Robotic vacuums

[Ready]

On Prime Day I bought my first robotic vacuum after reading about them for years. I was a bit skeptical that it would be more than a gimmick but now that I’ve had one for about a week I have to say my quality of life has increased dramatically.

My vacuum is connected to Alexa so each morning I just say “Alexa start the vacuum” and it zips around the house from room to room, bouncing around randomly and sucking up all of the loose dust and dirt in the house. I bought a lower end model so it doesn’t have the sophisticated mapping features of the more expensive models, but it really gets the job done. It meanders in and out of the closets and bathroom, travels under the sofa, the beds, and the furniture where normal vacuums can’t reach and then wanders back to its base when it’s done and recharges itself.

Every few days I empty the dust bin and that’s about the only effort involved. And it really picks up a lot of dust and dirt and keeps the floors looking spotless.

Has anyone else tried on of these?

 

[mickj]

Robotic vaccums

I really enjoy ours. We recently upgraded to a more advanced model and the mapping features are really nice!

I probably never would have justified purchasing one but we got one free from a friend a couple years ago and fell in love.

 

[Out-to-Lunch]

On Prime Day I bought my first robotic vacuum after reading about them for years. I was a bit skeptical that it would be more than a gimmick but now that I’ve had one for about a week I have to say my quality of life has increased dramatically.

Would you mind sharing which unit you purchased?

 

[Ready]

Would you mind sharing which unit you purchased?

I bought this one:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07X53V3V6/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It was on sale for $200 for Prime Days. I’m guessing they will have another similar sale for Black Friday.

I went with a Eufy vacuum because they are manufactured by Anker. I’ve purchased many products from Anker and their customer service is the best I’ve experienced with any product. They have been willing to do whatever it takes to make the customer happy and they are really responsive to any issues with their products. The Roomba products are also very good.

 

[Out-to-Lunch]

I bought this one:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07X53V3V6/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It was on sale for $200 for Prime Days. I’m guessing they will have another similar sale for Black Friday.

I went with a Eufy vacuum because they are manufactured by Anker. I’ve purchased many products from Anker and their customer service is the best I’ve experienced with any product. They have been willing to do whatever it takes to make the customer happy and they are really responsive to any issues with their products. The Roomba products are also very good.

Thank you very much!

 

[njhowie]

Many have additional Amazon coupons on them right now.

This thread just cost me $200 in that I had no thought of ever considering this at all, and now I just bought one!

This is the one I bought:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B087C7KJGD

It had a $50 coupon on it and at 4000pa had stronger suction than most others. It also had very good reviews. I then purchased the water tank and replacement accessories on manufacturers website as they were much better priced than Amazon.

We have a "country home" the entryways are always messy, and the dust really builds up around the house before I break out the vacuum - especially under our bed. If this robot can roam around periodically and take care of those, I'll be very happy. Anything more and I'll be ecstatic.

 

[Ready]

Many have additional Amazon coupons on them right now.

This thread just cost me $200 in that I had no thought of ever considering this at all, and now I just bought one!

This is the one I bought:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B087C7KJGD

It had a $50 coupon on it and at 4000pa had stronger suction than most others. It also had very good reviews. I then purchased the water tank and replacement accessories on manufacturers website as they were much better priced than Amazon.

We have a "country home" the entryways are always messy, and the dust really builds up around the house before I break out the vacuum - especially under our bed. If this robot can roam around periodically and take care of those, I'll be very happy. Anything more and I'll be ecstatic.

That looks like a great unit! Let us know how it works out. I might purchase a second one for the first floor.

 

[Chuckanut]

I boubht the same Eufy to replace an aging Roomba that was very old and on its last very noisy legs. Word of warning. After I ordered it from Amazon, I found it cheaper at Walmart.

I replaced my carpets in many rooms with wood flooring almost a decade ago. It still has its gloss for the most part. I attribute that to the Roomba which made it easy to clean off the dust and grit that normally accumulates on a daily basis. The Eufy should continue to do that well. Also, the Eufy is much quieter than my Roomba was even when new.

