Robot Vacuum Cleaners

[gacook]

The house we bought in April is wood floors throughout, and our dog sheds about 3 times his weight in hair every...damn...day! It was damn near impossible to keep the floors looking decent, so we did a little research and invested in a Neato (it's shaped like a D, so gets into corners better than a circle).

My impression is that it's "ok." Cuts down on how often I need to sweep/vacuum, but certainly doesn't eliminate the need for sweeping/vacuuming. It also is another chore in and of itself with cleaning all its components and unraveling hair. You also need to "baby proof" your home so that it doesn't get constantly get stuck places.

[fireant911]

Originally Posted by 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.

We were constructing our new house at about the time this thread was resurrected (we moved in the week of Thanksgiving 2017). Our new home is only hardwood and tile and one of the things that has been missing is a puppy! I promised my wife as soon as we settle in, we would start searching for that special third member of our family. I had mentally bookmarked this thread because I thought that a robotic vacuum could be extremely beneficial to us. I researched the various models discussed in this thread as well as several more that were not mentioned. I kept coming back to the ILIFE; not because it was the best overall but because it appeared to be the best for the money. One of their models, the V3S Pro is made for pet owners, so I ordered it last week. This unit arrived yesterday and all I can say is WOW! I really did not have any expectations about how well (or how poorly) of a job that a robotic vacuum could do but color me IMPRESSED! $139 with free shipping - this was money well spent.

Thank madmmac, the ILIFE was an excellent suggestion! Gratuitous picture of our new puppy:

[sand_man]

Another use:

[ckelly78z]

We have a standard (non re-docking) Roomba that does pretty well with our open concept, mostly hardwood floors. I do have to spend some time pulling the rollers out to cut the captured hair from them. The dirt/lint filter is always full, sometimes the battery doesn't last long enough to go over things twice.

I just need to teach our skittish cats to ride it.

[stevej37]

Have owned a self-docking Roomba for over 5 years now. Always surprised at how much dirt is in it when emptying.
Original battery gave out and replaced it with an optional extended duty one. Big difference.
Would definitely buy another one if needed.

[ckelly78z]

Originally Posted by stevej37

replaced it with an optional extended duty one. Big difference.
.

Didn't know the extended life battery was available, we are probably close to needing this on ours.

[berettafan]

We got one this year from Monoprice. The white one was on sale for $100. I was skeptical but needed a Christmas idea and my wife had been hinting at the Rhoomba for a while. Brother in law (tech savvy guy) told me about the Monoprice version and I ordered it right away.

I gotta admit it's a great addition. Our house is maybe 60% wood floors and it does a great job. Bonus is it doesn't bother the motion sensor alarm if we run it during the day. it's not 'smart' and has limited programs but our floors are definitely cleaner and that little hopper always has a lot of dust and dirt in it.

[stevej37]

iRobot® XLife™ Extended Life Battery - iRobotNA

Prob available on ebay for less

[berettafan]

btw my family named it Rosie after the Jetsons robot.

[Evans, Marv]

Since my wife was oogling one at Costco ($380), I thought I'd ask a couple of questions if anybody has time to respond. Our house is about 3.3K s.f. with maybe approximately 2.8K of that as hardwood floors, the rest tile (kitchen & bathrooms) & carpet (two bedrooms plus closets). We have area rugs, a couple are maybe half inch plus thick. We also have a central vacuum system. So my question is: based on all of your experiences with robot cleaners, does getting one of these make sense in our case? Also we have no pets.

[ckelly78z]

With no pets, you may be able to keep the rollers cleaner than I can with 2 dogs, and a cat. If you are going to run the unit, pull up any heavy door matts or rugs, and let it do it's thing. Ours has only ever gotten stuck trying to transition on the edge of a deep pile rug. A new battery will probably allow the whole house to be done daily, as long as it is fully charged.

[Gogar]

You can roll up just the edge of the rug to give it something to bump off of. You can also place a magnet strip under the boundary of each rug but that gets really expensive.

I put some Sticky-back Velcro stuff on the front and sides of mine to make the clearance to the floor super tight, so it bounces off my shag rugs on it's own and doesn't get stuck. I'd say it does the whole house without getting stuck about 60% of the time. 1,000 SF mostly wood floors.

[porsche4life]

Thread revival again.


We are considering a robot vac with our new hard floors. The only trouble with our house is that the main floor is 3 levels. So if we get the neato with the return to base function, will it scramble it’s brain to move it around a few times a week?

Looking at the Neato D3

[Gogar]

No; every run is a fresh start, it doesn’t care. You don’t really “need” for it to return to the base. Just grab it and take it to the second floor and let it run. In the absence of a base it’ll just finish up more or less where you started it up.

[KFC911]

Bought a Neato D3 a few weeks ago based upon this thread....it's pretty neato . I loved watching it "learn" my house the first two times I hit the "go" button (all I'll ever do), but since it's a rainy day and I'm here....I decided to vacuum...but moved the D3 to a different a/c location (in the same bedroom)...and my robot has lost it's mind. Gotta "reset it" back to forgetting what it "learned"....

Anyways...remembered this thread....big thumbs up on the D3 !

Thanks all!

[porsche4life]

Just picked up a brand new in box Neato D3 connected for $200 on Facebook marketplace. Impressed so far, will have more insight in a few days.


The attack schnauzer is not impressed though.

[KFC911]

I've been loving my D3...just using the start button only. Bought a D7 for my mom, used it once, and I'm gonna need to download the phone app and make it smarter . I really didn't/don't want to but....

Figure it out for me Sid !

[porsche4life]

The app is super easy. Gives you a nice reminder when it’s done, needs emptied, etc. makes a cool map of the room and where it cleaned for you too!

[biosurfer1]

I have had the iLife V5S for a little over a year and just a couple days ago it started crapping out. Would start, run for a couple seconds, then stop and beep. Took it completely apart and clean everything out. Now it works marginally better but is still slow and pulls to one side. I "think" it's the right wheel/motor is going bad so I'll order one on eBay and if that's not it, probably in the trash. Pretty disappointed but it was only $149 so o guess it's to be expected. Of course, it's been 1 year and 3 weeks so out of warranty.

Maybe a Roomba next but they are SO damn expensive.

[KFC911]

Originally Posted by porsche4life

The app is super easy. Gives you a nice reminder when it’s done, needs emptied, etc. makes a cool map of the room and where it cleaned for you too!

If I had full app capabilities on my mom's D7, I would map out virtual "no go" areas, decrease total lap times, and have better battery management....just one problem...no Internet or Wireless . Just have to investigate further...