I wanted to confirm these findings and add something else. When my roommate bought it, I thought it was pretty useless. Even just seeing it in action makes you wonder how it get's anything done. It basically runs in random patterns and takes forever. But after I moved to a different apartment, and he got his own place. I really saw how much work that thing was doing. I forgot how often the floors need to be swept to…
The newer ones allegedly dont do the random pattern thing anymore.
The 900 series (at least the 980) has a new navigation system.
Floor mopping with the Braava, which they are already breaking into. Gutter cleaning with Looj, pool cleaning with Mirra. Then on to lawn mowing. They have figured this out already, just none of them have as much name recognition as the roomba.
I would love a roomba lawn mower, but with as often as my roomba runs over my feet while it's going through its cycle, it would need some serious sensors. And when I'm mowing, I inevitably have to pick up some sticks that fell from my tree, or sometimes trash that people threw onto my lawn as they drove by. It's a harder space than the living room, you can't control the outdoors quite as much.
They already have lawnmowers like this. They already work great too.
I don't have any lighthouses or virtual walls. I just put cables on the table or stuck them behind something so the robot won't find them. Haven't had any problems with leg chairs or lamp posts yet. Regarding the dust ball on the kitchen floor: that's what the Spot-cleaning-feature is for. Or just lift the robot and put it on the dust ball where you press "Start".
I own two of these vacuums. If you run a Roomba every day, you will not have a dustball. This is just someone being disingenuous.
I don't like to see comments labelling someone as disingenuous here. What I said was factual hence the downvote.
Pretty much sums up my experience as well. The first step in using a roomba is cleaning the entire damn house.
Sounds like poor expectation-setting by whoever sold you on a Roomba. I have two dogs and a cat and keeping up with their fur is a full time job. Much easier to run the Roomba once a day. Yeah I have to keep the floor free of large debris, but I should do that anyway so I don't mind.
Cleaning up includes things like unplugging lamps and moving the cords. It includes taking all chairs off the floor and putting them on the table. It requires adding special devices to the floor to add barriers b/c the roomba has absolutely no learning capabilities. It includes removing rugs b/c the roomba gets stuck on them. I could go on. It's just a poor product. These things might be known issues, but when all of this is factored in, it really isn't a good solution for anything but gymnasiums and dance floors. If you have any stuff whatsoever, it takes more time and effort than a traditional vacuum.