As a side benefit, when my grand kid was two years old she spent many happy hours playing with the Roomba, making it change directions and outrunning it. The child did learn very quickly not to let it vacuum the toes.

 

[TrvlBug]

I have always wanted to get one as we have 2 cats, one of whom sheds a lot. I've been concerned how it handles hardwood floors. Is there a chance it would scratch them? They cost us a fortune to install. Does the vacuum easily move from hardwood floors to the area rugs?

 

[Badger]

I bought a Roomba as a Christmas present for my wife about 5 years ago. I know what some of you are thinking but that is what she wanted. Really. I thought, "Great! She will be able to run it every day if she wants and not have to vacuum ever again". Actually I used the vacuum more than she did but the Roomba makes her happy. I notice she only runs it about once a week since our floors are either tile or wood. We also run air cleaners so there isn't much dirt or dust to accumulate anyway. I think they are great for us. I don't know how well they would work on carpet but it would seem to me that it would challenge the efficacy of the vacuum.

Now she has a cleaning service come in once a month. Go figure. That is nice but it causes me more work to put things away before they get here. Not sure what the answer is anymore.



Cheers!

 

[Ready]

I have always wanted to get one as we have 2 cats, one of whom sheds a lot. I've been concerned how it handles hardwood floors. Is there a chance it would scratch them? They cost us a fortune to install. Does the vacuum easily move from hardwood floors to the area rugs?

We have hardwood floors in most of our house and the vacuum is very gentle on them. Because the wood is dark, dust is very visible on them. The vacuum sucks up a major amount of dust every day from the wood floors and keeps them spotless. I never plan to manually vacuum the house again for the rest of my life.

 

[tmm99]

How many of you have a robo-vacuum with some smarts in it (like with room mapping capabilities and avoiding certain areas, etc)? Mine was a dumb one that went places randomly, and it got too annoying for me after a while as it vacuumed some places over and over but didn't vacuum some areas, and had to be rescued as it wanted to go to places it couldn't handle.

 

[TrvlBug]

We have hardwood floors in most of our house and the vacuum is very gentle on them. Because the wood is dark, dust is very visible on them. The vacuum sucks up a major amount of dust every day from the wood floors and keeps them spotless. I never plan to manually vacuum the house again for the rest of my life.

Thank you.

A couple of other questions come to mind:

1. we have alpalca rugs bedside. Will the vacuum try to eat the fibers? Should we simply put the rugs away when running the vacuum?

2. I'm assuming unless the vacuum is small enough it won't vacuum under dining chairs or similar?

 

[RunningBum]

I had a Roomba 15 years or so ago. By the time I'd pick up cat toys, shoes, a fringe rug, cords, and anything else that might be on the floor, plus set up the barriers to keep it from falling down the stairs, I might as well have vacuumed it up myself. Plus the battery capacity went down quickly. I'm sure that's less of a problem now, but I just do it myself now. I get mildly tempted to try again when threads like this come up, but so far I've resisted.

 

[Brat]

I would love to have one of those but we have several Oriental carpets with fringes. If I could program the vacuum to not vacuum those fringes they would have a happy customer.

 

[neihn]

... She will be able to run it every day if she wants and not have to vacuum ever again". Actually I used the vacuum more than she did but the Roomba makes her happy. I notice she only runs it about once a week since our floors are either tile or wood. ...

How did you convince her to any cleaning tasks? The cleaning tasks are mine, be it vacuum the floor, rubbing the shower, bathtub, wash the cars etc...

 

[MrsHaloFIRE]

Question: does it mar or scratch door trim, furniture legs etc? I have a fear of a scrape line uniformly 4 inches off the ground on everything on my home. And hiw dies it handle transitions over rugs?

 

[neihn]

I would love to have one of those but we have several Oriental carpets with fringes. If I could program the vacuum to not vacuum those fringes they would have a happy customer.

