Roomba Celebrates 10 Years of Cleaning Up After You 92
SkinnyGuy writes "Roomba, the world’s first multi-million unit-selling home-helper robot, turns 10 today. iRobot has cooked up a self-congratulatory infographic filled with a collection of interesting and occasionally bizarre facts to mark the occasion. Did you know that dogs, cats and babies have ridden iRobot's iconic home cleaning robot since it was introduced exactly a decade ago?"
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I want someone to clean up before me.
Dogs, cats, babies... (Score:2)
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When a regular vacuum can be modified to autonomously clean a room with just a few extra motors and a battery, then it would be worth a 20% markup. Also, a lot of mid to higher end traditional vacuums sell in the same price range as the Roomba - although I can't say where on the scale the Roomba's quality falls.
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Mitt Roomba will be our next president.
Yes, because unlike Mitt Romney Mitt Roomba actually has a personality and will talk specifically about what he is capable of getting done.
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They both suck, though.
Re:Waaay to much money for those things (Score:4, Funny)
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A decent "regular" vacuum is, for me, a Dyson, and those cost right there. The cheapest used one that doesn't run on batteries could be had for about $200 (in a decent shape, for less if it's in bad shape). A new Dyson from the DC Animal family will run about $400. If Dyson ever made a robotic vacuum, it'd probably cost $1000 or more. I can't imagine a decent robotic one costing much less. Do note that a decent vacuum cleaner must have good beater brushes and a powerful, two stage cyclone-based air filtrat
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If you want to know how bad it is, if you're cleaning your carpets using one, borrow a Dyson and see how much crap it'll pick up.
Yea, the see how much more it picks up demonstration is the reason we have a Kirby.
http://www.greatvacs.com/education/KirbyVsDysonVacuumReview.html [greatvacs.com]
Re:Waaay to much money for those things (Score:4, Informative)
Perhaps there really is some difference in the quality of vacuum cleaning from a Kirby but I suspect most people will comfort themselves with buying which costs 1/5th the price which is almost as good and weighs half as much. And buying it without some a salesman refusing to leave their house wearing them down for hours until they buy the thing.
Re:Waaay to much money for those things (Score:5, Insightful)
Several years ago, we demoed a Dyson unit. They look cool and have good marketing, but we were pretty disappointed by its actual performance. It cost more and performed worse than the Hoover vacuum we wound up getting instead. Right now we have a Sebo, and it works great.
As for the Roomba's performance, isn't there an argument that you can have it go out and vacuum every day? If you have it set to do that, then your carpets shouldn't get dirty enough that the lower performance is an issue. It also means that your carpets stay clean the whole week, rather than having one day where they look real nice and six days getting progressively worse (or am I the only one who vacuums only once a week?).
(Dear lord, I can't believe I'm talking about vacuuming right now.)
Re:Waaay to much money for those things (Score:4, Interesting)
By the time the salesman left it wasn't us that was worn out, it was him. He must have been there 5 hours and we paid a fraction of the original price.
The Kirby is a really good product, but I do agree the way they are sold is not very good.
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I'm sure even if I did want a powerful vacuum cleaner that there are other makes which can be purchased from a normal store which offer similar performance for a fixed and lower price. As it stands even my 60 euro bagless phillips is perfectly ade
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Yeah, we have a Kirby, two roombas, and two Dysons (don't even ask why).
The Kirby is the all time champion for raw cleaning power, and the roombas are the worst in the same category. Dyson's in the middle somewhere, closer to the Kirby end of the spectrum.
But! The kirby and dysons won't vacuum the room for you while you are washing the dishes and cleaning the cat box. And the Kirby cannot be used except by large physically fit people (we've got two family members who can't lift it, and we originally got
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But! The kirby and dysons won't vacuum the room for you while you are washing the dishes and cleaning the cat box.
This is why I got a Neato (the one with the Laser scanner). I have it programmed to vacuum 4 times a week and my carpets have never been cleaner (mainly because I hate vacuuming.) All I have to do is rescue it the few times it's gotten lost in my house (and the one time it got caught on some sheets I forgot to pick up) and clean it's dust bin.
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Kirby has serious issues:
1. Yeah, the pipe is big, but a bigger pipe means slower airflow. Sure it has lower losses in that pipe and the pipe won't clog as easily with large stuff. What it will clog with is fine particulates that will build up over time because air flows too slow. There's a tradeoff between self-cleaning ability of a pipe and its diameter and thus propensity to clog in presence of large particles ("junk"). If you have big junk on the floor, you're supposed to use a shop vac. That one is des
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I'll give you a hint. If they have to advertise it on an infomercial, it's crap. Sure it costs as much as a Kirby, but it is nowhere near as good as a Kirby. But you are correct that in comparison to the Roomba, just about any regular vacuum cleaner is going to come out looking like a miracle worker.
