iRobot Kitchen: iRobot Roomba Intelligent Floorvac Robotic Vacuum

Average Rating:

I usually clean the house one room at a time, and let the roomba go at the room I just finished tidying up. As mentioned elsewhere, you have to "roomba-proof" the room before you let it rip- ie get cords up, etc. That can at times be a pain, and take away a bit of the effortlessness, but what can you do- this thing will go where no vaccum has gone. Anyway it usually takes like 10 seconds.

Its fun to finish up the next room and go back to the first room where roomba has finished vacuuming, leaving nice vaccum lines and spirals on the carpet. I find it gets up cat hair (i have 2) on the carpet quite well. I can run a damp hand across the carpet afterwards and not have any hair sticking to it.. thats pretty good.

Roomba is also great for a quick bathroom cleanup. I shake out my bath rugs, hang them over the counter and let roomba go at it with the door shut. When i return, no hair on the floor, no dust bunnies, no weird human sheddings.

All in all, I'm glad I have one. It comes in quite handy, quite often. Of course, those with very bumpy tile floors or lots of thick/fringey area rugs might have some trouble.

If you don't have much time for vacuuming, I'd get one. Especially if you have pets- it will really help keep the hair in check. The sound of my roomba running is the sound of CLEAN to me now :)

I can't wait for Roomba 2.0 whenever that arrives- this has been a pretty successful product- I have no doubt it will evolve into THE vaccuming device before long.

Why 4 stars and not 5? Just because there is some room for improvement- it would be nice to not have to go pick up every cord in its path. It gets stuck in the sliding door track, so i have to block it. It beeps nonstop when it is done- it should just turn off after awhile. A longer lasting battery would be nice. Perhaps more suction power. etc etc

Sure, there's room for improvements. This is a first-of-a-kind product. Its battery handling isn't great, in particular. But at the price you can't beat it. It'll save you its cost in time spent within the first few months, easily, and that's not even accounting for the cost of vacuum bags, chiropractic care for your back, or getting areas (like under the bed) clean that you've probably never cleaned before.

Three caveats. 1: read the manual and do the maintenance it suggests. We're all so used to products so simplified and familiar we don't have to read the manual and usually don't read it unless something goes wrong. But this is not just a new product, it's a new kind of product, and you won't get good use out of it unless you take a few simple steps to make it work for you. 2: Don't try to micromanage it or watch it closely. The whole principle of how it works is that it might not get that bit of dirt now, but it will get it eventually. So what that it takes a lot longer than you would have? It has nothing better to do with that extra time anyway, but YOU DO. So go do something else. 3: Be prepared for the first few times (or more) to pick up a lot of gunk and get its bin filled up quickly, because Roomba will be cleaning things you've never cleaned before. Once it's had a chance to do those areas a few times, things will settle down. Roomba works best if you let Roomba run regularly, rather than trying to use Roomba just before company comes over, so that you never get that buildup again. But your first few passes you'll have to deal with that buildup.

- When you first open the box, the corner sweeper is covered by a piece of cardboard. This is tricky to get off without breaking the corner sweeper, so don't just rip it out.

- It's about as loud as a blowdryer on the "low" setting, or an empty blender on slow speed (remember that it's on the floor, not next to your head, so it seems quieter.) You can talk normally over it, but it's loud enough that you'll probably want to be in another room. It's certainly not as loud as a regular vacuum cleaner.

- The dustbin is somewhat messy to empty. That is, you're hands _will_ get dust on them and you have to be very careful to avoid spilling any when you pull it out. Also, if you don't push it in all the way it will fall out partway through the next cleaning--you've got to push it in so the curvature of the Roomba is uniform ... it also won't pull out unless you push the button.

- The dustbin also has two compartments: one for the "swept" dust and one for the vacuumed dust. You've got to unclip the filter to get to the vacuumed dust bin.

- Since the sensors work on infrared, it works better in the dark or in shadows rather than bright sunlight. I had mine stop after going too far over some steps because the sun was shining on the floor and it couldn't tell the steps were there. It didn't actually go over, it just automatically stopped and played it's "help me" tune. In general, sunlight will make it less effective.

- It comes with one "virtual wall" which is just a battery powered infrared emitter. It seems to spread the beam out further than I'd like, so I'm finding myself placing it several inches outside a door to make the Roomba go all the way to the thresshold of the entryway. It's also sensitive to height--the virtual wall emits right at the level of the sensor on the Roomba, so the virtual door can't be placed more than a carpets-height (0.25" or 0.5cm) higher or lower than the Roomba.

- iRobot suggests that you can tuck fringe under a carpet and the Roomba will go over it. I found it managed to suck the fringe back out and get it wound around the brushes underneath. I had to remove the area rug. It also has trouble with corners of an area rug even if it doesn't have fringe if the corners stick up more than about a quarter inch (0.5cm.)

- It's really quite small. It was able to go under the refrigerator door (I could even open it and it barely cleared the top of the Roomba.) It can also go around chairs and furniture pretty easily. Although it's just a little narrower than the head on a regular vacuum, it can turn in ways that would be impossible with a rigid hose attached, so the Roomba gets in places you wouldn't already think of.

- I have a couch whose bottom was ravaged by cats in the past, and the Roomba will get caught on the hanging fabric. I use the virtual wall to keep it out from under the couch.

- It tends to miss corners, leaving a crescent of dust that is about half an inch (1cm) wide. It does run right up against walls, though, but it will miss going under low doorstops.

- In general it seems to cover the whole floor ... you can tell it it's in the next size bigger room and it will run for longer, picking up more areas (I think that's all the room size buttons do--change the amount of time it runs.)

- It's "artificial intelligence" is pretty good. It seems to run in 4 modes: spiral out, go in a random direction straight, follow walls, and zig-zag to cover a floor. At first it looks like it's just a bump-and-go kind of thing, but it doesn't get stuck in corners like a bump-and-go car would. If you watch it, you'll want to tell it to go to a particular area, but somehow it seems to always make it to that area at some point. Its pattern seems random and ineffective, but it does seem to get most of the stuff off the floor.

- The bumping action is very gentle. You can get it to turn around by letting it bump into one finger. If you put an empty pint glass on the floor, odds are it won't knock it over, but it probably eventually will.

- It's very good about not going down stairs. Mine hasn't fallen yet. The one time it almost did was when the sun was lighting the stair below and it couldn't "see" the edge so it got one wheel partly over and shut down.

- You can use it in very small areas if you want. I put mine on a 4-foot by 4-foot landing (130cm square) and it worked fine.

- You can't have clutter. As others have said, it'll suck up phone cords and papers. So far I've "Roomba-safed" 4 rooms. In the bathroom, for instance, I have to move the climbing plant on the floor and remove the bathmats. I tend to like having things off the floor anyway, and this has helped me have a reason to keep things tidy.

- I was happy to have it go under the bed and get all the dust bunnies. The first time I had to empty the dustbin several times at first until it got it partly clean.