I have trouble getting around my house in the dark without barking a shin or stubbing a toe, even though I’ve lived there for 20 years and none of the objects that bruise me is capable of moving on its own.

Yet some entrepreneurs want me to buy a device that, so far as I can tell, would have the run of my place and could at any time ambush me.

The makers of the JISIWEI S+ assure me that their vacuum cleaner robot will faithfully carry out every order I dispatch through my smartphone or tablet.

This eases my mind precisely not at all.

I recently tried, and failed, three nights in a row to download an audiobook on a Kindle for my 4-year-old son, Max.

He eventually tired of my fumblings and figured it out himself.

If I welcomed a robot vacuum into the household, I’m certain that within a week I would be strapped to a stretcher in the back of an ambulance, trying to decide whether the pain level was an 8 or a 9, and probably still clutching my phone and wondering what went wrong.

But at least the attending physician would have high-definition video footage of the incident to examine while plotting my treatment.

The JISIWEI S+, according to the email I recently received asking me to contribute to its Kickstarter project, is the “first vacuum cleaning robot with a built-in camera and Wi-Fi.”

As of this writing the company has 70 pledges totaling $31,549, which comfortably exceeds its $20,000 goal.

The autonomous vacuum is not new, of course.

You’re probably seen one of these discs, about the diameter of a dinner plate, scooting across a kitchen floor and bumping into baseboards rather like a slightly intelligent air hockey puck.

These seem to me more a toy than an appliance, something to chuckle about a couple times until the battery dies and you can’t figure out how to recharge the thing, at which point it starts gathering dust rather than sucking it up.

This would not happen with the JISIWEI S+.

“When recharging is needed,” the email tells me, “S+ will automatically find and dock at the charging station.”

I don’t see this as a selling point.

Odds are the S+ would decide to imbibe some kilowatts at the very moment, along about 2 a.m., when I stumble out to the refrigerator to have a drink of water.

The thing darts across the linoleum and down I go. The only unknown is which of the many sharp, hard edges will break my fall, and where.

Although the S+ can be fitted with a dusting cloth to augment its vacuuming, its designers emphasize its noncleaning capabilities.

It is, so far as I can tell, basically a robot nanny – sort of like the one that Rocky’s brother-in-law Paulie had in “Rocky IV” except the S+ lacks the anthropomorphism of Paulie’s metallic maid.

The S+ itself, and its camera, can be controlled remotely.

“When you’re traveling or on a business trip, with the Remote APP Control in your phone or tablet, you can take care of your family and pets at any time and have an idea of what’s going on in your house,” according to the email. “A child or pet monitor that you can view from across the globe.”

I’m no lawyer but I doubt this constitutes a defense against a charge of child neglect.

“Well, yes, detective, I was in Paris. But I knew what the kids were up to the whole time. Look, I even have HD video of little Danny getting into the bleach under the sink. I called 9-1-1 right away.”

Pets are a different matter, of course – or at least it’s not necessarily a felony to leave them alone for extended periods.

JISIWEI makes this claim about the S+’s ability to deal with a dog that gets up to the dickens while you’re gone.

“How about a naughty pet? You can remotely drive S+ to watch them and turn their attention away from pillow, sofa, shoes, and furniture.”

I know almost nothing about dogs, but even I recognize the absurdity of this claim.

I suspect that if you steered the S+ toward a dog that was munching on your loafers you’d come home to find a debris field of plastic shards and bits of microprocessors that in no way resembles the glamour shots of the S+.

(And a pair of shredded loafers still damp with canine saliva.)

If you’re lucky the memory card would survive.

So at least you could see the last image your S+ ever captured, of a furry paw preparing to deliver a blow.

The purveyors of the S+ tout the robot as a security measure, akin to an alarm system, and here I think they might be on to something.

Burglars, after all, prefer to work in the dark.

And it’s hardly implausible to think the S+, on its way to its recharging dock, could fell an intruder as effectively as it could trip me.

You just have to hope he doesn’t regain consciousness before you get home. Unless the S+ can be fitted with, say, a set of handcuffs.

Jayson Jacoby is editor

of the Baker City Herald.