Monday, July 16, 2012

Roomba revisited

Almost 6 years ago, I bought a Roomba robot vacuum. It lasted 19 days before I returned it. Well, not one to give up forever on technology, I figured enough time had passed to give the little dickens another chance. Enter the Roomba model 780 - their top of the line model.

The Roomba has seen some improvements over the years. You can schedule it now. It has the ability to detect really dirty floors and keep going over those spots until they're spotless. The dust bin is bigger and a Hepa filter is included. The battery is more efficient too. So how did it fare?

Well, we set it loose in our master bedroom and it cleaned that sucker spic and span. It's really difficult to get under the bed and Roomba has no trouble at all. It seems that iRobot did a much better job putting the robot together, as the brush system is quite easy to disassemble for proper cleaning and it comes with awesome brush cleaning tools. The device came with a complete set of spare brushes and filters too. I have found so far through trial and error that Roomba does much better if you restrict it to one room or area at a time. It does operate best if you remove all clutter and get cables off the floor, but it does have anti-tangle capabilities in case you forgot to lift a wire off the floor.

This new Roomba has a spot cleaning feature that will clean a spill within a 3 foot circle. It also has a remote.

P.S.: Olivia (our grand-daughter) is enamoured with robots thanks partly to the movie Wall-E. So when she spotted me a couple of weeks back dutifully working on the little robot (cleaning it's brushes), she asked what I was doing. When I told her I was fixing my little vacuuming robot, she said (with wide-eyed amazement) "You're fixing a robot?!" When I answered in the affirmative, my already hero status was instantly elevated to super-hero status in her eyes.

No comments: