Was looking at the Irobot Braava 380t Floor Mopping Robot, anybody have views on it or recommendations for other devices?
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I was hoping Dopers with such devices would reply with what they use.
I’m usually pretty good at navigating Amazon reviews, but in this case, I’d really like to be able to ask followup questions. I don’t always trust Amazon reviewers.
And I really hate sweeping my hardwood floors.
We have the Roomba pet 56…3? I think - it’s on a boat on its way to Singapore at the moment so can’t check the model. We love it - just set it up and it does its thing. Couple of points though - in 4 years we’ve had two replacement brush assemblies, although I’m almost positive we didn’t pay for either. Also, we formerly lived with a labrador, an excessively furry cat and two children. In those circumstances we found it wasn’t coping with being our only vacuum cleaner. We would use an upright once a week, then the Roomba would run every day to keep on top of things. I’m hoping pet free life is a little less hairy, but time will tell. Actually, we’re looking forward to Daisy getting here, we miss the little scamp - she’s one of the family and much less work than the living breathing pets.
Thanks.
So that was a model specifically for pets? Also, did it have a mopping function, or just vacuum?
I’ve had a couple of Roomba vacs a few years ago, but don’t remember the model numbers. They were OK, but the “bounce off of stuff randomly” algorithm just seemed dumb.
Now I have 2 Neato Robotics vacs and swear by them. They have a laser rangefinder mapping system and actually map out the room and obstacles both before and during the vacuuming cycle. There still is some bumping into stuff as it vacuums, but usually just a couple of times while it vacuums. But it actually goes in straight lines and doesn’t miss a square inch of the room. It’s really nice to see perfectly straight lines on the carpeted portions of my house. The front of the vac is squared off, so it fits into corners perfectly. I can’t recommend the Neato enough, and can’t see myself ever going back to the Roomba unless they re-engineer their design. I think they are pretty close in price to the Roomba, but performance-wise they blow (or suck in this case) the Roomba out of the water.
I have 2 older-model Roombas that were semi-useful but the brushes clogged with hair (3 long-haired females in the house at the time) easily and when the batteries quit taking a charge I never found it worth the money to buy new ones.
Roombas don’t deep clean carpets but for hard surface floors they do a decent job over 95% of the floor. Of course you have to have all small or light objects and cords picked up before you can let a robot vacuum loose.
The Neato Robotics look interesting (other than the price), I’ll check them out.
Anyone have a Scooba or similar? Those interest me more than the vacuums considering floor washing is a bigger pain imho.
I got the impression it is a heavy duty version hence the ‘pet’ idea. Just vacced - I’m not sure I trust the washing ones, although I do agree withelfkin477 that mopping is a huge pain in the ass.
A couple of quick questions, if you don’t mind.
First, I take it from your positive review that it handles carpet well? Along with that, I’d also like to know about maintenance. I’ve heard that Roomba’s are a pain to clean… something about fibers wrapping around the bristles. Does the Neato fare better in that regard?
It works great on carpet as well as hard floors. I have tile and bamboo flooring in my lower level, and carpet on the upper level and have one Neato on each floor. The one upstairs is the “Pet and Allergy” model, so it has a traditional-style brush, while the one downstairs is the standard model with the rubber blade-style beater brush. I have two dogs, and the traditional-style brush works better to get the hair out of the carpet fibers than the rubber brush. On hard surface floors, both work equally well.
As far as maintenance, once a month or so I’ll do a thorough wipe down and cleaning of the Neato. Long hair tends to wrap around the beater, like any regular vacuum, and I don’t think you’ll be able to avoid that with any particular make/model. If my floor hasn’t been done in a while, the dust bin will fill up to capacity (mainly with dog hair that has been shed) and the intake will get blocked, and you’ll have to manually remove the blockage, but that takes about 30 seconds.
