is flat, but in my basement there are 4 different rooms that have floor transition is 1.5" and higher. So even if I'll take my current one downstairs, it won't be able to clean the space. This stairs-climber is a live saver for me (if it will actually deliver all its promises).
mecanum wheel have much less traction than a regular wheel due to less surface area. It is also extremely loud, as loud as you shaking a can full of marbles. The omni direction movement control is a bit tricky, since depend on dirt/hair accumulated on the wheel, different wheel will have different friction. It might become hard to synchronize the wheels torque to move straight. Thus it might just move in a swerve direction instead of straight. Technically this affect regular wheel robot too, but they only have two wheels so it's easier to synchronize and compensate for loss of traction from dirt on wheel. But on a mecanum wheel configuration, all 4 wheels need to synchronize to move forward straight. The lower initial traction and uneven dirt contamination might cause the robot to not move straight unless there is some type of feed back control that compensate for the different loss in traction. But the biggest problem is still going to be the wheel noise. I used mecanum in robot application before. They are extremely loud. Unless they have some sort of noise cover or have much better bearing lubrication than regular mecanum wheel, it's going to be way too loud for indoor application. On the side note, it would be interesting to see how they detect obstacle while climbing the stair. In our lab, we usually have a separate telescoping camera to look from above to see obstacle placed on the next stair step. But their design doesnt seem to have a camera that can see above stair step. Unless the two climbing arm have a camera attached in addition to the main body camera. Would be great if the company manage to solve all the pain points.
Interestingly, while some of the graphics do show mecanum wheels, others show swivel wheels. Their website's graphics are all swivel wheels, so they might have come the the same conclusion that mecanum wheels are not the best fit
Honestly my Roomba is already noisy AF. A normal vacuum is even louder. A quiet robot vacuum is a nice luxury but not a necessity imo. The ability not to go straight could be more of a problem. Honestly even the ability to stairs and not clean them would be a game changer. It doesn't also need to drive sideways if it's going to cause problems like you say. My brother's place has a single step down into the living room. This would mean he could now use a robot vacuum. That it could also go upstairs and vacuum? Chefs kiss. He would be more than happy to clean the stairs himself.
Good to see a new competitor in the market... someone to keep the fire lit behind RoboRock and iRobot. And I agree with you This could be a real game changer
Unfortunately they just sent a message out today to all backers that they need an addition $5M in funding. Thankfully they are returning all kickstarter funds. It sounds like they’re still perusing it, but didn’t want to make their backers wait potentially years. So as a backer I appreciate that. Awfully disappointed though, was very excited for it.
This thing just sounds too good to be true. It is very hard to believe they could live up to all those promises. I smell a kickstarter run and hide situation. I am though VERY excited to see if they actually succeed with it. I might think about getting the next generation of it after all the kinks have been worked out.
@@float32 robovacs/mops already do that. I can tell your new to the technology so I'd suggest actually doing research rather than just assuming things based off your imagination 😉
@@BaawBee I have two: iRobot J7+ and a Dreame L20 Ultra (top vacuum/mop according to this channel). They are both round. They both are pretty terrible at corners, relying on that little spinning brush. If it were rectangular, it could, you know, fit in the corner.
I just backed this last night and managed to grab the LAST spot on the “launch package.” Where it was $799 with an extra accessory package. I really hope this works out. Your preview here helped me decide when you compared the battery, pressure, and suction power. I just hope they live up to it.
Very awesome you're covering this. I feel their effort deserves at least more attention then its been receiving. I am very concerned about the early adopter pains it might bring though. So it would be cool if in addition to your normal testing, you could do some follow up reviews on how it fairs over time.
