Set it and Forget it !

My wife and I received our Roomba robotic vacuum as a Christmas gift. I must say I was skeptical about its usefulness. To be honest, we plugged it in and forgot about for a few weeks before we decided to give it a try. Our basement family room is about 1000 sq. feet, has wall to wall carpeting and many coves and obstructions to navigate around. This seemed like the perfect test.

The first thing I noticed was the Roomba really lacks any sense of direction. Until the novelty wears off, you will be tempted to watch its performance. This is enough to drive you crazy! It stops and changes directions with seemingly no rhyme or reason. You see it bearing down on a dirt spot and click, it decides to turn right.

After a few minutes of this, I go upstairs and ignore the little robot for about an hour (the average battery life). When I return, I am happy to report that the Roomba appears to have done its job fairly well. My only complaint is that the round shape prevents it from really getting up close to the wall in the corners.

After a night of charging, we set the Roomba loose upstairs. This level consists of hardwoods / tile and area rugs. This is where the robot really comes through. It does struggle a little when it hits the area rug at an angle, but often this causes it to turn around and go back under the couch where all the dust bunnies live. It cruises under beds and tables with ease and really gets to all the places I never would. Our house will now remain dust bunny free.

I will continue to let the Roomba roam upstairs on weekends, but I think I am sticking with the old vacuum for the wall to wall carpeting. Maybe it’s just psychological, but the vacuum lines left in the carpet help convince me it’s clean.