Roomba reviews?

[_19disnA]

Why do you need to watch the vacuum on your phone?

 

[mjkacmom]

I’m on my second, I love it. I run it downstairs daily, upstairs a couple times a week. We have a small short haired dog, and I empty the bin every other time. I have 3 daughters, and the hair isn’t a big problem, I clean the rollers a few times a week. I also have extra filters I can sub out.

 

[Jaime4004]

Good question. I hope someone can provide their experience with the battery life.

I have an older model (not sure which one) that I bought refurbished about 2 years ago. I love it, run it everyday. It helps a lot with two shedding dogs. It doesn't replace a regular vacuum but I can pull the big one out much less often. It does need to be emptied everyday with all the fur but that only takes a minute. Every few days I clean the brushes and once in a while I cut out all the long hairs that have wrapped around the brushes. After 2 years the battery started dying. I didn't notice it at first, it just gradually kept running shorter amounts of time before it would need a recharge. I bought a generic battery off amazon for $25, installed it in a few minutes and it works like new again.

 

[Cruising Engineer]

Why do you need to watch the vacuum on your phone?

Because it gets stuck in one spot and I come home to the scene of the crime with a dead roomba (batteries). I could shut it down if I could see what's happening.

 

[OhDannyBoy]

Someone gave us one 8 years ago as a wedding gift. No idea the model.

It filled with pet hair in 5 minutes and kept getting stuck under my couch so I gave it to my sister who has no pets. She like it ok.

 

[LuckyMamaInDE]

Because it gets stuck in one spot and I come home to the scene of the crime with a dead roomba (batteries). I could shut it down if I could see what's happening.

Yours doesn't shut itself down if it gets stuck? Mine plays a little tune and an error message if it gets stuck (there's a spot in front of our sink where, if the throw rug is crooked, the Roomba's side brush isn't happy) but then shuts down after a while.

I have a 600 series that I run once or twice a week. I used to run it every other day when both long-haired girls were living at home. Our main floor is mostly hardwood flooring with a carpeted family room (1000sf or so). It takes an hour for the Roomba to run with plenty of battery life left. I empty the bin and check the brushes each time. It is NOT difficult to clean---use the red tool that comes with the Roomba to clean off the bristled brush, check to make sure hair isn't caught on the sides (use the red tool to cut it off), wipe down the non-bristled brush with a damp towel, and check the side brush to see if hair is tangled around the spindle (it has a small screw that needs to be removed--I keep a small screwdriver in my junk drawer for that purpose).

 

[Cruising Engineer]

Yours doesn't shut itself down if it gets stuck? Mine plays a little tune and an error message if it gets stuck (there's a spot in front of our sink where, if the throw rug is crooked, the Roomba's side brush isn't happy) but then shuts down after a while..

If it does play a tune, I have not noticed it. It's just dead at the scene of the crime. It won't turn back on. I pick it up and take it to the charging station.

 

[MsOnceUponATime]

We have had two Roombas (they're names are Rosie and Rosie II). We also have a Polaris pool vac who we affectionately refer to as Rosie III, but that's a different topic.

Rosie is a higher end Roomba and Rosie II is a more basic Roomba -- Rosie I was purchased at Costco and Rosie II was an Amazon deal. Honestly, I cherish Rosie I , but Rosie II needs constant babysitting. Rosie has made it through lots of cats, Hurricane Harvey, and a good amount of cat throw up (both wet and dry, yuck). We've had Rosie for 4 years. Rosie II came into our lives this past summer when we moved into a new house. Unfortunately, Rosie had something on her front wheel that appeared to use to scratch the hard woods in our new house -- so I just had to give her to my daughter for my daughter to use in her apartment. We still use Rosie II, but not as often as we ever used Rosie. I'd go with a higher end Roomba...

 

[HuskyGal]

Thanks, everyone! There’s a pretty good BF deal at Best Buy for the 960 model so I’ll go with that.

 

[pSTANchio]

We got the Ecovac from Costco when it was on sale.

https://www.costco.com/ECOVACS-DEEBOT-907-Robot-Vacuum.product.100432734.html

 

[mjkacmom]

Yours doesn't shut itself down if it gets stuck? Mine plays a little tune and an error message if it gets stuck (there's a spot in front of our sink where, if the throw rug is crooked, the Roomba's side brush isn't happy) but then shuts down after a while.

I have a 600 series that I run once or twice a week. I used to run it every other day when both long-haired girls were living at home. Our main floor is mostly hardwood flooring with a carpeted family room (1000sf or so). It takes an hour for the Roomba to run with plenty of battery life left. I empty the bin and check the brushes each time. It is NOT difficult to clean---use the red tool that comes with the Roomba to clean off the bristled brush, check to make sure hair isn't caught on the sides (use the red tool to cut it off), wipe down the non-bristled brush with a damp towel, and check the side brush to see if hair is tangled around the spindle (it has a small screw that needs to be removed--I keep a small screwdriver in my junk drawer for that purpose).

You have my last roomba, which actually worked better than my current (but that one died). No more bristle brushed, and a much smaller filter.

 

[HuskyGal]

The Deebots are looking very good pricewise.

 

[chaoskids]

I love my Roomba! Use it every day downstairs. I do empty the bin every time. It takes less than a minute. It’s a 690.

 

[HuskyGal]

I love my Roomba! Use it every day downstairs. I do empty the bin every time. It takes less than a minute. It’s a 690.

Thank you for responding! I may go with the Neato due to cost but very glad to know people love them.

 

[BrandyJenner]

I think the Roomba 890 will do. Ours can do pretty decent "sucking". If you're after the mobile app and wireless controls, it might be a good option. It even works with our Alexa. I think Roombas have good deals every black friday or cyber mon. You might want to check this page. But you'll have to consider its noise. I'm telling you, it's noisy, lol. Too loud to be ignored.

 

[Dashzap]

I love our Roomba, but we all have short hair and we don't have any pets, so it is mostly vacuuming dust. YMMV.

It's an 860 that we've had a couple of years.

Also love our Braava for mopping. We've had that about 5 years and it still works well.

 

[DizMe]

I got one for Christmas 2 years ago and ended up returning it (Costco). I honestly hated it. This may sound silly, but it gave me the creeps and I couldn't stand it while it was on. I'm home most of the time and I didn't like that thing running around while I was working (I am a crafter). It had so many issues that others have mentioned--getting stuck, hard to clean, etc--but it also was a very inefficient cleaner. It sort of randomly zipped around and would end up cleaning one spot over and over while completely missing others. It took hours for it to do what I can do myself in 15 minutes.

Mainly, though, I just found it creepy . I don't like strange things in my space and I didn't trust it enough to leave it alone. One pile of cat barf, for instance, would be an ugly thing to clean out of a roomba. This wasn't part of what I found creepy (I never even thought of it), but I was listening to a podcast recently about how many of our modern items are 'spying' on us, and Roomba-type machines were included. They are data-gatherers and that information is sent back to whoever is collecting that stuff. While I doubt that there are nefarious people mapping the layout to your house, the point was that most of those products are not designed by security people and are subject to hacking. That was an interesting conversation and something I'd never considered.