Right now, their chinese OEM bought them and seems to be committed to keeping their robovacs alive.
It is my understanding that US availability of the top models (such as 705 combo) may be limited, so here is a german youtube channel that has a lot of reviews of their newer units and compares them to the old ones (usually the S9 or 980, as those are the best units when it comes to vacuuming): https://www.youtube.com/@frickhelm/videos
I have one, and specifically got one without a camera because I don't want that driving around my house. The first time it went through I made sure to stow cables and such, and I do a quick walk-through to make sure that none of the cats have barfed and that there's no obvious obstacles before I release the hypnodrone.
It still saves me time, which was the reason that I bought it in the first place.
I was hoping that this is how it would work for System76 -- when I bought the laptop they sold replacement batteries. Five years later I find myself needing a battery and they are unavailable -- not on System76's website, not online, nowhere. My only option is to either replace the laptop or buy a used one and take the battery from that, hoping that it's good.
For the last six months I've just been using a laptop as a mini pc with no battery.
Yeah, but is it OEM? Even big names like Dell don't support their parts for that long, and you have to resort to getting sketchy third-party parts from China, or rolling the dice on a used OEM part.
> The hardware supplier that we use no longer has the battery. Therefore, we cannot sell you the battery. What we can do is provide you with the part numbers so you can source it elsewhere. If you're considering sourcing the battery for the Darter Pro 5 from another supplier, please note that the model number for the battery is N150BAT-4, and the original part number is 6-87-N15ZS-51E01. Third-party battery sellers may display one or both of these numbers and might also list other compatible part numbers that are suitable for the same model.
It's actually a Darter Pro 6, but the battery part number is correct in that text.
You can not purchase this battery, it no longer exists. There are a few sketchy websites which say that they sell it, but they will cancel your order a few days after placing it and tell you that there is "lack of material".
I use laptops since the 90‘. I only ever wanted to get a new battery. Everthing else never had anybsignificant problem, or started to have problems when the machine was already obsolete (5 to 10 years). While I like the Frameworks, I personally don’t see lots of advantages in terms of reparability, ovly eventually in making one with exactly what I need and no more. But then they are a little pricey.
Had to replace the NVME SSD in my Thinkpad a few years after it went out of warranty (that Thinkpad has a motherboard replacement on warranty as well). Needed to replace the fan in an older Thinkpad after 9 years.
Unfortunately the quality of Thinkpads went downhill after Lenovo took over, they used to be really good. But there is nothing else with trackpoints these days, which I vastly prefer over touchpads. (And even on some old Dells that had trackpoints, they never felt as good as on Thinkpads.) Also, Linux support was always very good, though that is less of an issue these days.
Never had to replace a battery though, but I always used that "don't charge more than 80%" mode. My old Thinkpad with a Core 2 Duo from 2009 still gets over a hour of battery (though the laptop is largely unusable for any practical use these days).
I don't mind repairing electronics in general, even on a component level if need be (as long as the components are large enough that I can see them, which really isn't the case any longer with tiny SMD components). And I tend to use things for a very long time rather than replace them. I'm still rocking a Dell monitor from 2013 for example.
I've also had laptops since the 90s, but my experience is the opposite. I've upgraded something in most of them. Almost all of them got RAM and storage upgrades. One got a mostly-compatible motherboard upgrade that required grinding down a couple bits on the frame to make it fit, and I got to have a 4:3 IPS display for a bit longer.
I love the idea of the Framework. I don't love the lack of a trackpoint, or the pricing. I'm willing to forgive the latter since it's a small company with a mission I appreciate. There's likely a Framework 16 in my future eventually.
If you keep them at about 50% and avoid temperature extremes, it doesn't take a PhD in electrochemistry. The thing is, fancy battery packs usually do contain active electronics that drain the cells slowly in storage, so it's necessary to charge them a little a couple times a year.
Yes, good idea. I do have a large freezer. Vacuum seal it, charge to 60% one time per year. Adjust charge interval to whatever remains after 12 months. It has to stay above 30%.
That'll probably be the last time that happens since a lot of places are starting to require parts be made available for some years after the last sale of the device.
I noticed that the battery properties (voltage, etc) were uncommon, as I considered other batteries that would physically fit within the available space.
At the end of the day it's probably worth replacing it with something that probably won't burn my house down.
I almost pulled the trigger on a mini PC over the summer, but said "the laptop still works, you don't really need this" and now it would be 30 or 40% more because of ddr5 and NVMe cost spikes.
A lot of System76 laptops are essentially rebadged versions of Chinese or Taiwanese ODMs. You might have some luck trying to research what model the ODM produces the laptop as and find replacement batteries for that instead of focusing on finding System76 branded batteries.
I had no idea about this. I don't see how anybody who is buying one of these because of the repair-ability would complete the purchase if they knew this. I also don't see how they can make all of their user-friendly claims if this is the case.
I'm running my lemur pro with no battery (on a UPS) now too. My first battery ballooned and then I got a second aftermarket one and it balooned too -- Yikes!
Depending on the model you might be able to find it online. My system 76 had a “Clevo” ID on the bottom sticker ( the company that manufactures the computers) I used to buy a replacement fan.
It’s too bad there isn’t standard cells anymore. I did notice my Bluetooth speaker (which had replacement batteries available) also had instruction videos floating around on buying replacement cells and rebuilding the battery pack.
Laptop packs I don’t think are typically made of replacable cells.
The article author claims that the "don't waste an element" code is also more efficient, but that claim seems to be based on a hard-on about the post-increment operator, rather than any kind of dive into the cyclometric complexity, or even, y'know, just looking at the assembler output from the compiler.
Too late and unless pricing changed too expensive.
I was amazed when I got this Roborock a year ago it was 2-250 on sale via Amazon. Just a vacuum but it has lidar. I remember it mapping the floor and was amazed how well it worked.
I've been happy with the Roborock but I did not expect it to match the cleaning levels of a human. I can run it while I'm not there or doing other tasks, though, and it does a good enough job until I feel the need to intervene.
When I was looking at getting one, the iRobot one took hours / days to map out a house and it needed the lights on to do that. The Roborock model could do this in 15 to 30 minutes, and it could do it in the dark because it used LiDAR instead of a camera.
That was several years ago now, and iRobot _just_ added LiDAR to their latest models.
I have a Roborock too. It is certainly good at quickly creating a reasonably accurate map, but it just gets stuck so easily. Things like going into an enclosed corner but unable to get out. Or going into a room, cleaning the floor just behind the door such that the door shuts and now unable to leave the room. I certainly cannot run it while not at home. It will just get stuck.
I wonder if they fell into a sunk cost fallacy with their camera-based approach.
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