Here's what I've found out during my inital mapping attempts... Based on its initial attempts to map my home, I believe the "smart mapping" capability was designed primarily to deal with homes that have "square rooms" and "flat ceilings". Unfortunately, my Condo has neither... The cathedral ceilings in my living room and master bedroom seem to completely baffle the Powerbot Turbo's ceiling camera to the point where it will map about half the room and never even try to go completely to the other side. I also have angular walls in my living room and dining room that aren't layed out in perfect squares like the example picture in the select and go option. So if I put the charger on one of the angled walls the the Powerbot Turbo starts on a diagonal and matains that same diagonal on the rest of the rooms in the house, even though they ARE in a square layout, which makes the Powerbot Turbo have to do 10x the number of passes that it would if it just adapted to the orientation of the walls in each room it encounters. So when trying to map a floor that is only about 1200 square feet, it often runs out of battery before it can finish and get back to the charger. Lastly, when it "thinks" it's done mapping, even if it has plenty of charge left... it often just "gives up" trying to find the charger. Actually, after about 4 attempts at mapping, it's NEVER actually found its way back to the charger on it's own. VERDICT: The Mapping Function on SAMSUNG POWERBOT TURBO Definitely is *NOT* Ready For Prime Time. Here are some initial suggestions I would make to Samsung's "Smart Mapping" programmers... 1. If the powerbot can't deal with cathedral ceilings, it should at least be able to identify them and default back to the bump and go method of mapping rooms. Alternately, there should be a setting in the app that allows the user to check "Cathedral Ceilings" to disable the vertical camera during mapping. 2. The powerbot should reset it's "orientation" for each room it encounters. That way if the charger base it placed on a wall that is diagonal to most of the rooms in the home, it doesn't lock itself into "diagonally" vaccuming "square" rooms. 3. The default for how long the Powerbot will search for the Charging station before powering down either needs to be increased SIGNIFICANTLY, or there should again be a user selectable checkbox in the app that gives the user the option to let it search until it runs out of power. 4. The Powerbot should NOT completely kill the ENTIRE mapping process and force the user to START OVER if it stops for any reason during the mapping process, (e.g. gets stuck, gets low on power, loses connection, etc...). There should be a RESUME option whereby the Powerbot can be placed in the general vicinity of where it stopped and let it continue mapping. 5. Finally... There should be a user selectable option to allow the Powerbot mapping function to be "Additive", rather than just a one time function. That way, if it doesn't get the mapping right the first time, each successive time the Powerbot vaccums, it would simply get "Smarter" by adding to the previous map(s) when it discovers any addition (or deletion) of area that it didn't discover in the original mapping set up. DEAR SAMSUNG, THE "SMART" MAPPING FUNCTION IS ONE OF THE MAJOR CAPABILITIES THAT SETS YOUR PRODUCT APART FROM COMPETITORS. IF WE JUST WANTED A BUMP AND GO "DUMB" VACUUM WE COULD JUST GET A CHEAPER ROOMBA, WHICH HAS BEEN OFFERING BUMP AND GO DUMB VACCUMS FOR A DECADE. FOR A $1000 VACCUM THAT'S BEEN IN REFINEMENT FOR A COUPLE YEARS, YOU SHOULD BE FURTHER ALONG IN MAKING IT WORK THE WAY YOU ADVERTISE THAT IT WILL. SINCERELY, NOT VERY IMPRESSED SO FAR
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