<p>Shortly after the holidays last year, everyone was talking about the iRobot Roomba, enough that several of us were convinced to buy one.</p>
<p>I’m still crazy about Rosie (named after the Jetson’s robot maid, like some other people did) but how about the rest of you?</p>
<p>Tired of finding that she has once again closed herself in the bathroom and spent the entire battery charge scattering the rugs around?</p>
<p>Has she gotten into the habit of heading right for the one chair where she gets stuck?</p>
<p>Just plain tired of the fact that you programmed the dad-gummed thing to vacuum at 9AM on Sunday so while you are trying to read the paper it’s banging about at your feet and you lost the instructions to reprogram it?</p>
<p>Still thrilled that most of the time you don’t have to vaccum?</p>
<p>Still waiting for the version that jumps up and scrubs the toilet as well?</p>
<p>I didn’t use mine for awhile and now that I’ve started using it again, the battery won’t hold a full charge – so I’m going to have to replace the battery. Though it actually is rather impressive as to how good a job it does just scooting around the living room for 12 minutes (the length its charge lasted today). I have an older model without all the fancy programming stuff – I do have a remote control for it, but it had the same size battery I needed when the t.v. remote control died, so Roomba remote is no more. </p>
<p>It’s all all a little complicated because my dog went blind a year ago, so it is tough for the dog to have the Roomba prowling around the room – the dog can’t really see it to avoid it and gets pretty confused. (Although I would note that dog and Roomba both use the same navigational system for moving about the room, lots of circling and bumping into furniture). Anyway, the dog has likes to nap in one of the living room chairs, so I try to wait until I the dog is comfy and then run over to the Roomba base and start it up.</p>
<p>I replaced the battery after about a year, and still use it all the time – I wish it did the stairway! I think that it does a better job than I do manually, plus it’s still fun to watch. I got one for my sister-in-law who never uses it. I wish I had two, so I’m tempted to ask her to re-gift it back to me next year :-)</p>
<p>Calmom, your description of the old dog and the Roomba is priceless-- touchingly funny. Poor old pup. My old dog never went totally blind, but from the time we had him, he was terrified by conventional vaccuums; I think a Roomba woulda been cruel and unusual punishment.</p>
<p>The Roomba bumped into the sleeping dog just once. Now he knows to go upstairs or downstairs, wherever the Roomba isn’t.</p>
<p>My Roomba keeps up with the fur ok, but I clean it out between rooms. I saw that there is a model that is specifically made for handling pet fur, which I’d look into getting if I ever need a new one.</p>
<p>Consolation, no problem going from bare floor to rugs. It does move small scatter rugs around. It handles the fringe on our carpets wel, separates the fringe and flips it but doesn’t pull on the fringe. I would be hesitant if I had any very expensive or rare fringed rugs.
My biggest complaint with Roomba is electrical cords. Our furniture “floats” in the center of some of our rooms and we have a lot of odd cords running under sofas and beds. we tacked up a lot of them, but not all.</p>
<p>I tried to find a model number on mine - it’s the one Costco sold last winter. Has the self-docking and supposed self-limiting “lighthouse” features. It has never failed to get back to the base unless it got stuck somewhere. The Lighthouses were good until we realized how quickley the batteries wore down.
All in all, I feel like I have already got my $200 worth. I cut my vacuuming from 2xweek to 4xyear. Spent 15 minutes every other week maintiaing the thing.
Now, like someone said on the first thread, if only it can learn to hop up and clean the toilets…</p>
<p>I love that it goes under beds & furniture–otherwise we rarely get around to getting under the beds & sofa. I should use it more but it really does the job when we turn it on (after gathering up fringes, cords, kleenex and other things that shouldn’t be on the floor anyway). I’ve had mine for years & praised it so much my friend & brother bought theirs, which they use even more than I use mine!</p>