What's your opinion on the Roomba?

I was thinking of getting my gadget-loving wife (who is also something of a neat-freak) a Roomba for Christmas. Are they worth it?

We’ve had a couple of Roomba threads before, but I’ll give you my two cents worth:

It works great for hard floors (wood, linoleum, stained concrete, etc.)

It helps to have a source of compressed air to ‘blow out’ the dust etc. each time you run it.

It has some small parts which may escape when you attempt to clean it. Keep a sharp eye out for escapees.

Pay heed to the instructions when they advise you to keep all area rugs, drapes, etc. up off of the floor. If Roomba gets tangled up in something like rug fringe, it will come to a grinding halt and begin peeping piteously.

My experience with it has been mostly positive. It saves me a lot of time since I don’t have to sweep every day anymore - my husband’s dog sheds enough hair per day to knit up a whole 'nother dog, it seems. The Roomba, if run every other day, does an excellent job of keeping up with the hair. We do have all hard floors, however. I can’t testify as to its performance on carpet.

I am on my second one; the first one had a congenital defect with its gears. Customer Service was very responsive, and sent me a new one (I had to send the old one in).

Yes, it was worth the price, to me.

Mom said that hers doesn’t do the whole room, but instead a small area and then shuts off. It has two buttons, one for spot cleaning, one for the rest of the room. She swears she presses the right button. But hers may be an anomaly.

It’s been great on our short carpet, as well. It won’t get probably the last quarter-to-half inch into the corners, so you’ll need to use a little brush or something to clean those out, but otherwise it’s pretty good at getting nearly snug up against the molding along walls.

Pay attention to the instructions, when it says you really should clean it out about every third usage. The holding compartment and brushes can get full up with dirt, hair, etc., and need to be cleaned. When you pop out the rollers, be careful not to lose the little plastic piece on the very end. I use a can of spray air intended for blowing out computer equipment to clean out the filter.

When I bought it, my husband was very dubious about it. It only took a couple of uses before he was completely won over. He’ll run it at times when he thinks that the place could use some tidying up. Plus, we tend to keep clutter off the floor more reliably now since it needs to be clear for the Roomba to run around.

I wound up giving mine away. Getting the room prepped with no hanging cords, no carpet fringe, blocking off sofas that were the wrong height (the roomba couldn’t quite go under them and would get stuck), etc. made running it a huge pain in the butt. WIth the right room set up, I can see the advantages but it didn’t work for me.

I’ve never used one, infact, I’ve never seen one used, but I’ve been poking around on their website since I’m looking to get my wife a Scooba for Christmas. It looks like the new model of the Roomba senses the tangle and spins the brush backwards to clear it.

Lesse if I can find the video.
Here it is…
http://irobot.com/video/roomba500_tech/Anti_Tassel_tech.html

I love my Roomba. It does a great job of cleaning our Berber and short pile carpets. And IMHO, it has less of a problem with stuff getting sucked up into it than our regular vacuums did.

I love my Roomba too. We have hard floors and short-pile carpet. I don’t think it would work well with long pile - I have some throw rugs with long pile and if it accidently gets on one it gets bogged down. It also can’t do tight spaces, of course, but it’s great for keeping the hair and crumb quotient down around here. It can get stuck under our TV stand, but I stuck a heavy rarely-used reference book under there and that took care of that problem. :stuck_out_tongue:

Love it to death…while it lasts.

I’m on my fourth one. They tend to last about six months before dying a slow painful death. I take GOOD care of it too, but hair tends to get into the deep recesses of Roomba where hands can’t go and wraps itself around the Roomba’s heart, strangling it to death.

Good news is that, as I found out yesterday, I can send it to them, and they’re replacing it for free.

Also, if you buy it at costco, you can return it no questions asked when it stops working. And it will.

But, while it works, my Roomba is my favorite pet.

I love Roomba. He’s great.

I had first Generation one and he was good, but wore out fast.
Now I got a modern one it’s fantastic.

