Tikom G8000
What are others doing about this? We change the filters about once per month. Roller brushes about 6 to 9 months.
More communication is always better. If something can’t express itself, then it’s helpless. If it’s helpless, then I need to take care of it and protect it. Even if it has wheels. Those golf bags with remote controls do a real number on me. I just need to hug it and take it home for hot chocolate.
As a tech nerd, I was tempted by the robo-vacs but ultimately decided that for various reasons it wasn’t a good choice for me – just too many obstacles and clutter, open stairwells for it to maybe fall down (although I presume they should in theory be good at avoiding that sort of thing). There are thick area rugs it would have to climb up and then down from. And it would be useless for my biggest cleaning challenge, which is the carpeted stairs with a rather large carpeted landing halfway up. There’s also a short set of carpeted stairs leading down to a lower level. Lots of stairs, and all of them pretty good at attracting dust for some reason.
I’m glad the robo-vac is working out well for those who have one, but I decided that for me the best bet would be my regular canister vac for whole-house or deep cleaning, and a cordless stick vac for the stairs and small cleanups. The stick vac has both limited battery capacity and limited dust capacity, but it’s very light and can work with or without a powered roller brush or even as a handheld, so I think it’s the best option for my situation. But everyone’s needs are different.
I don’t know if a robo-vac can be considered to be a replacement for a regular vacuum cleaner rather than a complement to it. The stick vac certainly cannot, but it’s a very useful complement to a conventional vac. I assume the robo-vac is somewhat the same.
Odd. The batteries in ours lasted forever, even when we forgot to pick up the lighthouses and turned them off.
We just got a new Roomba, after our old one, which was easily 10 years old, stopped picking up dirt. It is such an improvement. The old one we ran in a room or hall at a time since it either ran out of charge or got full. The new one we can run on the entire house (one floor only) since it toodles back to base and self empties and charges. The camera means we don’t have to pick up for it. And it has a mopping attachment, which we’ve only used once.
Finally a good application of AI.
I have a Euphy that has made my office, shop, and guest room vastly more pleasant. It runs twice a week and is really good at fitting under low furniture. It probably gets stuck 2 or 3 times per year, most often under the shop stools or similar things that have multiple legs nearly close enough to cage it.
We’re getting the kitchen, dining area, and living room (all one big room) refinished soon. We’re opting for vinyl plank flooring throughout and planning to get a robotic vacuum cleaner for that. Since there are many cats in that area, and they sometimes make messes, I think we’re going to look the room over and then hit start, rather than having it automatically initiate cleaning. The idea that an autostarting self-propelled robot might paint the entire floor with Eau de Chat is a bit much.
Yeah, just like you said. (sorry I missed that!)
I actually use the no-go zones pretty often for my kids’ rooms; most of the time they’re off limits because they aren’t quite as fastidious about legos, toy soldiers, etc… as they would need to be for the bot to run in their rooms without clogging up. But if they do get their rooms clean, I just remove the no-go zone and set the bot loose.
It’s also useful for problematic furniture - we’ve got a buffet/credenza type thing that’s got some decorative millwork around the bottom that basically act like a bot-trap. So I marked it out as a no-go zone so the bot avoids it completely. I do the same thing around Xmas with the tree and its fabric skirt as well.
I’ve had a Eufy X8 for about 14 months and just had to replace it. (The previous one started going in circles for no apparent reason. I tried everything, including a factory reset and cleaning all the sensors, but nothing helped. It was like robot vac dementia.)
I was fortunate in that most of my furniture, including my bed, is high enough that the unit passes right under it. I did have to add a couple felt pads to the legs of some pieces to get an extra bit of space, but the unit hardly ever gets trapped. Vacuuming under furniture at the age of 70 was never my strong point, so I was delighted that the robot vac would eliminate this.
I bought it primarily because we have two big dogs and I was seeing “fur tumbleweeds” here and there between the times I vacuumed. I run the unit every night and I’m always rewarded with a fist-sized chunk of fur, even after I’ve vacuumed with my standard vac. Whether or not the house looks or feels cleaner (it does), it’s obvious that the robot vac is removing a lot of fur daily. About once a week, I get out my battery-powered shop vac, put a 4’ extension tube and upholstery brush on it, and get the corners of the rooms.
The unit now costs about $199 and it is worth every penny.