Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: Snowdog on July 08, 2019, 05:59:00 AM
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On a whim, I purchase a factory refurbished iRobot Roomba 655 and gave it a go. I wasn't expecting much, but these things work! I put it in our guest room where the door is always closed and where I had vacuumed a couple weeks prior. After about 20 minutes in the room, I let it out and checked the bin. It was filled with both cat and dog hair (two cats and a German shepherd) even though none are allowed in the room. My daughter confessed she sometimes lays on the bed in the room and lets the cats in.
It's scheduled to automatically clean at 0200 on Tuesdays (arbitrary day, when all are sleeping). On occasion is might wake us by bumping into the bedroom door but otherwise we never knew it spent an hour or more cleaning the living room, dining room, kitchen, foyer and hallways other than all the hair and stuff in the bin (that has to be emptied). So far, it always finds its way back to the dock to charge. It's very low maintenance.
My wife ordered a "Ziglint D5" yesterday (either Ebay or Amazon) as she's been bit by the big it seems. We have yet to receive it, but it appears to be a superior unit in every way than the Roomba we are using now. She would like to give her parents the Roomba and use this newer D5 that is WiFi, has mapping technology and a less erratic cleaning pattern than our older-model Roomba. It also connects to Google Home or Alexa (we have an Echo Dot which it used often).
Does anyone else own these things? I enjoy watching the thing clean for some reason.
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We have a couple Eufy robotic cleaners. They do a fine job, albeit they are prone to get tangled in cords under the side tables and choke on the fringe of the area rugs.
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And you do not want to know what can happen if you have a pet that has a messy accident...
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This is how it began. At first we brought them in to our homes as servants...
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Oddly enough this video came up in my facebook memories today...
https://www.facebook.com/AFV/videos/10156684383351661/
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I have 10 cats, the little dust bin on those things would clog up in 5 minutes.
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You definitely need to "Roomba proof" your home if you have one, but I find them quite good for my circumstances. I had one of the early models many years ago and was not impressed, as even if you Roomba proofed, they could still find ways to fail. My current one an 800somethingorother, is quite a bit better at both cleaning and in extricating itself from stuff like extension cords.
I still tend to follow up once a month or so with the upright, but that's still three times less per month that I'm doing the vacuuming. :)
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Seems like 50%+ of the cat hair collects on the steps. Waiting for a Roomba that can do steps.
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Seems like 50%+ of the cat hair collects on the steps. Waiting for a Roomba that can do steps.
+1. Stairs are the biggest pain to vacuum. I'm waiting for Boston Dynamics to come up with something. :laugh:
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Oddly enough this video came up in my facebook memories today...
https://www.facebook.com/AFV/videos/10156684383351661/
What's funny is that dang robot will probably remember that dog and "sweep around it" next time!
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And you do not want to know what can happen if you have a pet that has a messy accident...
Absolutely and for sure. We had to retire a Roomba for a while until the stink finally abated enough to put it back to work. And that retirement was after a thorough cleaning.
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We've got three Roombas, one of which works in the main house upstairs, the oldest one that cleans the garage floor where my wife has her hydroponic gardening cave, and the one that tried to clean up an "accident" our dog had while we were out shopping. The stinky one is finally usable again and I plan to put it to work in my man cave downstairs.
Overall, we've been very happy with them. SWMBO is making noises about getting one of the latest models that will empty its bin automatically when it parks on the charger.
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I am keeping my eye out for a robotic damp mopper. I understand that this technology is not yet as good as the vacuums.
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Here is your deal for the day (7/8/2019)
https://www.woot.com/category/home?ref=w_gh_hm_3
bob
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I am keeping my eye out for a robotic damp mopper. I understand that this technology is not yet as good as the vacuums.
Now having a large area of wood flooring, I'm interested in this too, though I reckon you need to be extra careful with wood flooring compared to vinyl, etc. so that the robot doesn't make things too wet. My Roomba handles sweeping well on the floor, and I follow up with a Swifter wet jet with the wood formula.
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We have two of the Roomba damp moppers called "Brava" that use a Swiffer-like wet pad. They work pretty well for basic mopping, but they are nowhere near as sophisticated as the vacuum cleaners.
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My favorite Roomba story: About 15 years ago I was considering buying the hard surface Roomba, which I'm not sure they still make. I was thinking of putting it into my garage cleaning up grass and sawdust. I was reading reviews online, including one site that was posting from users from all over the world.
A woman in South America was raving about hers. It would pick up pet hair, dust bunnies, and scorpions. :O
I was thinking that if I had so many scorpions in my house that the Roomba were sweeping them on a routine basis, I'd buy an entire squadron of Roombas, one for each room in the house, and maybe a backup squadron to go into service while Squad 1 was recharging.
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I was thinking that if I had so many scorpions in my house that the Roomba were sweeping them on a routine basis, I'd buy an entire squadron of Roombas, one for each room in the house, and maybe a backup squadron to go into service while Squad 1 was recharging.
(https://media1.tenor.com/images/326e57daeb60b432af58285db8d6028d/tenor.gif?itemid=10891787)
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(https://media1.tenor.com/images/326e57daeb60b432af58285db8d6028d/tenor.gif?itemid=10891787)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9QQwmYrbUc
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I have 10 cats ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QhZLQsJg9U
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I should add for Ben's benefit that our moppers work pretty well on our hardwood floors. Our entire living room, dining room, den and entry way is one contiguous hardwood floor. It is gorgeous hardwood, and the Roomba moppers, despite not being very sophisticated, do a decent job of keeping them clean. We still go over things with a regular Swiffer mop periodically.
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I should add for Ben's benefit that our moppers work pretty well on our hardwood floors. Our entire living room, dining room, den and entry way is one contiguous hardwood floor. It is gorgeous hardwood, and the Roomba moppers, despite not being very sophisticated, do a decent job of keeping them clean. We still go over things with a regular Swiffer mop periodically.
Good to know - thanks!
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Updated info: We have two Roomba model 980 vacuums and one model 770. The 770 was the first one we bought when we still lived in Lebanon, OR. We brought it with us to NC to use initially in the house, and it was later replaced with the first 980 vacuum that we purchased. SWMBO had decided that she wanted the latest and greatest robotic vacuum, hence the upgrade.
SWMBO is particularly pleased at how the Roombas clean under our beds. Nowhere for dust bunnies to hide nowadays.
The 770 has since been relegated to the garage where it is destined to be run over by the Jeep one of these days when my wife backs out of her parking space. I figure it is only a matter of time before it gets stuck behind one of the Jeep's tires, and since no one ever checks behind them...
Still, it is doing a nice job of vacuuming the garage floor every day.
The first 980 cleaned up a nasty dog mess one day while we were out shopping. Since she couldn't do without the Roomba for even a couple of days, SWMBO immediately purchased another 980 as a replacement for the befouled unit.
The nasty 980 was cleaned up by yours truly and is now assigned to man cave cleaning duties in the basement, where it is doing a bang up job. Similar to what Ben had mentioned, I have had to work at Roomba-proofing the man cave so that the little robot doesn't get stuck.
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Parts not NSFW
Skip to 3:32 to you want skip the blab blab blab
The Roomba That Screams When it Bumps Into Stuff
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvz3LRK263E