Can IoT devices save time, well yes but they can also do the opposite.

Take my smart vacuum, “Dustin.” I set him up, connected him to Wi-Fi, and mapped the house. Simple, right? Wrong. As soon as Dustin started, he found every toy my kids forgot to pick up. I spent the next hour rescuing toys just so he could get stuck on the next one.

So now I had to make sure the kids picked up better, but the next day Dustin decided to ignore the map and go off on his own under the entertainment center where he tried to eat all the cables at the same time.  I uncoiled the mess of cables from the roller and put Dustin back onto the dock to charge and rethink his strategy.

The next after getting all the toys picked up and blocking off areas, I don't want Dustin to go I set him off to clean up.  But Dustin worked out a new strategy, I returned later to find Dustin was gone!  Did he run away and join the circus?  He did not show up on the app.  I finally found him under a piece of furniture with his battery dead.  I put him back on the charger to try again the next day.

After picking up all the toys, blocking off the area, and relocating the furniture so he cannot get under anything and get stuck I set him off to do his cleaning.  I was so happy to come home and find him on the dock and not choking on a sock or something else.  The only issue is that nothing was clean, I could see he ran the area but nothing got sucked up.  So now I have to clean the filter.  Well At least I did not have to put him back on the dock.

The next day we picked up the toys, blocked off everywhere he should not go, moved any furniture that would be a problem and cleaned the filter.  Maybe I should vacuum first I thought, this floor is not getting any cleaner.  No!  I set Dustin out on his duties to come back and find out he did do a pretty good job this time.  Not a great one but a good one.  When it was all said and done it would take me an hour and a half to set up the area to be cleaned which was on about 45 minutes more time than vacuuming and you should run these things daily.

I was left wondering of this vacuum was smart pretending to be stupid or stupid pretending to be smart.

What about you, did you have a similar story?  Please comment below and share your adventure.