OT robot vacuum

poster

Previous posts on this are almost 5 years old, and lots has changed. Has anyone found a decent unit yet? I am in the market and the choices are endless. I see most are self-emptying and have "dog mess" sensors to avoid that scenario now. I do not need anything with mopping capabilities like plenty of today's units have. Just curios if anyone has had any luck with these. The dog hair is endless and all my baseboards are marked up from my reckless manual vacuum operator, so searching for an alternative.  

billt01

We have 3,200 sq ft and have two S9's..looked at doing the Brava mop but heard for my Sq ft/age wouldn't be prudent..

I don't know the size of your floor but the two S9's take about 4 hours and multiple charges to clean the floors..(no carpet just LVP)

We run them twice a week and they do very well keeping up our labs hair and the dust and dirt.

DoubleEgger

We had a top of the line Roomba. I hated it because it was so loud and took forever to clean a room. We have a Miele cannister vac so I’ve been accustomed to quiet vacuums. We quit using the Roomba altogether. I was so turned off by them, I didn’t want any part of another one. I was overruled by the wife as she did a bunch of research and bought one unbeknownst to me. She ended up with one I had never heard of. I don’t know the name of it. It absolutely blows the Roomba out of water. It’s way quieter than a Roomba and it cleans a lot faster. It does have the mop feature and it works great. I didn’t think I needed the mop function; I quickly found out I did. It’s easy to tell it to mop up a specific area. After I get done cooking, the wife will tell the vacuum to clean only where I was prepping in the kitchen. 

Canugghead

pinging @jonessteave, lol

BigreenGreg

Bought a top of the line shark that empties itself and goes back to work. Pretty happy with it. Gets lost occasionally but fairly dependable.

ColtsFan

We have the Roomba J8+ from Costco. The mapping technology and built in cameras are quite the improvement over previous versions. I highly recommend it. It runs daily and keeps our Goldens hair in check. 

TechsasJim

We are on our 2nd Roomba and they’ve both been meh.    Clean up ok, takes a bit of time.   Can/will get lost or hung up on various things but when it does work it does it well.   

When it doesn’t we have a Shark canister that makes easy work of whatever leftovers remain..but that’s not the goal.   

RRP

I would love to have one, but I just know our Westie would go bananas chasing, barking and biting it. I doubt even Costco would take one back after seeing what our 15 pound Corky could do to dismantle such a device!

alaskanassasin

DoubleEgger said:

We had a top of the line Roomba. I hated it because it was so loud and took forever to clean a room. We have a Miele cannister vac so I’ve been accustomed to quiet vacuums. We quit using the Roomba altogether. I was so turned off by them, I didn’t want any part of another one. I was overruled by the wife as she did a bunch of research and bought one unbeknownst to me. She ended up with one I had never heard of. I don’t know the name of it. It absolutely blows the Roomba out of water. It’s way quieter than a Roomba and it cleans a lot faster. It does have the mop feature and it works great. I didn’t think I needed the mop function; I quickly found out I did. It’s easy to tell it to mop up a specific area. After I get done cooking, the wife will tell the vacuum to clean only where I was prepping in the kitchen. 

does that thing bump into your walls? Our I robot bumps into the floor trim and leaves little marks.

DoubleEgger

@alaskanassasin. No it doesn’t. It uses a camera system rather than a bump switch. 

Edit: I asked the wife and she said it is an Eco vac. 

buzd504

Yeah, we have an older school Eufy model, and it bangs around until it finally gets caught somewhere. 

It's loud, but it definitely picks stuff up - we have to empty it after every run or two (and no pets, currently).  We also have a weird layout (open plan, with multiple islands).

I'd be interested to try one of the newer more programmable models.

RRP

OK OK I’m going to bite! Do these things know how to switch from tile on to carpet back to kitchen “flooring” material? And lastly do they have some sort of depth changing sensor since 1/3 of our first floor is on a slab 6” lower.

Dyal_SC

I grabbed an older model Eufy for $80 from a buddy of mine who gets them refurbished from an auction. As long as your floors are free from clutter it does ok. We still vacuum once a week with a Dyson knockoff for fine tuning, but the eufy helps maintain things. Use it mostly upstairs or downstairs when we are gone, because it’s loud. If it grabs a random dryer sheet hidden under the bed, it gets caught in the brush wheel. And occasionally will wedge itself somewhere, like on the lip of our fireplace hearth or under the front of a recliner. Works better than the iRobot we used to have, but wouldn’t rely on it solely without the regular vac. The dog barks at it too and will try to flip it over. It recognizes the staircase well, but still has the glitch for awkward ridges and will get stuck. 

MN-Egger

RRP said:

OK OK I’m going to bite! Do these things know how to switch from tile on to carpet back to kitchen “flooring” material? And lastly do they have some sort of depth changing sensor since 1/3 of our first floor is on a slab 6” lower.

I have owned several from Roomba's to my current Neato. It maps your room(s) and you can setup no-go lines, so it will avoid anything you want. Also it has a cliff sensor and will not fall off any steps. It too will run until it determines it needs a recharge, return to base, charge and then finish cleaning. 

ColtsFan

@rrp here’s the map from our main floor. You can see where room dividers are configured along with the floor surface types. The squiggly lines are carpet/area rugs and the clear areas are hardwood. I can tell it to clean one particular room, some rooms or everything. 

Corv

I imagine my small tract home, from 1960, would fit in your primary bathroom.

Botch

No one else uses an analog version?     
 
 
 
 
 

Legume

We have a shark version that's about 3 years old.  I would call it adequate, but I don't think I would upgrade or expect more.  It handles the dog hair when it runs at night, when we need to we spot vacuum with a Dyson stick vac that does better in corners, under chairs, etc.

Legume

Does that come with virus protection @Botch ?

Botch

Legume said:

Does that come with virus protection @Botch ?

No, you have to buy those yourself.    

Mark_B_Good

Man, after my last experience, I said I wouldn't ever get one again. Got stuck under the couch, got stuck on the rug frills, under a stool ... it was just endless problems. Are they really any better nowadays?

JohnInCarolina

Mark_B_Good said:

Man, after my last experience, I said I wouldn't ever get one again. Got stuck under the couch, got stuck on the rug frills, under a stool ... it was just endless problems. Are they really any better nowadays?

Hard to say for sure as we never had one before the last year, but the Roomba we have has yet to get stuck anywhere.  And we have a mix of wood floors and carpet, plenty of furniture, etc.  

Ozzie_Isaac

@Botch in for the win.

We use a Shark.  On our second one.  The new ones with cameras are much better than the old bump into everything ones.  However, after about 8 months they begin to go downhill.  I have disassembled and cleaned it so many times now.  I pretty much have to every other week.  However, I do have two Australian Shepards that have an infinite amount of hair and two Jack Russel Terriers that shed little hair daggers everywhere.  The Shark has a lot of little areas that hair gets packed into and if you have to go beyond just removing the roller it is a pain.

I am going to check out @DoubleEgger 's Eco Vac, because we are about due for a new one.

Ozzie_Isaac

Now I need a new vacuum.  Managed to break a connector off a board for one of the drive wheels while trying to fix a brush roll issue.