Robot vacuums

[96Firebird]

Anyone here use one, or have experience with them? I'm kinda interested in getting one to clean up pet hair from my dog who seems to be forever shedding. I try to keep a tidy house so there isn't much clutter, but I do have a mix of carpet and linoleum flooring on the first floor where it would clean. Don't want to spend a fortune and don't need the latest and greatest, just something to help keep it a little cleaner...

 

[mizzou]

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[Raizinman]

We were apprehensive about purchasing one as our German Shepherd sheds constantly. We purchased a Roomba at Costco. This was made specifically for pet hair. We thought if we tried it and it didn't work, we could easily take it back. Unfortunately, it worked so good that we have now had it going on two years. Works great. We run it daily. It runs for about 40 minutes covering are tiles, hard wood and carpets. Whereas we use to run our central vac once a week, now we can go 2 or 3 weeks before we get out the central vac.

PROS
1) Keeps the floor clean daily
2) Keeps pet hair (dust bunnies) away

CONS
1) A little too noisy to watch tv with Roomba running
2) If you don't do Roomba daily, the small waste container fills too quickly
3) Vacuum pattern is erratic sometimes missing spots on the floor
4) When going in a bathroom or closet, often can close the door and can't get out
5) Can't do as good a job as our central vac

 

[tracerbullet]

^^^ Nice, thanks for the review.

I too am interested in one, we have a large amount of tile in a kitchen / dining area that's always getting crumbs on it, dirt from outside (even though we take our shoes off) and litter and other crap from cat feet. I tend to sweep daily and pick up the pile with a dustbuster. Would love to have a Roomba or similar magically take care of it.

 

[96Firebird]

Well I decided to buy the Roomba 650, hopefully it helps keep the fur tumbleweeds from collecting on the tile floor. I'll be sure to update this after a week of use.

The 650 is low on the totem pole, but I didn't want to spend a whole lot in case it didn't work out... Plus, I had $150 gift card to Best Buy and the 650 is on sale for $299 right now so I felt pretty good paying $150 out of pocket...

I chose the Roomba over the Neato vacs because it seems like Neato has a quality control issue. Although I read they have better suction which might help out with pet hair in carpet, I didn't feel like having to send it out to get fixed if needed...

 

[dave_the_nerd]

We got a room by 655 at Costco. It worked fine for what we wanted to do, (three cats at the time) but we don't use it anymore because it was just loud enough to be annoying, and took about two hours to vacuum the entire first floor. (It's only about a 600 square-foot living room/dining room area.)

We also didn't want to leave it running unattended, or at least when we weren't at home, because if one of the cats had left a "present" on the floor, it would've made an awful mess.

It did make a mess of a couple phone chargers and cords it caught.

Finally, it had a tendency to get stuck on the welcome mat.

I have it in a closet, and am thinking of having it do my bedroom, if I can rearrange some of the furniture so it's robot-friendly.