Hopefully this forces ecovacs and Roborock and others to create similar products. I have a X1 Omni then the square head X2 comes out fixes most of my issues by getting into corners and walls better and lifting mopping pads. But this is an entire new level I didn't think would be achieved. 👌🏻
Looks slick but it still needs to vacuum/mop efficiently. Aside from still dragging a dirty pad over carpets (even at 2 cm) and soft edged stairs, here are a few points: 1) The pivoting vacuum head width seems very small in relation to the whole device (especially versus the 16in. width with the climbing arm/batteries). It's going to need to get dirt to the "mouth". Can the rotating side brushes do that and especially near chair legs, etc? 2) Large battery capacity but with the small rollers how many passes and how long will it take to complete? 3) For those with pets, what is the dust bin capacity and what does empty/resume look like if its on a different floor? This is the whole question of whether climbing and cleaning stairs really makes sense. Climbing is one thing but even hand push vacuums require different configurations for cleaning stairs. The required narrowness will always significantly reduce performance in open spaces. Maybe where this rests is to climb but not clean and get out the wand or hand vac for the stairs. We'll see and good luck, guys!
Looks like the swath (vacuuming width) is much narrower in this design - no surprise pressure can be much higher. It'll need that bigger battery for all the passes it will take for a given area.
Opening and closing doors is the final frontier. You can buy multiple robots for every floor but if the door is closed out too open then it can't enter or it can't clean behind the door.
@@Catsrules1 there is a spot behind the doors that they can't reach. Vacuums won't push a door. It's not about unlocking but rotating it out of the way
I supported Migo Robotics through their kickstarter campaign after learning about them on this channel . I have a lot of faith in the company and the product but so far there has not been a lot of third party information / opinions available. Would love to see an updated factory visit / dev video from your eyes. And of course cross my fingers everything works out as planned for them, and therefore also for me as early backer :)
Very cool product from this startup, I always enjoy potentially disruptive and innovative products, and even moreso in a product category that is already innovative by default. I have some questions though, mostly related to wear and tear and day to day use, and also I wonder how it deals with stairs that don't have perfect 90 degree angles (such as spiral stairs), staircase runners/carpets, and stairs with treads that hang over the risers. If they can tackle those issues I think I would seriously consider buying it.
Pretty much. Tbh actually going to spend £650 to remove a step that connects my utility room and my kitchen, and add vinyl Then the utility room's floor would be raised slightly. The ONLY reason for me to do so is so that a robot can easily go between the two, and then I can leave the kitchen closed with the windows open in winter. That's a big plus. I'd also want a separate robot for say bathrooms because they're often quite dirty in a way but there's not many small ones. There's the Switchbot but the mop on the K10+ is a bit rubbish.
@@stephaniewilson8706 if you have carpet stairs, well that sucks, but any hard floor stairs like ours can be easily swept. I’m lazy, so I don’t even sweep it up. Down to the bottom for the vacuum to eat.
The one thing that struck me in this promo is that we didn’t get any video of this robot climbing back down the stairs. I’m assuming that has a few challenges
It seems odd to give awareness to a product that might charge people and never deliver. Its a cool project but, there are no guarantees of them honoring early backers or living up to the expectations. Just my 2c, there should be a heads up about this, people might think that they are backing something that will arrive, it might not. Also, why is the app design exactly like the old roborock app? The icons, color and layout is all the same 🤔🤔
Hello, our app was built upon a public, open-source robot vacuum app framework, which we've significantly enhanced with Ascender's unique functionalities. It's true some icons might appear similar, likely because we originated from the same source code but diverged through our modifications. Plus, like most sophisticated crowdfunding campaigns today, we offer an unconditional refund policy.
@@MigoRobotics thank you for clarifying on the app part, that makes sense. I'm still hesitant about the refunding part, many crowd funded projects have said that in the past and here we are, with nothing delivered or deliveries that take years to arrive with sub-par quality. I reckon people would feel safer if you just went with a VC out of the box like matic robot.
I hope it does well but im concerned with it having mopping liquid in there making it worse at stair climbing.. on top of needing to go down or up a staircase just to charge and empty its bag and fill up its water tank. I think migo robotics needs a multi level docking station so that process can be done on each floor and it could empty its tank prior to climbing stairs.
