Has anyone bought one of these and does it actually do a good job of vacuuming?
I have one for my apt when i'm @ school during the week -- it works fairly well. i just charge it overnight, then let it run in the morning when i leave for work/class. easy way to keep the room clean.
Go to EBay and buy a 'Rainbow' - best one out there. $2,500 with all the toys RETAIL, but $400-500 on EBay. Last vac you will ever buy.
My mom got one for xmas. I tried it , wasnt too impressed on a shag/berber type lower end carpet, might work better for a plush type though.
Yes! We have the Roomba Red. We've had it for about a year now and absolutely love it. Most of our floor is hardwood and we have two dogs. I can tell you without the Roomba, our house would be a mass of dust-bunnies, dog hair and the little pebbles the dogs seem to track in. It doesn't have enough juice to do our entire first floor, so we break it into daily sections. It seems to do a good job on our small carpeted section, but it simply can't handle the deep texture of our slate tile kitchen floor. Of course the hardwood is where it really excels.
Nick, All our floors are hardwood. Do you think it does a better job than a standard vacuum or even using the Swifer Duster?
It has some trouble getting deep into corners and can get hung up on loose throw rugs. Based on the amount of dirt and hair it picks up from a seemingly clean floor, I would say it is much better than a swifter. On hardwood, it works equal to that of a conventional vacuum. On carpet, it will pick up the surface stuff, but doesn't have enough suction to pull out deep dirt. For me, the greatest benefit is convenience. We turn it on when we leave for work and the job is done when we get home. Sure, sweeping or vacuuming the floor only takes a few minutes, but I have a long list of jobs that take only a few minutes. It's nice to be able to cross the floors off my list. We think our Roomba was hit by a power surge as it suddenly started acting "drunk." It would run for about 30 seconds and sound its "I'm stuck" alarm. We called the manufacturer, they knew exactly the problem and are sending us a chip to reflash the memory.
I bought my wife two for Xmas two years ago. They do a "very good" job of vacuuming. We have hardwood, tile, and carpet that we use them on. It really is nice for our hardwood kitchen where crumbs from kids (and mother in-law) collect under the cabinate toe kicks and such. We run it almost every other day when we leave. If you keep in mind that its not going to do an ABSOLUTLY PERFECT job EVERY time then you will be very, very, pleased. All of our friends who have seen the results after its run have been pretty impressed. Roomba is only about 4 inches tall, so it goes under our beds, chairs, tables, etc... One of ours got "sick" and Irobot, the manufacturer, sent us out a software upgrade that took only 90 seconds to install, and now its "better!!" My wife and I were in "robotic mourning" for a while there! Costco sells them.... Liftime Satisfaction Gaurantee!!
We purchased a roomba discovery about three years ago, and absolutley loved it. Saves time and works great! Corners are its one weakness, but its much easier to take care of a few corners manually then the whole floor. Ours started having battery problems after about two years. Called up Irobot and even though it was out of warranty, they shipped me a new robot and battery for free. When we moved into our new house it has all tile floors except for the master bedroom, so we bought a Scooba, the floor washing robot. This thing is even better then the vaccum! I highly recommend these things, and you wont find better customer service and support. On a side note: the company actually made the programmer for the robots available to the public, so if your into programming you can "hack" the robot and make it do other things. I think its cool when companys allow people to do things like this, and I think you will see some interesting add ons come out for these robots.
My cousion works for them and she says there great. She says that she gets them for $300, and they take $15 out of her paycheck every week, I think ppl wo work for them are flipping on Ebay.
We have one. If you don't expect great results it's OK. I find it to be more of a novelty than a well designed appliance. We also have a Simplicity and a Sebo X4. Both are phenomenal machines (powerful motors, metal brushroll, quality materials and assembly)and put to shame Dyson, Hoover and the like.
Well, I went out and bought the Roomba. It works! I was surprised how much it picked up. Went under the bed and vacuumed all the places that are hard to reach with a standard vac or broom. Of course the cool part is that it's automatic. I turned it on and left the house. Came back and the room was done. I've got a $400 Dyson that doesn't do as good as job.
I'm still using a ten year old eureka I bought for 200 or so dollars. Works fine for me. Squeeks and I've had to ductape the attachment. Still uses bags to. I had a bagless model of some kind but fried it while doing remodel work around the house hehe. I'd love a dyson or roomba so maybe thats next
We just got a Roomba (vaccum only, not the wet thing) and it did a darn fine job. The upstairs of our old house is about 2500 sq. feet and has 6 bedrooms plus a large foyer (10 x 10?). I closed off 2 of the bedrooms and a bathroom, then just let the little robot go to work. 2 hours later, I found it exhausted in the corner with a drained battery. Guess what? The floors and rugs look GREAT! Unsealed hardwood floors (105 years old), sisal rugs, Berber rugs, orientals with fringe, and even Luca's playroom carpet all look fantastic. The robot goes under furniture, around chairs, etc. Incredible. The amount of dust and dirt that I pulled from the collection bin was astounding. 2 BIG THUMBS UP! (p.s. I got the cheapest one -- I think $299 maybe?) Image Unavailable, Please Login
Hmm, I've either got a really good Dyson or a really bad Roomba. I ran it over my tile floors for a while and ended up putting the Roomba back in the box and returning it. I never even bothered letting it run on my carpet because I knew that it wouldn't stand a chance. To be fair, I have a pair of Newfoundlands at home so any vacuum is going to face an uphill battle. The little Roomba just couldn't hack it.
I actually have the Electrolux Trilobite and really like it. Like the others say, if you did it by hand you could probably do a better job. However I usually use it in the lower level of my house which is all hardwoods. Turn it on during the day and it gets rid of all the dust and pet hair that is everywhere, makes it much easier on me and one less thing to worry about. Also, watching it freak out the dog is nearly priceless.
It's decent! Ok, I'm a 23 year old student who moved back in to save some money while finishing up my degree. I bought my mom one for christmas..... It was vacuuming upstairs, went under my bed, picked up some nice raunchy porn and evenly displaced it along the entire 2nd floor of the house.. No joke.
had one for a couple of years now. even though it doesn't "vacuum" it still does a good job. we have a long hair producing critter (american eskimo) and i have to clean the brushes about halfway through the job occasionally. but it is nice to go out and when you come home the floor is clean.
have the discovery... it works great, I can turn it on in my apt, go to class, and come back to a clean room. I'd never go back to a regular vacuum.
I have a roomba as well and love it. Can't say enough about their customer service, too. Here's the thing with animal hair... (1)The roomba junkies (yes, there's at least one website with forums and news about robotic vacuums!) say to pull the brushes and clean out the bushings, etc about every other cleaning if you've got a lot of pet hair. I think that's what killed my first one. It's a long story on my return process but their cust service was fantastic, so good I made the rep listen to how impressed I was! (2) Even though I doubt you'll try again, snake, they now have a roomba for pets. I think you can retrofit at least some of it's parts onto a standard roomba, though, tatcat! Finally... I hear they're coming out with a robot mower this fall (odd timing if you ask me). This isn't an impossible task to make safe, there are already robotic mowers out there, but I'll wait for the IRobot machine!
