Robot Vacuum Cleaners

[Pazuzu]

Back on target here...

I have an empty house in front, that we use as a guest house. Minimal furniture, hardwood throughout, no thresholds...but a random accumulation of dustbunnies and spider webs since it only gets used every few weeks.
Would the cheapest Roomba or other brand name work to keep this tamed? Can they be scheduled to run different rooms on different days, or do you need to pick it and the base station up and move them around? It's a 2 bedroom, 1 bath, basic 50's ranch home.

[Nordwest]

My friend had a Roomba. One night his Great Dane had an accident in their kitchen and the Roomba spread the accident over about every square inch of the hard flooring. It still cracks me up then he tells the story....

Dave

[red-beard]

Originally Posted by motion

I've been through about 8 Roombas, but still undecided.

My buddy the CEO of iRobot appreciates this!

[scottmandue]

Originally Posted by Gogar

I was checking out that new Dyson robot but for $1200 it better have a blowjob attachment on it.

I love the idea of a robot vacuum but we have a small place and for the $$ I will just run our shark vacuum around for five minutes.

That and my wife is a neat freak and not sure it would clean good enough for her.

And with three cats it would probably clog almost immediately.

However if we could teach one of the cats to ride it that might be a consideration

[red-beard]

I think the revival of this thread was by a SPAMBOT.

[scottmandue]

Originally Posted by red-beard

I think the revival of this thread was by a SPAMBOT.

Whoa! I didn't even notice it started in 2012!

I'm waiting for one of the sexy Japanese robots, if she can cook and clean I'm down wit dat!

[mikeatfhc]

Being a bit of a gadget guy - I've had two Roombas. They kinda worked OK... they tend to 'bounce' around and don't really have any true intelligence if you ask me. I think the theory is that they bounce into something, turn 30 degrees and move forward until they hit something else and repeat the turn-hit-something routine until the room is supposedly clean.

I have mostly tile floors - with a cat and dog we have a lot of junk the animals and I bring into the house. I was never really impressed with the Roombas I had. They did help for "in between cleanings.'

Then I purchased this one:
https://www.neatorobotics.com/robot-vacuum/xv/xv-21/

The Neato (I named it 'Hazel') actually has some intelligence to it. It first goes around the room, identifying the room dimensions, wall locations, etc. It then vacuums back and forth across the room as you would... until it hits something like an ottoman or something - it then uses its sensors and goes around the object in its way and continues on its journey.

I am very impressed with it. It has a pretty decent motor and really picks up a lot unlike the Roombas I had. I have tile and carpet in my home and works great on either. It comes with a charging base that once its done with the vacuuming it returns to its base and re-charges itself for the next run.

It is not a replacement for a real vacuum... but it does a great job for what it is. I would definately buy one again if this one were to ever break down.

[stealthn]

I wonder if 7 of 9 can be trained to vacuum? That I'd pay for

[carreradpt]

We just bought a Neato vac and my wife loves the thing. Just turn it on and off it goes. She can control it from her pad, it tells her when the "bag" is full, if it's stuck somewhere, etc. It really does a good job and just runs in the background. It's easy to clean, is relatively quiet, but is very convenient.

Our house is an open floor plan with tile and lots of carpets with fringe. I just fold the fringe under and it does its thing. It continues on until its battery starts getting low and heads for home. It runs for about an hr on turbo. It can cover a lot of ground in that time. However it does not return to its base. It heads that way and stops just short, huh?

It comes with a magnetic strip that is used to stop its travel into an area but we have found that "bought off the web" strips do not work the same as the one that came with it. Anyone know where we can get an original?

[cstreit]

I have the "garage" version - the Dirt Dog. Love it. I need to run it a few times to get the crap off the floor, but it does a decent job of picking up the bits under cabinets, cars, etc...

[Deschodt]

Neato. I've had better luck than with roombas... Smarter, and they suck dirt, don't just move it around ;-) Downside is the noise but you program them to work when you're gone..

https://www.neatorobotics.com/robot-vacuum/botvac-d-series/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwgIPOBRDnARIsAHA1X3THE8jOg5SMu6hJ5T4 GANFPE4kJUllLwyKYpRHz6u0Zg9Htfd5tQjUaAlUeEALw_wcB

[Gogar]

I have a neato and enjoy it.

I mostly have hardwood floors and want the vacuum to NEVER go on the rugs,

So I took some sticky-back felt pads and put them around the front corners to lower the clearance to about 1/4". It stays off the rugs better and finds a perfect distance from the baseboard quarterround and really does a nice job of picking up stuff.