Ascender can navigate stairs of various heights, widths, and styles. Please note that the stairs' height should be under 8.7 inches/22 cm, and the minimum width of circular/spiral stairs on the widest side should be 5.9 inches/15 cm. A rule of thumb: If an adult can comfortably step on the stairs, Ascender should be well-equipped to manage them.
Very cool! I hope it works out but I definitely won’t be a first gen beta tester. That said, this also has a feel of too good to be true so my scam alert is twitching a bit.
Yeah when a company is trying to be that transparent and show all the processes etc it's incredibly shady. And as a new company coming out with something no other manufacturer is even close to doing AND doing everything the other manufacturers are doing but much better? Yeah no, I'm not that gullible.
Hey I know this channel focuses on vacuums but I’ve seen you branched out to air purifiers too. Would you consider also testing portable air conditioners? I feel it’d be a good fit and admittedly I would like to see your testing on one.
We can keep that in mind but it would really require a whole suite of testing that we haven't developed yet. So it would be a good long while. We appreciate your confidence though. Thank you.
can we get 5ghz wifi support? i bought a roomba second hand and absolutely cannot get this thing to connect via my iphone. so it's pretty much ewaste unless i sell it...
This over a newer RR model? RR has already established its brand. RR has worked out issues in some models, but is more expensive than this kickstart model and doesn't climb and clean stairs...
I wouldn’t be surprised it It gets to the top of the stairs and alerts you that the battery needs to be recharged. I don’t see this feature being convenient for at least another 5 years
Instead of buying a robot that climbs stairs, I just do this: 1) buy a robot for each level of floors you have (think of it as a long term investment on wear and tear) 2) To clean my hard wood stairs, I just get my powerful leaf blower and blow the heck out of the stairs every couple months Viola now I don’t have to invest in a stair climbing vacuum
Stairs is not the final boss when it comes to automated vacuum cleaners. Chords, objects and logic are! AI needs to take over this whole computer vision thing in order for everything to work as you'd expect. Cheers!
why is water dripping from my braava jet® m6? water runs under the Brava when I lift it up on the back side it drips where the battery is WHY?THANK YOU. I am from greece
Was gonna say "oh hot dang, where's my wallet" but the first comment I saw brought me back to reality on "not first gen". While I'm more then happy to be bleeding edge of tech, even expensive things, I'm not sure this would work for me. I'm in a single floor apartment, so the stairs aren't a thing to worry about. The little animation of moving a trash can is awesome... but what about a full trashcan? As another comment mentioned, those wheels have less traction so moving a full pin is gonna be harder, and most of my stuff are normal full size bins... so even harder to pull off. I would need to see other features if I would get any use out of this or if it's just a fancy combo unit. Also... the iRobot + Amazon deal fell through? Oh snap.
Hi There, this is Bryan from Migo Robotics. Thank you for your kind words! Regarding moving the trash can, it would only be triggered when the trash can is on hard floor not carpet and the "smart cleaning" mode has to be manually turned on from the APP. And Ascender has enough traction to push heavy trash can up to 5KG (note: plastic bin on hard wood floor).
I'm wondering how expensive it will be. Like, if one of those stairs climbing Roomba is more expensive than two of your typical robot vacuums, then why not buy two regular vacuums and place each on each floor?
I'm interested I'll wait to see people try it before I get it but I've been waiting for this I have allot of steps in my house and that's the only reason I don't have a robot vacuum
I'm taking the gamble, As long as it helps maintain the fur from all the animals in my home I'll be happy. I don't need it to be perfect I just need it to keep the fur down.
Refurbished options for almost any quality vacuum model are widely available online and in stores like Ollie's. Could you take a look at the buyer value of these in a video?
I hope this will actually turn into a good product and please no vacuum cleaner bags in the station. I hate having to buy those, takes away from the autonomy level.
