.FLYINGHEAD CONSUMER ROBOTICS
.TITLE Is there room for Roomba?
.AUTHOR Heather Wardell
.SUMMARY Do you love having clean floors, but hate vacuuming? Well so does Contributing Editor Heather Wardell, and she’s found the answer. Roomba, iRobot Corporation’s vacuuming robot is ready, willing, and able to help you not only keep your floors clean, but recapture your spare time, and entertain you as well.
.OTHER
Do you love having clean floors, but hate vacuuming? Would you do so many more interesting things if you didn’t have to spend hours cleaning the house? Well, Roomba, iRobot Corporation’s vacuuming robot is ready, willing, and able to help you discover your free time again.
At least, I hoped it would be. It really did seem too good to be true. Could a device that looks like an overgrown Frisbee really vacuum my house without any guidance, and do a good job while doing it?
.H1 The Roomba line
Since the Roomba isn’t particularly cheap, I did quite a bit of research into its stability and functionality before deciding to take the plunge and buy one. On the sites I found, there didn’t seem to be a middle ground; people either loved Roomba, and thought it did an excellent job, or they thought it was a waste of money. With this in mind, I decided to make sure that I bought my Roomba from a place where I would be able to return it if the need arose.
The current Roomba line consists of four robots: Roomba Red, one just named Roomba (with slightly more features than Roomba Red), the white Roomba Discovery, and the silver Roomba Discovery SE. All four promise the same level of cleaning satisfaction, but the accessories that are included are slightly different.
.CALLOUT When Roomba first arrived, the cats were most definitely unimpressed.
Roombas come with at least one virtual wall unit, which allows you to block Roomba from entering a particular area; the red one comes with only one, and the other Roomba models come with two. As well, the Discovery and Discovery SE include a Home Base unit, which Roomba can find automatically when its battery is running low. Figure A shows a top-down view of Roomba on its charger, waiting for the call to duty.
.FIGPAIR A Roomba can stay on its charger whenever it’s not in use.
After a great deal of deliberation and discussion, my husband and I decided on the Discovery, which runs about $250, depending on where you buy it. It has two virtual walls, and the Home Base, but doesn’t have the wall-mounted charger that the Discovery SE includes. As most of the walls of my condo are either mirrored or covered in pictures, the lack of a wall-mounted charger wasn’t a big deal.
.BREAK_EMAIL To find out how Roomba actually performs, you’ll have to click here.
With great excitement, we unpacked Roomba. The manuals were clear and easy to understand, and we set Roomba up and placed it ceremoniously onto its charger. Given that the final decision to buy Roomba was rather last minute on that particular day, it didn’t make it home with us until about 11:00PM, and it needed to be charged for three hours before its first use. I did consider getting up at 2:00AM to try it out, but my husband was concerned that our neighbours might have an issue with vacuuming at that hour. Some people!
.H1 Roomba’s first voyage
Bright and early the next day, I picked Roomba up off its charger and placed it in the center of the living room area. You can launch Roomba directly from its Home Base, but I wanted to watch it go from the middle of the room. My condo is fairly open, so it had a lot of choices as to where to go from its starting place.
When the "Clean" button was pressed, Roomba played a little song and off it went. The first few minutes of a cleaning cycle involve Roomba moving in a circle. Apparently it’s scanning the room to find out what’s where and how big the space is. After this part of the cycle is complete, Roomba shoots off in a straight line.
When people vacuum, they tend to start at one end of the room and then move back and forth until the entire room is finished. Roomba does it rather differently. There is no discernible pattern to its movements most of the time, but it does seem to get the job done. Eventually.
.H1 Does it really work?
In short, yes. I have now been using Roomba for going on two months, and the regular vacuum hasn’t been hauled out of the closet for at least the last month. I have two indoor cats, so my Roomba has had many opportunities to demonstrate its skills with cat fur and cat litter. It’s excellent at both. My cats shed constantly and Roomba always manages to collect quite a solid fur ball by the end of a session.
My condo is almost entirely hardwood and tile, with carpeting only in the bedroom. Roomba does an outstanding job on the hardwood, and in fact leaves it looking polished because of the design of its front spinning brush (more details below). The tile and carpet are also left looking clean and litter-free.
