I fell in love over email, in love with Looj. IRobot, maker of Roomba and Scooba and other cute little household robots, sent me a press release announcing a gutter-cleaning robot, the Looj. I loved the name; it seemed so soft and friendly. I liked the price, $100 to $170, depending on accessories. I loved the concept, stick a cute little gizmo in the gutter and stand back and watch it blast through the mulch; here in Silicon Valley, in a two-story house with a steep roof, directly under 200 year old live oaks that drop nasty spiky leaves year round, clogged gutters are a nasty fact of life that I’d love to have someone else (besides my husband perched precariously on an extension ladder) take care of. Someone, or something, I guess, like Looj.
So I thought Looj and I could have a serious, long-term relationship. Looj would be my first real robot friend, since Petster. (Admittedly cute, but did nothing useful.)
But though I lusted after Looj, Looj didn’t want me.
“Looj is designed for standard K or J style gutters,” the folks at iRobot said.
We’ve got K style gutters, brand new last October, so I figured I was good, this new, they had to be standard; the only choice I recall being offered was color.
I was wrong. My husband printed out the Looj template, climbed up on the roof, and tried to put it into the gutter. It didn’t fit. It was too wide.
“We estimate that over 23 million homes can use Looj,” an iRobot spokesperson told me.
Guess I’m just special.
But I figured if I couldn’t have Looj for my very own, maybe someone else at IEEE Spectrum could, and I could at least have a once-removed relationship with the critter. Spectrum business manager Robert Ross, with a colonial house in Southampton, N.Y., was game, and he printed out the template. Nope, Looj didn’t want him either; his 87-old copper gutters are decidedly non-standard.
Since it looks like I’ll be Looj-less for some time (iRobot has no plans right now to make the device in any other form factors), my husband this weekend rigged together a gutter cleaner out of an electric leaf blower and lots of PVC pipe. It’s big, and clunky, and loud---not nearly as lovable as little Looj. Sigh.