Much easier to clean out after use, quieter, battery lasts longer and picks up better.

Like the people said, it’s not great with corners, but the benefits more than outweigh that little niggle.

What about in a house with a few long-haired females who shed a lot? (Human females, not pets, with hair 1-2 feet long?) Would that tangle it up?

I have very long coarse hair it every time we dump the Roomba tray we generally have to clear the human hair off the brush – using scissors because it wraps around and around the beater brush.

If you do this religiously whenever you are cleaning out the Roomba it seems to work out ok. It you let it go though, I suspect that eventually it will mess up the machine. On the other hand, this can happen to any vacuum – I’ve burnt out several normal vacuum cleaners on my hair. Roomba is doing as good as any and better than most.

That’s what killed mine. But, iRobot has good customer service. I said it stopped working, and they are replacing it. It never came up about the hair.

i love my roomba and scooba. they are the best. i am not a fan of the vacuum.

it is wonderful to hit the button on the remote and leave the house, then come home to a clean floor (and confused cats).

Ours died, and we were too busy to persist in getting it replaced. (It thought that one of its wheels was always stuck, so it would dance around for a while and then give up.)
I like to say that a Roomba vacuums like a man: it does an OK job, but it takes an hour and you have to watch it the whole time. (It sounds like the newer ones require less supervision.)

I was looking for more information about the Roomba & Scooba

**For the Scooba: **

Does it also vacuum?

If it does not, can you run a Roomba and Scooba in some sort of pattern to vacuum and wash?

How does the Scooba do on wood floors?

What does the cleaning solution cost per tank?

What gotchas should I know about?

What model do you have?

How many square feet does it handle on a charge?

**For the Roomba: **

Which model best handles pet hair?

How many square feet does it handle on a charge?

Thank you,
Jim

I have one of the older Roombas (the Discovery, IIRC), and I love it.

Mind, I’m your typical guy and therefore hate vacuuming, so the Roomba – which I use once or twice a month – is a huge improvement for me wrt cleanliness.

The above complaints about having to cut off hair (female roommates, God bless them), small parts, and so on are all valid, IME, but I’ve had mine for 18 months or so without it threatening to die on me. (But then, I only use it once or twice a month, so…)

I have a regular red Roomba “refurbished for pets” by the manufacturer that does fine. They also now have a model exclusively for pets but it is a bit pricey. I love it though. My dog sheds all year round and it definitely helps keep the hair tides low, although we still use the regular vacuum now and then because the Roomba doesn’t get everything - for some reason it doesn’t get the little fuzz balls from my sweaters that stick to the carpet.

answers:

yes, the scooba vacuums a bit. it doesn’t have the bin size the roomba does. just a wee filter. it will grab little bits of things.

the scooba does very well on wood floors. best to have some sort of finish on them, the wood will get wet. i have wood floors everywhere except the bathroom (tile) and basement (cement). it had scoobed them all.

not much at all, the bottle is around 3-4 dollars and scooby has a shot glass thing you use to measure out the cleaning fluid. there are marks for scooba solution and for vinegar. ya pour in the shot of cleaner and fill up the tank with water.

it does beep and beep and beep when it is done. it is easier to clean and rinse him out instead of letting him wait around for hours. more parts to clean than the roomba. and it needs to be “primed” before using it the first time or if you haven’t use him for a while.

it usually does one room on a charge. i’m not sure about how much square footage. it does my first floor in one go.

i usually roomba in the morning when i leave home and scooba while checking out the sdmb and watching tv at night.

if you sent them off together, i would think they would crash into each other. they move in a rather random pattern.

Something I’ve wondered…

– How does it (or can it) handle floor transitions? I have a metal flange about 1/4" high between my linoleum kitchen and hardwood living room. Will it make it over, or just whine plaintively? (although I might get it just for the cute whining).

– Can it do complex room paths? My living room has an “L” shaped sofa in the middle, which makes the space look like this…

  • = floor

= couch



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