I finally broke down and bought a Roomba over a month ago. I'd been contemplating it for over two years. Vacuuming the house is something that is physically really hard for me to do. So it falls on Jarrod, but it was easy to forget about. We were lucky if we vacuumed the house every two weeks.
Enter Rosie the Roomba, fondly named after the Jetsons' robot maid. She has been cleaning my house ever since, and it's been great. I am really, really glad we finally got a Roomba.
But, it's not exactly a no effort thing, not quite "set it and forget it." Unless you buy a higher end model that has "whole home/multi-room cleaning", you still have to make a point to move the Roomba and charger room to room. The reason is that the Roomba only has so much battery life, and it is 'supposed to' return to its dock when it knows it's finished cleaning. If you were to just set it loose on your whole home, it would surely die of a dead battery in some random spot. Unless you live in a studio apartment that is like 800 sq. ft., most all homes are too big for the Roomba to attempt to cover in one go (again, unless you get a more expensive model.)
We bought a middle-of-the-road model that we felt would suit our needs, and I got a great deal from an Amazon seller. One of the options I wanted was the "tangle-free rollers." The rollers aren't made of normal bristles, but instead these rubbery teeth that whisk up dirt and hair. For those with a pet, this is practically a must-have.
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| Josie meets Rosie :) |
To use it properly like I just described, I made myself a schedule for which room to move it to, and what day. Our Roomba came with a "virtual wall" that creates an invisible line the Roomba will not cross, which is essential for splitting up our kitchen from the rest of the living area.
It cleans well on all surfaces; tile, wood, carpet, it does great. What I really love about it is that it gets under the hard-to-reach areas, like under your bed or under your sofa. It also happens to fit perfectly under our bedroom furniture (the dresser, the night stands, all of it) and I love walking in the bedroom to find it cruising along from underneath our bed to underneath my dresser.
But there are some cons. You definitely have to pick up your space before you use it. If there are shoes or toys laying on the floor, it will either run them over or shove them around. I left a pair of shoes in the laundry room once and it sucked up the laces; luckily I pulled them right out, but still. There are also horror stories of Roombas smearing dog poo around because it cleaned while the owner was at work. There is a schedule function on it, which I have yet to use since I work from home, but that option is there. Say you want it to clean while you're at work, again, you have to make sure you're room is all picked up before you leave the house.
It cleans in a non-sensical pattern, not in straight lines like we would. I do think it misses spots occasionally, even though technically it's not supposed to, but I am not overly concerned because it will get to it next week. And if this does happen, it's primarily in our large living room, not in the bedrooms. For our hardwood, I still dust mop every couple weeks to pick up whatever it may have missed. Futhermore, since it is a round object, it doesn't always get into tight corners. So the dust mop takes care of that. There are times it gets fixated on an area and keeps coming back there 4-5 times, which I don't understand but whatever.
It pushes my floor lamp around, which is sort of comical to watch, but a tad annoying. The base isn't heavy enough to keep it in place. It bangs into things sometimes, too. Sometimes it is really good at sensing it is approaching an object and it slows down and gently taps it, and then other times it just runs right into it. It does better with solid things like walls and such, but not so much with skinny table legs.
Josie was wary of it when we first got it, but she never barked at it or was really scared, so that's good. I think the most annoying thing for Josie is once she finally finds a comfy spot to lay down, she has to get up again because suddenly the Roomba is headed her way, haha.
Overall though, I'm very glad to have it. Our floors are probably the cleanest they've been—consistently—in a long time. The dust bin, though much smaller than a full sized vacuum, always has a good amount of dust and dog hair in it, so it cleans really well. There are no more colossal dust bunnies or piles of dog hair under our bed, which is great. It's a very clever machine, and I've watched it work itself out of tight spots before.
To sum it all up, I'm very happy with it, though it does have a couple drawbacks that mainly revolve around it running into furniture and having to put your room back together when it's done. But the ease of use and convenience outweigh those, for me.
If you're thinking of getting one, my best advice is to do some research. Not all Roombas are created equal, something I didn't realize before. There are 5 current models offered, though you will still find plenty of older ones no longer in production on Amazon. There is a budget model, but based on my research, it sounded like the cheaper models constantly banged into everything, where the higher models do better sensing the room and slowing down as they approach something. There are almost always some super duper Black Friday offers on Roombas, but many times it's on cheaper models or, on Amazon, out-of-production or open-box stuff. If you just want a Roomba but don't care about the options, Black Friday is your best bet. If you do want to be more picky, like myself, do your research and watch Amazon prices, and especially the "other sellers."
If I haven't exhausted the topic and you have any more questions, just ask! :)
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