Gadget Geeks Portal

Roomba
It’s a robot. What else is there to say?
When my vacuum broke this summer, I went to the store with every intention of picking up the cheapest working vacuum I could find. Instead, I left with a tiny robot vacuum: the Roomba from iRobot.
The Roomba is a short, circular vacuum that bumps blindly around your living room sucking stuff up until it runs out of batteries. That may not sound too amazing but I love it, though mostly because I hate vacuuming.

It takes the robot about half an hour to 45 minutes to clean a mid-sized room. This seems a little ridiculous considering I could vacuum it in about 10 minutes, but I don’t have to. What used to take me 10 minutes now takes me less than five. I pick the bigger things off the ground, push a button, then go do something else.
It was also entertaining for the first week. The first time we used it, we watched it vacuum the entire living room — just watched it for nearly an hour. The pattern it takes on the rug is kind of hypnotizing and it’s great fun to watch it find its way around corners.
The Roomba makers claim there’s a pattern it follows, and sometimes I think I have figured it out, but it’s hard to believe watching it bump around. The flat design helps it get under couches, though it also helps it get stuck in weird places. It’s a good idea to watch it when using it in a room for the first time so you can pick out problem areas.
One complaint I read online was that it’s not powerful enough to do a real vacuum, making it best used for in-between cleans. I disagree; the Roomba was definitely an upgrade from our last vacuum, and I clean my floors more often now that I don’t have to do any of the work.
My model is the most basic and cost me about $140, though they range in price up to $600. Pricier models offer different settings and better battery life, and some also come with a home base the robot will “auto-magically” return to for recharging, and the ability to create “virtual walls,” useful when there’s a lesser-used portion of your living room (we used boxes and books as a barrier).
If you don’t mind vacuuming or you’re one of those people who needs your floors to be absolutely immaculate, this isn’t the machine for you. But if you’re like me, and you’re itching for the rise of the domestic robot to do all your cleaning for you, it may be worth the extra cash.

0 Comment

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

0 Comment