.H1 How does it work?
It’s obvious that iRobot put a great deal of thought and planning into Roomba’s design. All of the Roombas are low to the ground, approximately three inches in height and sixteen inches in diameter. There are two rotating brushes underneath that resemble the brushes on a standard vacuum cleaner. Up front, Roomba has a small brush, like an artist’s paintbrush but with bristles at both ends, that spins. This brush allows Roomba to move things underneath it, so that it can suck them up, and also allows it to spread dirt around so that it can pick it up on the next pass. Figure B shows Roomba’s undercarriage, with the three brushes and the actual vacuum part with its blue rubber flaps.
.FIGPAIR B Roomba’s small brush (circled in red), larger brushes (circled in purple), and vacuum (circled in blue) all work together.
The front section of Roomba is essentially a bumper, and Roomba will bounce off walls, doors, or the beam from its virtual wall, and head off in a different direction. The first time my Roomba hit a wall my heart skipped a beat, but Roomba is designed to handle this sort of repeated impact.
The back section is the dirt bin. Everything that Roomba collects ends up in this bin. Cleaning Roomba is a very simple task: the back section pulls off, and you dump out the dirt. You then take out the filter, shake off any excess hair or fur, and put Roomba back together. It’s about a two-minute process. Figure C shows the contents of Roomba’s bin after a cleaning session, primarily cat fur and litter.
.BEGIN_KEEP
.FIGPAIR C Apparently I had very dirty floors.
Given that I run Roomba at least every other day, it’s rather scary how much it picks up.
.END_KEEP
Roomba has several modes of operation. In "Clean" mode, Roomba cleans until it either feels that the area is complete or its battery runs down, and then it returns to its home base; "Max" mode will cause Roomba to run until it’s out of battery power. "Spot" mode cleans an area of about three feet in diameter, after which Roomba will return to its base.
While running in Clean or Max mode, Roomba will occasionally encounter a particularly dirty area. It then moves into Dirt Detect mode. A blue light comes on, and Roomba makes tight figure eight patterns over the area until it feels that the dirt is gone.
Roomba has sensors to prevent it from falling down stairs; I’ve tested this (very carefully!) and it does work well. Roomba follows walls extremely well, and does a really nice job of covering the entire floor right up to the walls or the edge of the furniture. It can handle changes in floor height as well, and can adjust the height of its wheels to push itself off an obstacle if need be.
There are times when you want to restrict Roomba to a certain area of the house without having to close doors or set up barriers. This is why Roomba comes with at least one virtual wall unit. These send out an infrared beam that Roomba thinks is another physical wall. It’s really neat to see Roomba bouncing off the empty air, and the virtual walls do a great job of keeping Roomba in its place.
While Roomba does a nice job, it’s not the method to choose if you need to have the floors vacuumed quickly. My entire condo is about 1400 square feet, and Roomba takes well over an hour to do half of it. I put Roomba into a small bathroom with the door closed, and that took twenty minutes. I often put Roomba to work after dinner while I’m tidying the house, and the two of us work together quite companionably and leave the house looking very nice.
.H1 Unattended operation
Roomba can be run without your being there. My original intent was to set Roomba going just before I left for work, allowing it to do its thing and then take itself back to its Home Base.
Unfortunately, Roomba doesn’t always make the best decisions for itself. So far, in my two months with Roomba, it has eaten: a large plastic spring cat toy, the bottom few inches of several different curtains and table cloths, a good five inches of my laptop’s network cable, and various other power cables and cords. Generally speaking, it’s actually quite good at realizing that it’s sucked in something bad, and it either pauses or manages to release the object. Not always, though, which is why I’m not comfortable leaving Roomba running when I’m not home. I must admit that it hasn’t yet ruined anything or damaged itself, and it would probably be fine to run it unattended, but I’ve become quite attached to it and would hate to come home to a disaster.
.H1 How Roomba handles furniture
Before bringing Roomba home, I was concerned that it would just run in a big circle around my furniture, and not get right in there and get the floor clean under chairs and tables. As it turns out, this wasn’t an issue.
My dining room table has a pedestal base, most of which is off the floor. Roomba rolls right underneath, missing only a three inch or so space beneath the center of the table. It also slips in between the legs of the chairs and leaves the floor spotless.
