Anyone have a robotic vacuum?

[mom2boys]

Do you like it? Does it work as well as an upright? Can I program it to do an entire floor of my home at once? What features are "must haves"? Anything else I should know?

 

[bekkiz]

Well, I'm not sure I'll be a huge help, but I'll try! I got a Roomba Discovery for my birthday a few weeks ago, and finally had time to give it a try today. We hadn't vaccumed our floors in a while, so it got a good test.

It picked up fuzz and stuff off the carpet really well. It did an excellent job on the kitchen floor (all the icky stuff that ends up in the corners after cooking--flour, spices etc). I'm not sure that I won't use a real vaccum still, especially on the carpet, but I will not hesitate to use the Roomba in the kitchen or the rest of the house on a regular basis.

Plus, it is pretty cool to watch We don't have the "scheduler" which allows you to program it to work in rooms at particular times. It is pretty noisy, so the ability for it to do a room while you're gone is pretty cool.

 

[Tigger&Belle]

No time to type, so I'll copy and paste what I wrote when someone was asking about the Roomba recently. If you have any questions, ask away!

"I've had a Roomba for a couple years and LOVE it. We have dogs and cats and it does a great job on pet hairs, dust bunnies, dirt, etc. It is not a replacement for vacuuming on carpet, but does a good job freshening up the carpeting, especially for those of us with pets.

It does a wonderful job on laminate and hardwood floors. We just had a 400sq ft new laminate floor put in our kitchen/laundry room/breakfast area and we run it in there every night. Our bedroom is upstairs and the noise isn't enough to bother us. I can hear it running enough to know that we remembered to start it, but not enough that I have a hard time going to sleep.

There are kinks with it and this is about our 3rd one, but the company has the best customer service of any company I've ever come across and we haven't had to ever pay for a replacement, even when we were past the 1 year warranty. If and when it breaks again we'll rebuy without question.

We now have one of the newer ones with the larger bin, more powerful motor, etc. We don't have the self-charging base, but it is an option.

I highly recommend the Roomba, keeping in mind the limitations."

 

[bicker]

We've had a Roomba for a few months now, and love it. We've actually put away our upright vacuums: The Roomba does a better job that I was doing with the upright. On wood floors it is excellent. In our bedroom, it is able to vacuum under our king-sized waterbed, where no upright vacuum could ever go.

The key to Roomba is that it takes practically no effort to just make it do its thing every day. So you end up vacuuming much more often, and things say that much cleaner.

 

[Tigger&Belle]

Oh, and to answer your entire floor of your home question, it would depend on the size of your home. Our last house was a little split level house with only a kitchen, dining level, and living room, which would have been a good area for it to do at one time.

I have to break our current house into zones for the Roomba. We clean our kitchen most every night. I will run it in our family room. I will also either run it in the front of our house (living, dining rooms, and a large foyer). Other times I will break that down and run it in the dining room and then the foyer/living.

Depends on how dirty the rooms are. We have a zoo of pets and have LOTS of hair, which it does a great job on.

I don't know much about all the newer models. We don't have the base that the Roomba could dock itself on and recharge, but we could buy it as an option. I don't see the need since we have an extra battery so just switch off. I actually like that better than the dock idea since the 2nd battery can be charging while the Roomba is running and then it will be ready to rerun soon after using it. Of course you could have both the dock and an extra battery.

When we were shopping on Friday at Sams I saw a Roomba like ours with the dock and one virtual wall for $199. Seems like a good price even though you'd need more virtual walls than one and likely the extra battery.

I had a dream last night that my sister gave us a second Roomba, so Roombas are on my brain I guess.

 

[ilovepcot]

I've been curious about one of these but I wonder....what happens when the Roomba gets to an electrical cord hanging down on the floor? How about a tiny dog toy you're unaware of under a table or whatever? Nobody has ever explained about this type thing. Does it attempt to chew these things up and get all clogged, automatically repel them....what? Afraid I'd have to "clean" before I could run the thing.

 

[bekkiz]

It's so low to the ground, that it just bumped into our cords and turned around. I did do a penny/rubber band check though before we ran it. No problems. The funniest thing was when it would go under the couch and come out the other side. It just made me giggle.

I'm even mre impressed with the kitchen, it did a great job!

 

[raammartin]

I'm gonna have to get one of these...

 

[Tigger&Belle]

I don't run it in our study because there are so many cords, etc. That and it's not a room that I use (mainly used by my 12 and 15yo boys) and I'd be worried about all the stuff they drop on the floor. I make them clean, dust and vacuum, though.

I do walk around the area before running the Roomba to make sure that I've picked up all little toys, plastic spider rings (I'm serious) and the kittens (I'm not serious, the kittens swat at it and run, so no worries there). It has run over a shoelace that we keep around to play with the kittens. The shoelace just ended up on the roller doohickey and I pulled it off.

 

[mom2boys]

Thanks for the replies. Since it turns around when encountering a cord, what will it do going from area rugs to hardwood floors? WIll it just turn around & ignore my area rugs?

 

[bicker]

Yes. That's the only thing we use a regular vacuum for -- the area rugs. I suppose you could trap the Roomba up there if you wanted, but that's just not worth the bother. The whole point of Roomba is to make things simpler, easier, faster, etc. So we use it specifically and exclusively in the manner that makes things simpler, easier, faster, etc.

We tend to just use the Shark on the area rugs. Very light and does the trick. Then we roll the area rugs up and use them as barriers to keep the Roomba in specific rooms. We prefer that to using the electronic fences, just because it's simpler, easier, faster, etc.

 

[monsterkitty]

I have a robotic vacuum. Unfortunately right now he is laying on the couch watching football.

 

[mom2boys]

I have a robotic vacuum. Unfortunately right now he is laying on the couch watching football.

 

[Tigger&Belle]

Our Roomba handled the area rug which we had on the carpeting ok. The fringe can be a problem, but the Roomba instructions say to tuck the fringe under so it doesn't catch. The Roomba might not be able to get up on the rug from the hardwood floor, though.

 

[clarabelle]

Its not really a vacuum. It is more of a sweeper. I does not have suction it has brushes. I think it is OK -I have an older one. It did not replace my vacuum. For me -I think of it as in between vacuums and good for under beds. If you do not pick up stuff it will stop and make a noise if it gets caught. If it is something big -it will bump into it then turn around.
If I did not have a lot of money and I really needed it to replace a vacuum- I don't think I would get it.