The rubber blades on the standard model should be replaced every six months or so, according to Neato (they include 1 set of replacement blades with the vac), but I’ve been running mine for about 2 1/2 years on the original blades and haven’t noticed any worse performance. I will replace the filters every six months or so, they do get clogged with fine dust. I look at it as similar to replacing the bag on a traditional vac, or the filter media on a bagless vac. I just buy the generic replacement ones off of eBay, rather than the more expensive Neato branded ones.
Other than replacement of the filters and just general maintenance, I haven’t had any problems with them. The batteries do eventually need replacement - I got a year and a half or so out of one, and I’m running about 2 1/2 years on the original battery on the other.
I also have a Mint floor mopping robot as well that I run every 4 or 5 days on my hard surface floors. It does a pretty respectable job, but won’t replace a good manual cleaning. I see that iRobot bought the Mint from the original company that developed it. I do love the washable, reusable cleaning pad that comes with it. You can use regular old Swiffer pads as well.
With the robotic vacs and mop, it lets me do a thorough manual floor cleaning only every month or two, with the robots doing the work between the manual cleanings. I only have about 2400 sq ft. of living space, and it’s just me and the dogs, so the 2 vacs work for me. If I were to have more space or more than 2 floors of living area, I would probably spring for a third vac. I figure the vacs save me a 3-4 hours of cleaning a month, so they are more than worth it to me.
I bought a Roomba several years ago, and only used it a few times. The dirt cup was simply too small to hold even a single vacuuming worth of dirt and it took several hours to do a room, which would have been okay had it not required hands-on attention to empty the cup.
Are today’s models better in that respect?
Thanks for the info! I’ve been debating picking up a Neato or Roomba, as I have a pair of vomit comets (read: cats) that pollute my house with hair. I love 'em, but anything I can do to cut down on the hair is worth looking into. Seems like people are slowly migrating toward the Neato.
I have an important recommendation:
If you install one, make sure your dog doesn’t shit on the floor, or when you get home…
How does it handle stairs? (By that I mean: I understand it doesn’t clean stairs – but does it fall down them?)
I can’t help but think of this.
http://api.ning.com/files/hRLwprkZLjCfZRAB5MDksXYO7rk5u3u82tlIxdDMi2Tdx8wWKAOyYU22ofwlFD8G/21.jpg
Anyway, this is what the manufacturer has to say about it:
More info here: http://homesupport.irobot.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/56
I don’t have a roomba or other robot cleaner.
But if I did, I would make a horta costume for it so it could scurry about my place eating minerals.
I bought a late-generation Roomba a couple of years ago, supposedly after most of the problems were ironed out. I even checked to see that it had a green drive gear or some such, supposedly the hallmark of the updated chassis. The Xmas break wasn’t over before it started faulting in the “dirty sensor” mode that had plagued prior generations. Back it went. No further interest in one by any maker.
The Neato has sensors on the bottom of the unit that sense stairs. It vacuums right up to the edge, then backs up. I haven’t had one go down the stairs yet… (knocks on the nearest piece of wood).
That is the one major downside of any of the robotic vacuums. They just don’t do stairs. You still have to clean them by hand.
Oh god, I’d supressed that memory. Eeeeeew. Second, third and fourth this.
AnaMen don’t know the time difference between our models, but never had a problem with the size of the bin. Ours would run out of charge if it had been a long time between sessions, before it ran out of dust room. I don’t believe at any level we had less dust than you!
The Roomba sensor has always coped with stairs for us. You also get a couple of extra beamer things that you can use to block off anything you don’t want it to go near. We learned early on to put one covering the cat biscuit bowl.
It does take a while to learn the layout of the room it’s covering, so the first few times cleaning takes ages. It did seem to get quicker though - although I fully accept this may be confirmation bias, I do have a tendency to anthropomorphise ours. I’ve never needed to supervise its cleaning - we used to put it on as we left for work in the morning. Occasionally it would then get stuck in something while we were out, but I trained my children well. If, when we got home, it wasn’t happily back on its charging station, the girls would go on a Daisy hunt. Fun for all the family.