Roombas?

Sep. 24th, 2006 04:07 pm
athelind: (Default)
[personal profile] athelind
Anyone out there have a Roomba? I'm looking for a general review -- in particular, how noisy the thing is.

Date: 2006-09-25 02:01 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] araquan.livejournal.com
I don't have one... BUT... A friend of mine here does. The noise is... Well, it probably won't bother someone in another room- unless the thing gets trapped under furniture and has to start emitting plaintive electronic cries for help. But to someone in the same room, reading or TV watching may be interfered with. If you put a couple computer case fans on top of a R/C car and drove it around, I guess that's about what the noise level would be, give or take.

LocalFriend's Roomba is effective at cleaning most floor-type surfaces, but it's not a particularly powerful vacuum- it's good for a daily maintenance vacuuming but not a really deep cleaning. So first, do the job with a regular vac, then let the Roomba do its thing daily. The Roomba should reduce the frequency with which you have to use a regular vac, but it's not a complete replacement for one by any means.

Date: 2006-09-25 02:35 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tprjones.livejournal.com
I've got one and I love it. It's much quieter than a "real" vaccuum, but far from silent. When I run it if it's in the room I just turn the TV up two notches and it doesn't bother me.

The drawbacks are that it has a tiny belly and it uses a semi-random pattern. I have a one-bedroom apartment, and it covers the whole place about every four times I run it on average. If you want to have every bit of your floor clean at a particular time, Roomba isn't the right tool. But if you want something you can just set off every couple of days and have it keep the place tidy in a piecemeal fashion without the effort of doing it yourself, it's way cool.

In theory it's supposed to finish up and park itself, but that particular feature hasn't worked for me yet. It always gets lost somewhere, and sits there quietly grumbling for a few minutes before shutting itself off. Eventually I'll notice the noise has stopped, and go play a fun game called "Where's Roomba?"

Date: 2006-09-25 02:38 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tprjones.livejournal.com
Oh, and if you have cats, there's two more things to be aware of. First, it's a lot of fun (until they finally get used to it; my fat cat doesn't even move out of the way anymore and Roomba just bumps it's way around her). Second, it means that instead of just dumping it's tummy you'll need to take the brushes apart to pull out the clumps of fur that get stuck in there. But it's very easy to take apart and put back together again, so it's no big deal.

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