Anyone have a Roomba?

[ItsonlyExperiment626]

I'm thinking of getting one to pick up dust from three of my bedrooms which have laminate floors. I usually swiffer the floors just to pick up the dust every other day, but I'm thinking if I had a Roomba I can put it in one bedroom for a day and let it go to work. So I like some reviews from Roomba owners. How well does it work, does it do a good job picking up everyday dust, how long does it take to recharge?

TIA

 

[RachelEllen]

It's a cute toy. And it might be good for the purpose you describe.

Basically, it's an electric sweeper. As in, it turns up dirt with its little brush, and then has mild suction to pull it in. I can't remember it ever running out of power, as we would use it a few hours each day and let it recharge the rest of the time. It did a fairly good job of covering the room but did occasionally get stuck.

It can't replace a good vaccum. But it keeps things nicer in between vaccuuming.

The biggest downside is the noise. That thing is really loud!

hth,
Rachel

ETA: Oh, and I wouldn't get it if you have a long haired pet. Pet hair wraps around the brush and has to be regularly removed. Much more trouble than it's worth.

 

[Tigger&Belle]

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]

The Roomba does a much better job than folks give it credit for. It does a much better job in our bedroom than we could do ourselves, since it can get underneath the bed, completely, and get all the dust and cat hair up. It has completely replaced our regular vacuum (especially since our regular vacuum scratches our nice wood floors and the Roomba doesn't!)

 

[Tigger&Belle]

The Roomba does a much better job than folks give it credit for. It does a much better job in our bedroom than we could do ourselves, since it can get underneath the bed, completely, and get all the dust and cat hair up. It has completely replaced our regular vacuum (especially since our regular vacuum scratches our nice wood floors and the Roomba doesn't!)

I'm the first to sing the praises of our Roomba, but the reason why I do not think it can replace a vacuum is the lack of a beater bar. The Roomba does a great job of sucking up everything that's on the surface of the carpet, but it will not agitate the carpet to get the deep dirt. I will say that it has replaced the broom in our kitchen. And, like I mentioned in my last post, it's great at getting all the animal hairs between vacuumings. And I agree about getting under the bed--it does a great job of that.

 

[cindercopper]

We have one here and I use it on carpet, hardwood and tile floors. It does a good job. My husband doesn't like the noise but this newer one is much quieter than the first one I had.

 

[bicker]

There are a variety of opinions about how effective a beater-bar is in a traditional vacuum. I've not found that any of our vacuums' adequately agitated the carpet to get out deep-down dirt. It seems to me that beater-bar technology is just "the best we can do" until someone (Dyson, maybe) comes up with an actual approach to cleaning carpets that works. By the same token, since the Roomba takes almost no time out of our busy schedules, we can run it over the carpet several times per week, so the dirt never gets that deeply embedded.

 

[DawnCt1]

Does it have to be programmed? What does the set up involve?

 

[Tigger&Belle]

By the same token, since the Roomba takes almost no time out of our busy schedules, we can run it over the carpet several times per week, so the dirt never gets that deeply embedded.

It takes minutes for dirt to drop into the backing of the carpeting. I know this because I had to treat an area of our carpeting when our kittens had fleas. I put the powder on the carpeting and the instructions then said to step on it until it was worked into the carpeting. I was surprised at how quickly it wasn't visible.

Of course that would also depend on your situation. We have kids and pets so we track a lot of dirt into the house, which is mainly would gets deep into the carpeting. And I do occasionally run it in a room instead of vacuuming since it's so easy to do.

 

[bicker]

We bought the newest model, the Rooma Scheduler, and we haven't even figured out how to program it yet. What it does, right out-of-the-box is more than enough for us. I believe you can set it up in a room, plug its charger into the wall, and program it to start vacuuming the room at a specific time. It'll find its way back to the charger by itself, and presumably you can schedule it to do another round later in the day, which might be useful if you have a very large room to cover. However, my wife and I just figure, "Why bother?" We just pick it up off its charger, put it down in a room. Turn it on and close the door. The next day we just drop it off in a different room. And so on...

 

[Tigger&Belle]

Does it have to be programmed? What does the set up involve?

The only setup is making sure the battery is charged, preparing a room (picking up the dog toys, in our case) and turning on the invisible walls to block it from going into other rooms. Then it does it's thing. Sometimes it gets stuck, but not very often.

Here's the website: http://www.irobot.com/

 

[raammartin]

I'm interested in getting one of these too. We do a quick vacuum daily and this would sure help me out and save me some serious time. They have a new one called the Scooba that cleans your tile floors like mopping. Now if they could just come up with a robot that dusts, cleans toilets, sinks, makes meals, etc. I'd be set - and lazy.