My living room has a rocking chair and a round wooden table with a floor-length skirt. Roomba goes under the table skirt and around the rockers of the chair, picking up more dirt and cat fur than my upright vacuum usually manages to collect. Roomba is far more persistent than I generally am while vacuuming, and it keeps returning to the area until it’s sure the floor is clean.
Roomba also does a wonderful job under my piano and under the island in the kitchen. It has yet to become stuck under any furniture; if it can’t fit underneath, it realizes this and backs up before anything untoward can occur. Essentially, Roomba will slip itself into any space that’s more than three inches high and sixteen inches wide, and it won’t give up until the area is clean.
.H1 Day to day operations
Roomba is by no means silent, but it’s much quieter than a regular vacuum. It’s actually cleaning the floor in my office as I write this. I have a CD playing in my computer at about three-quarters of maximum volume, and I can hear the music clearly. I find that Roomba is even less noisy when running on carpet; on hardwood floors the sound of the brushes is much more pronounced.
When Roomba first arrived, the cats were most definitely unimpressed. One tended to chase Roomba, and the other tried the "deer in the headlights" approach. Within a few days though, they were both used to Roomba and haven’t been concerned about it since. Figure D shows my cat, Ninja, sound asleep in his bed as Roomba rolls past.
.FIGPAIR D My cat sleeps soundly as Roomba goes by.
I’m watching Roomba right now cleaning up a pile of clean cat litter that one of the cats flung out of the box. Roomba used its front spinning brush to flip the litter over about a two foot square section of the floor. Then it turned back in the direction of the newly spread out litter, and zigzagged back and forth across the floor. A few passes later, all of the spread out litter was gone, and most of the original pile too. As I continued to watch, Roomba went back over the area several times. About ten minutes later, the pile of litter is completely gone and there are just a few pieces left on the floor. Considering this was probably a quarter cup of cat litter, all in one place, I am quite pleased with Roomba’s efforts.
Using Roomba is somewhat different from vacuuming the floors yourself. When you use a regular vacuum, you’re able to avoid obstacles such as a stray book or cat toy. Roomba will run over (or attempt to run over) anything in its path. As a result, I do a quick house pickup before sending Roomba out; my house has never looked better!
Roomba often goes over the same section of the floor repeatedly. There is a remote control included, which allows you to "drive" Roomba to wherever you most need its efforts, but I find that it does a good job on its own, even though it often seems to be drawn back to the same area over and over.
Roomba is immensely entertaining. I’ve taken Roomba to visit several different houses, and everyone ends up spellbound as Roomba cruises the floor and picks up dirt that the homeowner didn’t even realize was there. The apparent randomness of Roomba’s pattern adds to the excitement, as you can never be quite sure that Roomba will pick up a particular piece of dirt on a particular pass.
If you’re the type of person who wants completely spotless floors, Roomba probably isn’t for you. It does miss bits of dust or cat litter here and there, although these are usually quite spread out and therefore not that noticeable. If, on the other hand, you’re content to have floors that don’t scare the neighbours, and would rather spend your time reading or writing reviews than vacuuming, Roomba may be just what you need.
I’ve had no issues with my Roomba. It works quietly and consistently, entertaining me at the same time. If Roomba were able to leave its Home Base and finish a job after recharging its batteries, or if it could be scheduled to run at a certain time every few days, I would rate it a 5. As it stands right now, Roomba earns a rating of 4 for its ease of use, well thought out design, and entertainment value.
.RATING 4
Now, if only I could find a robot to clean the litter box…
[For the record, that would be called the LitterMaid. It works, sort of. After I brought LitterMaid into the house, Sammy spent about a week sitting outside the door and staring at it intently as it would scoop and clean. Then she decided to conduct a terror campaign against the LitterMaid, and eventually the LitterMaid stopped working. She would attack it while it scooped, pounce on it, crash it against walls, and once, managed to turn it over.
While the device worked reasonably well and as advertised, it was no match against a determined kitty, and, therefore, I can’t really recommend it for combat use. — David]
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
For more information on Roomba and other iRobot products, visit http://www.irobot.com/home.cfm.
For more information on the LitterMaid, visit http://www.littermaid.com.
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO
