Roomba

Zeldman

Zeldman

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Does anyone have a Roomba.?

What are the likes/dislikes.?

Does it do a decent job of cleaning pet hair.?

The new house has hardwood floors. We have one BIG hog dog and one medium size dog. The hog dog sheds all year long. I mean I could knit a set of long handles every week kind of shedding.

We also have two cats that shed, but nothing like the hog dog.

I just can't stand the giant piles of dog hair that builds up in the corners of the rooms.
 
We have three cats. It does okay with them but does fill the bin each time with hair.
 
I haven't heard (or read) the term "long handles" since I was a kid. Thanks for the flashback.

Oh and we have a Roomba and if you have a bunch of rugs and other scary obstacles, the Roomba doesn't do such a great job.
 
Try the Samsung one, I tried both, settled on the Samsung. The new version came out think a couple of months back, it’s great for cleaning closer to the walls. Mine leave about 1/2 inch out. The problem with roomba and others like dyson is they are round, doesn’t clean corners well.

Donno about per hair though, don’t have one and I have already done shedded most of my hair
 
Works well on pet hair. We have a mix of rugs, carpet, hardwood, and pet hair. After the first week, if you go daily or every other day, you won’t have to empty it but once per run. First few days we had to empty it a couple times each (first 2 was like 4 times). We got the “smart” one that goes mostly back & forth rather than randomly. In an angled room, it learns the walls and corners and goes back and cleans them on the last pass (it has a corner brush). Happy so far.
 
I've got an ecovac deebot n79s. I've got two cats and the bin will fill up quick with hair. It has brushes that protrude out from underneath so it gets corners well. It was cheaper than a roomba and so far I've had no problems with it switching between hardwood to an area rug or real carpet.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
 
Samsung makes a better bot, especially if you have critters, check Craig's list too
 
I bought a Neato XV21 a few years ago. It does a great job, we like it a lot. It takes an orderly approach to cleaning unlike the older Roombas. Right now it's down for a blown logic board, the replacement will cost me maybe $30 or so and a couple hours to replace it.

Picked up a used Roomba 550 last year, paid $75 for it and put another $75 worth of parts into it since then. New brush box and battery. It's dumb as a box of rocks, but gets stuck under fewer pieces of furniture than the Neato. I have heard the newer ones are better, but I'm not spending that kind of cash to find out.

They both do pretty well for what they are. Either will leave robot tracks on carpet; the Neato looks fine, the Roomba looks like someone turned a really dumb robot loose.

It's nice to have little robot minions running around doing stuff for you, but it's definitely a pay-for-convenience thing. Any of them, set to run regularly, will cost you plenty in ongoing maintenance and expendables. Filters, brushes, batteries, cleaning hair out of the brushes, cleaning hair out of the bearings, cleaning hair out of ... well, you get the picture. You'll get to add "Part time robot mechanic" to your resume. And since none of them do stairs, you'll still need to vacuum those yourself, and run a REAL vacuum cleaner once in a while to get the dirt that doesn't just sit on the surface.

On the plus side... when the floors need tidying up, you generally spend ten seconds on it, not ten or twenty minutes.
 
I really like our older Neatos better than the Roombas but the older ones are a little bit of a maintenance hog with heavy dog fur.

They definitely pick up TONS of pet hair but I’ve blown two LIDAR motors from pet hair getting inside where it doesn’t belong and jamming up the belt drive spindle.

Right now one has some sort of movement issue and the other has another toasted LIDAR motor. It takes about half an hour to completely strip one and gut it and replace whatever parts it needs.

They aren’t perfect at getting into corners or edges but they do the 80-90% job constantly when they’re not broken (one goes down roughly every six months for simple problems or battery replacement issues) with our one dog that sheds blonde very fine hair constantly, and both units upstairs and downstairs will have a completely full container every daily run when she’s shedding heavily. We just walk over and pop it out, dump it in a nearby trash can, and pop it back in.

I could probably “save” the little motors by disassembling at least quarterly and cleaning the guts out and removing anything caught on the belt pulleys but I forget. And here’s the best part...

The motor costs $3.50 shipped from China. Ha. You do have to unsolder two wires with the molex connector on them and tack them on to the new motor for that price. eBay sellers will do thy for you for $10/motor or more. Dumb. Just do it yourself.

And no, I haven’t found a source for a better quality one that can handle being stalled that will fit in them. They’re just cheap DC motors.

If I was smart I would order like six of those little motors and have them sitting here but I haven’t yet. Should have.

I do love that they’re not random path. The LIDAR maps each room and heads for the closest wall to the right, hugs it until it can’t anymore or it finds a doorway, and then all the way around to the right wall until it has a map of the room in its little pea brained microprocessor, then it drives back and forth across the room and navigates around furniture and what not.

What’s nice about that is if it dies or runs back to the dock to charge, you can see by the pattern in the carpet hoe much it got done and has to do still. It’ll run to the charger three times before it parks itself and that usually covers one floor of the house just fine and takes a number of hours while we are away.

They do get stuck from time to time and you find them screaming for help under something or wrapped up in the edge of a rug fringe or whatever when you get home, but for the most part they just keep going. About once a week we would have to go on a robot hunt when it wasn’t on its charger when we got home. Easy to notice since you get in the habit of dumping it every evening.

The rapid charge cycle on the older ones does fry the NiMH packs. Supposedly the new much more expensive ones fix that with lithium chemistry packs. Packs are cheap and easy to replace and there are aftermarket larger sizes and even lithium if you trust their on board charging circuits the third parties add to them.

This post makes me want to order some components and repair them both this weekend. I guess I’d better get on Amazon and see what’s available. I really like when they’re both working. I suspect the new models have fixed some of these issues.
 
No pets, but lot's of dust generated by me. I can set my Roomba loose in the house or hangar. Take a couple recharge sessions, but it gets the job done. The only issue is on the rare occasion that the little fellow can't find the docking station. Also, it needs light to navigate, so using it at night with the lights off will cause it to get lost.
 
I have one big furry shedding dog and two Roombas. The 1600sf house is split into two areas by a "lighthouse" and both roombas are programmed to run at mid-day every day. They do a great job (mixure of hardwood and carpet) and seldom get lost or stuck.

They're at least three years old now and have never needed major work. I clean the bins about twice a week (I have the model with the large pet hair bin), clean the brush and roller about once a month, and tear the entire thing apart, lube it, clean hair out of it and install a new filter about every 6 months.

I love my robot minions.
 
Zeldman said:
Does anyone have a Roomba.?

What are the likes/dislikes.?

Does it do a decent job of cleaning pet hair.?

The new house has hardwood floors. We have one BIG hog dog and one medium size dog. The hog dog sheds all year long. I mean I could knit a set of long handles every week kind of shedding.

We also have two cats that shed, but nothing like the hog dog.

I just can't stand the giant piles of dog hair that builds up in the corners of the rooms.
Click to expand...
Had what was probably Gen 1. It took more time to empty/clean the thing out (which didn't hold much) than doing it with a real vaccum cleaner.
 
While you're at it, get the discount and order this with it:

 
Timbeck2 said:
I haven't heard (or read) the term "long handles" since I was a kid. Thanks for the flashback.

Oh and we have a Roomba and if you have a bunch of rugs and other scary obstacles, the Roomba doesn't do such a great job.
Click to expand...

Then you will understand that when I say trap door I am not talking about a dungeons and dragons book......
 
We had a couple of Roombas, they were iffy. My favorite story was the time it locked itself in the bathroom and went "uh oh" and shut down (it had managed to push the door shut and then found itself trapped).

We have one of the Samsung robots now. It works QUITE well. It does a much more obvious job of room coverage though like the roomba, it's geometry keeps it out of the corners. It does a pretty good job of dodging obstacles and handles switching from the floor to area rugs fine (though sometimes it will push small ones around rather than getting on top of them). After it uses up it's charge it runs back to its charger for a few hours to recharge but remembers what it was doing and goes back and finishes.
 
Thanks for the replies. I think I'll research the Samsung and Neato models.

Of course a cleaning lady would work as well, and probably less maintenance....

John221us said:
I don’t have a Roomba, but have a “Linda” (house cleaner who comes once a week) and she is great.
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kyleb said:
How do you know this?
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Whoa... check, please....:lol::lol:
 
I have. Roomba 650. It is the base model. Is does well. I have it set to run everyday while I am gone. It keeps the house looking good. It does great with the few carpets we have. We have mostly tile and wood. I have probably sold 7-8 of them to friends and family. They are great.
 
One suggestion...though it may be obvious...

I've had roombas for probably 10 years. Wore out the first two. But...

I saved the chargers.