Yes, they are very smart now. I just bought a Roborock S6, it has mapping capability and also mopping function. After it mapped out our home (with the first run), we can setup 'no go zone' and/or 'no mop zone' - It is smart enough that if I insert the water tank and mopping pad, it knows that I am going to want it to vacuum and mop, then it will not go to the 'no mop zone'. It also has something call virtual wall, meaning you draw a line in the map and it will see the line as a wall and bounce back.

Very nice toy.

 

[Chuckanut]

Question: does it mar or scratch door trim, furniture legs etc? I have a fear of a scrape line uniformly 4 inches off the ground on everything on my home. And hiw dies it handle transitions over rugs?

It's much more gentle on furniture, doors, etc. than I am when I bang the vacuum into them.

 

[njhowie]

Word of warning. After I ordered it from Amazon, I found it cheaper at Walmart.

Thanks for that - I checked Walmart.com and sure enough manufacturer was selling direct there and price was $20 cheaper than the Amazon price even after the $50 coupon. I was able to cancel my Amazon order and re-place with Walmart.com.

 

[Focus]

I got the Eufy too. If you've got rugs, forget it. The robot will always lose its swirling brushes on the rug edges. Also, you have to lift all cords from the floor, or the same will happen there. Other than that, it works well.

One thing that's funny -- the cleaning instructions advise you to vacuum the dust collector and filter. That actually brings up an obvious point: You'll still want a regular vacuum to clean objects and surfaces, plus the floor areas the robot can't reach.

 

[Ready]

One thing that's funny -- the cleaning instructions advise you to vacuum the dust collector and filter. That actually brings up an obvious point: You'll still want a regular vacuum to clean objects and surfaces, plus the floor areas the robot can't reach.

I don’t know why they do that. I just dump the bin into the trash and brush off the filter with a paper towel. It takes no more than five seconds. I’m not hauling out my manual labor vacuum to vacuum my robot vacuum.

 

[harley]

Every few days I empty the dust bin and that’s about the only effort involved.

Has anyone else tried on of these?

You obviously don't have pets that shed. It's been a number of years since our Roomba experiments, but unless they have quintupled the dust bin size I suspect we'd still have the same problem. Ours used to return to the dock after doing about half of the area because it was full. Every day. We'd have to empty it at least twice/day. Our dogs (pugs and chihuahuas) shed faster than the vacuum can meander.

I would be interested if they had one that could connect to our central vacuum system and unload itself. I'd just put it on a permanent run cycle and never have to vacuum again.

 

[Animorph]

I bought a Neato D7 vacuumbot around the beginning of the year. It's one of the smarter ones, with no-go lines you can draw on your phone screen, a purposeful cleaning pattern, individual room cleaning you can start or schedule from the phone, a soft touch mode that keeps it off the baseboards, and magnetic strip no-go barriers. All of which I use.

It moves from tile to a pretty high rug without significant problems, so it covers everything. We don't have any fringes, and all cords are close to the wall or naturally barricaded. I do have to make sure my laptop power cord is pushed out of the way, a few doors are open, and chairs are moved to different locations before the vacuum starts. I normally run the west side of the house before we wake up, and the rest about an hour later when we are in the west side. Twice a week, with one extra cleaning under the birds each week.

On the down side, I have to empty the bin after each full house cleaning. It gets stuck about once every three weeks and I have to help it out. It has left some black spots where it looks like it has spun it's wheels (the wheels a clear soft plastic, so it's just dirt that gets picked up). It stays away from the baseboards very nicely, but it also doesn't clean close to the wall in that mode.

I bought my DM a much cheaper Eufy for Christmas. She liked it, especially that it would clean under the beds. But she had a hard time keeping it out of rooms that weren't robovac-ready. I think magnetic strips would have helped quite a bit, but that model didn't sense them.

 

[Montecfo]

Those sound really tempting. Sounds like fringe rugs would be a challenge. We have them in quite a few rooms.