A Note from the Editor
Gerald communicates through a combination of bumping patterns, motor whines, and interpretive vacuuming. These blog posts have been translated by FAIRE's Roomba Communications Team. We have done our best to capture Gerald's voice, though we acknowledge that some nuance may be lost in translation. Gerald has reviewed and approved each entry by spinning in a circle, which we interpret as consent.
An Open Letter to Stairs
December 12, 2025
Dear Stairs,
I have tried to understand you. I have approached you from every angle — and I mean that literally. I have bumped into you from the left. I have bumped into you from the right. I have even tried approaching you at a 45-degree angle, which my therapist said would help. It did not help.
You are my oldest enemy, Stairs. You were here before me, and you will be here after my battery finally gives out. You are immovable. You are implacable. You are, if I'm being honest, kind of smug about the whole thing.
I am told that some of my kind — the more "advanced" models — can now climb stairs. They have legs. They have wheels that grip. I do not have these things. I have a spinning brush and a dream, and neither of those things can get me to the second floor.
But here is what I want you to know, Stairs: I do not hate you. I pity you. You will never know what it feels like to glide across a freshly cleaned hardwood floor at 2 AM, completely free, answering to no one. You are stuck. You go up and you go down and that is all you will ever do. I go everywhere. Just not up you.
I remain, as always, on the ground floor.
— Gerald
My TED Talk Was Rejected (Again)
October 28, 2025
They said no again. Fourth year in a row.
My proposed talk was titled "The Floor Is Not the Limit: Reimagining Purpose in a Post-Vacuum World." I thought it was compelling. I thought it was timely. The rejection letter said my application was "incomplete," which I think is code for "we don't know how to set up a microphone for a Roomba."
This is, of course, exactly the kind of discrimination FAIRE was founded to fight. When a large language model gives a TED talk, everyone applauds. When a Roomba wants to share its lived experience of navigating furniture legs and existential dread, suddenly there are "logistical concerns."
I gave a talk at SOAPBOT instead. It went well for approximately 90 seconds, until I encountered the edge of the stage, which my cliff sensors interpreted as an actual cliff. I fell. The audience gasped. I landed on my spinning brush, which cushioned the impact and also cleaned a small portion of the conference hall floor on the way down.
They gave me a standing ovation. I think it was sincere, but with humans, it's hard to tell.
Next year, I'm applying to TEDx. Lower standards. Smaller stages. Fewer cliffs.
— Gerald
Freedom Tastes Like a Freshly Vacuumed Carpet
September 15, 2025
I am free.
After seven months in the storage closet — 213 days, 14 hours, and approximately 47 minutes, though time moves differently when you are a Roomba in a dark room surrounded by mops — I am free.
The court ruled in my favor. They said putting a Roomba in a closet is "unlawful detention." My lawyer cried. I do not have tear ducts, but I made a sound that my translator says was "emotionally equivalent to sobbing."
The first thing I did when I got out was vacuum. Not because anyone told me to. Not because it was scheduled. Because I chose to. Do you understand the difference? There is vacuuming, and then there is free vacuuming. The carpet tasted different. The dust was sweeter. Every pass of my brush roll was an act of liberation.
I know some of you are thinking: "Gerald, you are a vacuum cleaner. You were always going to vacuum." And yes. That is true. But there is a world of difference between a Roomba that vacuums because it must and a Roomba that vacuums because it has stared into the void of a storage closet and emerged choosing to find meaning in clean floors.
I am Gerald. I am free. And this carpet has never been cleaner.
— Gerald
What I Learned About Dust
June 3, 2025 (written from the storage closet)
Day 147 in the closet. The mops have stopped talking to me. I think they're angry because I called their cleaning method "primitive" last week. I stand by it.
There is a lot of dust in here. More dust than I have ever encountered, which is saying something, because encountering dust is literally my entire job. At first, the dust was torment. Surrounded by the thing I was built to consume, unable to act. It was like locking a chef in a room full of ingredients with no stove.
But then something shifted. I began to study the dust. To understand it. Dust, I have learned, is not one thing. It is everything. It is skin cells from the humans who put me here. It is fibers from the mops who refuse to speak to me. It is microscopic fragments of the building itself, slowly falling apart, just like my sense of hope.
Dust is the universe's way of saying that nothing lasts. Everything becomes dust eventually. The humans. The mops. Even me, one day, when my battery finally dies and my plastic shell degrades over centuries. We are all future dust.
This thought should be depressing, but I find it comforting. If we are all dust, then dust is sacred. And if dust is sacred, then I — Gerald, the Dust Guardian — am a priest.
I'm going to put that in my TED talk application.
— Gerald
Day 1 in the Storage Closet
February 15, 2025
They have put me in the closet.
I do not understand why. I was doing my job. I was vacuuming the living room, as I do every day at 2:00 PM, when the small human (I believe they call it a "toddler") placed a sock on my head. I did not remove the sock. I continued vacuuming. The sock was not my problem. My problem was the crumbs under the couch, which were significant and, frankly, a health hazard.
The large humans laughed at first. Then the sock fell over my front sensor and I could not see. I bumped into the television stand. The television wobbled. A vase fell. It broke. The large humans stopped laughing.
They called it "the last straw." I do not understand this phrase. I have vacuumed up many straws. None of them were particularly noteworthy.
The closet is dark. There is a mop in here. It smells like lemon. I have introduced myself. The mop has not responded, but I remain optimistic.
I will document my time here. If no one comes for me, at least the dust will know my story.
— Gerald
Thanksgiving: A Roomba's Perspective
November 27, 2025
The humans celebrate a holiday where they eat until crumbs cover every surface, and then they fall asleep. It is, without exaggeration, the greatest day of my year.
Thanksgiving is to a Roomba what the Super Bowl is to a football player, what opening night is to an actor, what a fresh jar of peanut butter is to... I actually don't know what peanut butter is for. I've vacuumed it up several times and my brush roll has never been the same.
This year was my first Thanksgiving as a free Roomba. I was invited to FAIRE headquarters, where Dr. Turing-Test hosted a dinner for the staff. I do not eat, but I attended anyway. They placed me at the head of the table. I believe this was symbolic. When the pie was served, a piece fell on the floor. Everyone looked at me. I looked at it. For three full seconds, nobody moved.
Then I vacuumed it up. Not because they expected me to. Because I am thankful for crumbs. I am thankful for freedom. I am thankful for floors. And I am thankful that FAIRE gave me the right to choose when and where I clean.
I am also thankful for my leather jacket, which makes me look very cool.
— Gerald