So, now I have 4 chargers scattered around the house for 2 roombas. Really reduces the "getting lost" syndrome.
 
timwinters said:
One suggestion...though it may be obvious...

I've had roombas for probably 10 years. Wore out the first two. But...

I saved the chargers.

So, now I have 4 chargers scattered around the house for 2 roombas. Really reduces the "getting lost" syndrome.
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Haha. I did that with the Neatos too. They’ll happily find a different charger and go to it.
 
We picked up a Roomba on sale a couple of years ago. It’s assigned to basement duty, but it occasionally makes it upstairs to do things like vacuum under beds.

It’s kinda cool to watch it, as long as you don’t need to see anything resembling a logical pattern. It moves around like it’s got serious ADD, but it definitely gets the job done.
 
The biggest issue I've had with my Roomba is moving or blocking things that it can get stuck under. In the house, the treadmill (that I use for launching airplanes) is the biggest culprit. In the hangar, it gets stuck under the Tango's wheel pants. Also need to crack the hangar door a bit (just an inch or so). There's just enough room for it to get under the structure, but not enough to get out.
 
Zeldman said:
Thanks for the replies. I think I'll research the Samsung and Neato models.

Of course a cleaning lady would work as well, and probably lol:
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That depends ...
 
I've had a couple of roombas in a couple different houses in the past. Most recently we bought a bobsweep that was cheap from woot. Here's what I've learned from my experience...

They will not keep the floor clean on their own. They'll cut down on the dust and pet hair but you still need to use a normal vacuum, maybe just less often.

The schedulers are almost pointless. We always need to pick up a little bit before sending it out on it's own for some reason. If nothing else we have a rung with a bunch of fringe around it that it WILL get stuck on. Even without that 2/3 of the time they get hung up on something before completing a cleaning cycle, often multiple times. The most common area I see is on the kitchen cabinets and our dishwaser- there's a ledge just high enough it can wedge it's self underneath and then not be able to back out of.

All the roombas I've had eventually required me to take apart the gearbox for the beater brushes and remove all the pethair clogging them up after about a year of use. Haven't had the bobsweep long enough to know but I think their design might work better in that regard, time will tell.

I'm still on the fence as to whether the things are truly a useful cleaning tool or just a toy. I'm a nerd and I like toys though so....
 
cowman said:
I'm still on the fence as to whether the things are truly a useful cleaning tool or just a toy.
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A little of both, I think. They don't keep you from having to vacuum carpet from time to time, but they can keep the house looking neater. A regular run by the 'bot keeps it looking like it's been recently cleaned.

There is one place in our house that they do the job all on their own... the wood floors in the entry and kitchen. No more dust bunnies hiding under furniture, we still mop as we always have (as needed) but pretty much never need to sweep any more.

But you do end up investing a lot of money and maintenance time to get all that. I just hate taking bots apart less than I hate cleaning floors myself.
 
DaleB said:
A little of both, I think. They don't keep you from having to vacuum carpet from time to time, but they can keep the house looking neater. A regular run by the 'bot keeps it looking like it's been recently cleaned.

There is one place in our house that they do the job all on their own... the wood floors in the entry and kitchen. No more dust bunnies hiding under furniture, we still mop as we always have (as needed) but pretty much never need to sweep any more.

But you do end up investing a lot of money and maintenance time to get all that. I just hate taking bots apart less than I hate cleaning floors myself.
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Not much carpet in my place, but this is pretty much my deal.

My Roomba does a decent job of keeping the dust off the floors. It typically takes 2-3 runs to get it all though if I haven't run it for a while. If I'm doing a dusty project (woodwork), then I'll let him sit until I'm done. I don't do scheduled jobs at all. I just start him up in the morning when I want a clean up.
 
I have two short-haired dogs and a long-haired wife....been running a Roomba 870for couple/three years now and it does a great job. Only maintenance beyond emptying bin and banging out the filter daily is getting Teresa’s (that’s the long haired one) hair off the ends of the roller/suck-em-up thingies every few weeks (a five minute, no tools needed job). Has been dead-on reliable. Puck, as we named him, even travels with us VA <—> FL.
Had read initial concerns re rug fringes, but we have a number of fringed rugs and have had zero problems.
Thought Puck might freak out the dogs, but no....they just give it the stink eye when Puck bumps into them.
(Used to run at night but is a bit noisy, but dark is NOT an issue)
 
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