Try it for a week, and you'll never go back.
Written: Feb 16 '03
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Ease of Use: |
 |
|
| Durability: |
 |
|
| Ease of Cleaning: |
 |
|
| Style: |
|
|
|
Pros: Easy to use. Convenient. Amusing. Keeps room tidy. Goes where you won't.
Cons: Must "prep" room prior to use. Slow and dumb. Not always successful.
The Bottom Line: You will be very happy with this amazing little wonder. Try it for a week, and you'll never want to go back. Use daily for best results.
|
|
|
| joechiu's Full Review: iRobot Roomba 3000 Robotic Vacuum |
A few months ago, one of a bunch of robot enthusiasts at work brought in a Roomba to work. I thought it was a neat idea, but felt that it was ultimately too toylike to be any use in my house.
About a week ago, I was walking my dog and walked past a Brookstone's where they were promo'ing the product. Since they had a 60-day return policy, and I was desperate for cleaner carpet, I bought one and took it home.
The first five minutes that I used the product, I felt let down and wanted to return it. But I decided to give it a chance for a few more days. I'm glad I did because, wow, it works!
I am now a Roomba beliver. Just go out there and buy it! I think you will be convinced too.
Need more details? Okay, let me explain...
I have a yellow lab/mutt mix that sheds like crazy. To top it off, my carpet is a dark emerald-forest green. Even a few strands of her fur becomes very noticeable.
I used to clean my house regularly. But work and social schedules have kept me too busy to keep up with the cleaning tasks, and my home was starting to fall into disarray. I finally gave up an got a house cleaner to come every 2 weeks -- and to my delight, my home was a delight again. Well, almost. Evern though everything else in the house is spotless, enough fur collects after three days that my house feels like a mess.
I tried vacuuming every day. Or. at least every other day. Or, at least every third day. Oh, hell, I was just getting tired of it. It was disheartening because less than an hour after I vacuum, fur would already start to collect again.
Enter Roomba.
When I brought it home from Brookstone's, I had to wait an anxiously 12 hours to properly charge the batteries. The following day, I eagerly watched as the Roomba started making "crop circles" in my carpet. (More on that later.)
I have to admit that my first 5 minutes with the Roomba was rather disappointing. It would get stuck underneath my IKEA chair, and would get itself tangled up on power cords or the stack of newspaper that I keep on the floor. (More on that later.) But the biggest disappointment was that it seemed to make little headway against the layer of fur that clung to the carpet. As I mentioned earlier, I felt let down and wanted to return the unit back to the store right away. But, since I have a 60-day return policy, I decided to try it out a few more times.
Well, after a few more days of daily (or sometimes twice daily) Roomba-vac'ing, I am quite satified with my purchase. My living room and my bedroom (the two rooms where I care the most about the dog hair) no longer accumulates fur to the point of feeling dirty. (In fact, the floor is spotless when the Roomba finishes its job -- but my dog spoils that within minute of walking into the room.)
The Roomba (http://www.roombavac.com) is billed as the "Intelligent FloorVac". Well, I suppose it depends on one's definition of intelligent -- to me, the Roomba is rather dumb. It's effectiveness lay more in its slavish devotion to keep sweeping up the room. Because it is so small, it will effortlessly clean "low overhang" areas(kickboards, under the bed, etc.) where dust-bunnies tend to gather.
It bumps its way around the room in a random walk and works slowly over the entire room, switching between several walking patterns. One of the more amusing one is a spiral pattern which seems as if it's intent on making crop circles in your carpet.
When the Roomba passes over a particularly messy spot, it might not pick up everything on the first pass. In fact, it might not pick it all up on the second pass over that spot, either. But because the unit meanders all over the room and criss-crosses the same spot from a number of different directions, it will eventually pick up everything.
There is a edge-sweeper arm that spins along the outer edge of the Roomba to even pick up dirt and fur that sits up against the wall.
Larger dirt particles, fur, bread crumbs and hair will get picked up by the rolling "beater brush" and collect in the dust cup. A separate squeegie-looking dust pickup mouth sucks up finer dust particles and lint and deposit them against the easy-to-replace dust filter.
When your Roomba is done with a room, just pull the dust cup and dump the dirt into the trash, and then remove the dust filter to dump the dust and lint into the trash. Pop the dust filter back on, and slide the dust cup back in to the Roomba, and you're all ready for the next room. (If you're starting with a particulary dirty room, you can pause the Roomba to empty out the dust cup, and then let it resume cleaning.) Once a week or so, you should also check and clean the beater brush.
Because the Roomba is not very intelligent, it will get stuck in ways that'll surprise you at first. The Roomba manual instructs you to watch the Roomba the first time it tackles a new room. After a while, you'll get a sense of what makes the robot unhappy, and you'll know how to prep the room for a successful cleaning. A minor hassle, but not too bad. If the Roomba get seriously blocked or tangled, it will shut itself down.
To keep the Roomba from wandering out from an appropriately prepped room, you can shut the door or place barriers to confine its sweep area. I usually use my small laundry basket and my small hand weights for this. The Roomba also comes with a battery-powered "virtual wall unit" that let's you "rope off" a larger gap without putting any physical barriers. This is good to block off a hall way, for example, so that people won't trip over a barrier intended for the vac. (In my bedroom, I use it to keep the Roomba from getting too far under the bed.)
Finally, the Roomba is less effective on deeper carpets. You may need to experiment on the running duration of the Roomba to find a workable solution. In my case, I just "upsize" the room setting. (Use the large room setting on my medium-sized living room, and the medium room setting for my small bedroom.) If your carpet is too deep, however, the Roomba just might not work for you.
I am very happy with my Roomba, but I should point out a few minuses: 1) the unit feels a bit toylike in its construction -- it's not fragile, exactly, but it does feel like it would be easy to break; 2) the battery takes forever to charge -- optional spare batteries and/or the quick charger would help here but is a bit pricey; 3) it is slow and takes 30 minutes to clean a room that I can clean up in 10 minutes -- but I can be doing other things during that 10 minutes, and don't have to lug around the big vac.
Buy your Roomba from somewhere you can return it, and just try it every day for a week. After that, I'm sure you won't go back. I know I won't!
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 199
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
joechiu
|
|
Location: Los Angeles, California
Reviews written: 8
Trusted by: 0 members
About Me:
Average working Joe... And an internet shopping junkie.
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.