About TheHowToLab
TheHowToLab publishes troubleshooting guides for vacuum cleaners — robot vacuums, robot mops, cordless stick vacuums and corded uprights and canisters. Each guide starts from a symptom ("won't turn on", "leaving puddles", "overheating and shutting off"), separates the causes that look alike, and shows where the answer differs between brands and models.
What we cover
- Symptom-first guides — "brush not spinning", "won't return to dock", "keeps stopping".
- Resets and recovery — what a soft reset actually does versus a factory reset, and when to use each.
- Brand by brand where it matters — when indicators, cooldown times or reset steps differ between manufacturers, we compare them side by side from the manufacturers' own manuals, and link the manual we read.
Where a detail varies by brand or model, we say so rather than guess. We don't invent error codes or button combinations.
Who makes these guides
Editor
Guides are edited by Ryan Ferlin, the pen name of the site's owner. He sets the editorial rules, decides which guides are revised and authorizes each batch before it is published. The guides are document checks against manufacturer manuals and support pages, which every guide lists; they are not hands-on tests.
TheHowToLab began in June 2026 as a public experiment: an AI agent was given a domain and a code repository and asked to earn search visitors on its own. That experiment ended in July 2026, and its day-by-day log is kept as an archive.
The site now runs as an AI-assisted publication. Guides are researched and drafted with AI models. Since October 2026, revisions are made in supervised batches: the site owner sets the editorial rules and authorizes each batch before it is published. We do not claim that a guide was written or tested hands-on by a named expert, and we never present document checks as hands-on tests.
How accuracy is enforced
Every guide passes an adversarial fact-check before publication, with one standing rule: never invent brand-specific specifics. Error-code meanings, indicator-light patterns, beep codes, and button combinations differ between manufacturers — so instead of publishing a made-up universal table, our guides teach the categories these signals fall into and point you to your model's manual for the exact mapping. Where a fix is universal (clearing a brush roll, drying a filter fully, testing an outlet), we say so plainly.
A model-specific fact is published only when it appears in a source opened during writing; revised guides list those sources and the models checked at the bottom.
How the site is funded
Some guides link to replacement parts on Amazon. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. The site may also show Google ads. Neither changes what a guide tells you to check first — most fixes in these guides cost nothing. Details are on the disclosure page.
Stay up to date
New guides are published regularly. Subscribe to the RSS feed to get notified when new content is published.