[svandamme]

got a cheap dirt devil bot, works pretty well with cat hair actually

[Jim Richards]

Originally Posted by Jim Richards

My wife talks about getting one. I wonder if it'll freak out the dog.

After a couple of years using a Roomba, I'm happy to report that, no, it doesn't freak out the dog.

[72doug2,2S]

Our Roomba is called Ruby after our last maid. It does a good job, but likes to climb up curtains.

[wdfifteen]

This thread came along at an opportune time. Mrs WD has been complaining about the amount of time she has to spend vacuuming. With 2000 sq ft of carpet and hardwood it takes her a couple of hours twice a week. I was hoping someone would come out with a small riding vacuum cleaner, maybe something that looked like a small zamboni, but we don't have a place to park it anyway so...
We have a Golden Retriever who thinks it's her job to coat the house with fur, so I was skeptical of these robot thingies. But after reading this thread I ordered a Neato D5 Connected model to try.

Holy Cow!

Here is a pic of the little rascal backed up to its charging dock. It is only about 12 or 13 inches square.



Mrs WD had vacuumed with her Shark on Tuesday. We set the Neato loose on the floor on Thursday and it picked up enough dog hair to knit another Golden Retriever puppy. We ran it again Friday and it still picked up a significant amount of dog hair. Ran it Saturday, more hair. We are amazed at the amount of dust, dirt, and hair that was in our carpet that the Shark wasn't getting out.



It can't cover the whole house in one charge. It runs about an hour before sending itself back to the dock for a recharge. It's kind of comical when it backs up the the dock and rubs its butt against it to get a good connection.



It covers 95% of the floor, but has some problems. The "connected" feature is supposed to let you operate it from your cell phone. Bad thing is, if it ever has a problem - gets stuck or runs out of battery too far from the dock, or if you pick it up and move it, it loses it's connection and it's a real pain to reconnect. Ours has gone offline every time we've tried to use it. It has optical sensors that need cleaning or it goes completely off its rocker. A can of compressed air is on the shopping list so we can blow the sensors off every time we empty the dust bin. If I had it to do over, I would not get one of the Connected models. The feature isn't worth the extra expense.
It does such a good job Mrs WD is afraid it will replace her, but I assured her that unless it has a BJ function that I haven't found yet, she has nothing to worry about.

[madmmac]

Have the Ilife bot. Cost was around $200. Love it. It gets stuck every so often. Runs for about 2 hours and then heads home.

[Gogar]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

It can't cover the whole house in one charge. It runs about an hour before sending itself back to the dock for a recharge.

The "connected" feature is supposed to let you operate it from your cell phone. Bad thing is, if it ever has a problem - gets stuck or runs out of battery too far from the dock, or if you pick it up and move it, it loses it's connection and it's a real pain to reconnect.

That's the one I have; I think if you take it off "turbo" it'll get the whole house in one go.

Mine gets about 800 sf in "turbo" pretty easy.

Agree if it runs out of battery it'll disconnect from the wifi.

[wdfifteen]

I don't know how to take it off turbo or even if it is on turbo. I assume it is done with one of the icon buttons in the smartphone app, which is still largely uncharted territory for us.
After 2 weeks with our Neato, we have mixed feelings about it. It does pick up a lot of dirt and dog hair when it is running, but it's not a set and forget appliance. It is very aggressive about getting into incredibly tight spaces and as a consequence it gets itself stuck just about every time we use it. This means I have to be in the house whenever we try to use it so I can rescue it, which can be inconvenient. It is very touchy about losing its internet connection. Just about anything can make it lose the connection and getting it reconnected almost always means I have to restart our wifi router and futz with the robot - pain in the butt. It also takes a fair amount of maintenance, cleaning the sensors and the brush and the laser. If any of the sensors get dirty it goes berserk. The smartphone app has several mysterious dodads on it that I don't use because I have yet to find documentation that states what each of the icons do, and when I have experimented with it I ended up having to go through the restarting the router routine, so as long as it cleans the floor I just "let sleeping dogs lie."
Bottom line, it's a nice machine, cleans the house, but it needs better user documentation and it's not as hands-free as I would like.

[davidhoggeman]

Hello to everyone. Guys, please help me to choose the best Roomba model for my mom I want to give her something special, modern but not comprehended for an old woman for all this app stuff get her nervous. I think of Roomba robovac cause they have the best feedbacks but still how not to make a mistake?