Maybe i am getting senile, but isn't this the second Roomba slashvertisement in the last week?
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Roomba is, performance-wise, a joke. If you want to know how bad it is, if you're cleaning your carpets using one, borrow a Dyson and see how much crap it'll pick up.
I guess it depends on the model. It's certainly not the case for the one I bought for my wife. She has a Dyson too. In all honesty I think the compliment each other more so than compete. The Roomba runs on our first floor every night at 3 am. My wife usually gets out the Dyson and carpet shampooer once every month or two. Regardless, the Roomba still finds plenty to clean up afterward. I think part of it is that it can get into places easier than a big ass Dyson, plus it has a little spinning brush that ca
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Dyson? Regular? Really?
I got a Dyson upright and it died after a year - it constantly got blocked needing disassembling and cleaning once a week. It eventually died by blowing dust out of its exhaust and I gave up with it after 3 hours of trying to find the problem. It couldn't cope with anything more than light dust. That was a heavy maintenance vacuum cleaner. I also hated not having a bag as emptying the cylinder in my wheelie bin would generate a lot of dust. I eventually emptied the cylinder dir
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I think you've run into their production run that had a well known issue. I'm not apologizing for them, just stating facts. It's not normal performance, and you're not the only one who had that issue. I find it incredulous that most customers wouldn't even bother trying to figure out what's wrong -- it was a simple problem with the inner-to-outer cyclone seal (the ring in the middle of the bottom of the canister that seals the upper cyclone dirt collector cylinder to the bottom cover of the canister, IIRC).
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Not sure where you're shopping, but you either only looked at the top of the line model or they're ripping you off.
Try more like $200.
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No.
1. Really good regular vacuum cleaner costs ~300 EUR. Things like Dyson costs even more.
2. If you toss in extra motors and a battery in it, making it 500 EUR, it still does not autonomously cleans your house.
3. Roomba starts from 270 EUR: http://www.irobot.com/de/store/store_products.aspx?id=487 [irobot.com]
I own one and I love it (and I do have vacuum cleaner too, BTW).
Needs an upgrade (Score:5, Funny)
I bought a Roomba years ago to take care of some light-colored carpeting in the living room. I'm not buying another until they come with an under-the-couch dog poop sensor, standard.
Poodle skidmarks, man. Poodle skidmarks.
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Yep, an iPoop robot could sell well. Although I would think that it would still make a mess cleaning it up.
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The simple solution is to get rid of the dog.
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The simple solution is to get rid of the dog.
Obviously you have never had one in your family.
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Never an indoor one.
If the dog poops inside don't keep it inside, or keep close supervision of it to make sure it doesn't poop inside.
If the dog is pooping in your residence then it really is your fault and not the dogs, but the simple solution is to get rid of the dog rather than fix the owner.
Re:Needs an upgrade (Score:4, Insightful)
A little effort with target-training or crate-training [drsfostersmith.com] can housebreak a dog quickly. If you don't want to expend the effort, then you shouldn't have a dog in the first place.
Domestic dogs are bred to be with us, inside our homes. Don't banish them to live outside.
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If the reason that the person doesn't want the automated vacuum is because it spreads dog shit all over the house because he doesn't pick up the dog shit, then perhaps that person shouldn't have a dog inside, or no dog at all.
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Eewwwww. Those kind of situations help one understand the importance of "common sense". Machines are stupid savants.
Useless Vacuum (Score:2)
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Mine worked great so long as I otherwise kept an immaculate apartment. Immaculate included no chairs or cat toys.
Speaking of cats, cat hair... Oh my god the cat hair.
Mine's about 4 years old now, and I haven't used it in about 3 years. I spend less time vacuuming than I did cleaning the Roomba.
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But yes... cat hair. There are two sensible, easy, and not too expensive upgrades that would vastly improve the Roomba, but are still inexplicably missing even from the latest models:
- Ball bearings for the brush drivers on the gearbox. This is where all the cat hairs get into the gear box and foul up the gears, to the point where they run so hit the egarbox actually melts a little. Apparentl
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under bed cleaning? Hell if the damn thing managed to make it under my bed, it'd be lost forever - that's a blackhole down there or there's a monster that does a good job of keeping things clean. Even my cat refuses to chase anything under the bed
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There's a guy (I think his name is Vic) at roombareview.com who can rebuild your fur-caked 400 series with new sealed bearings that aren't as vulnerable to cat hair. The 500-series 'pet' models come with sealed bearings out of the box.
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I seriously considered buying one but negative comments in battery life and cleaning quality (especially with respect to dog hair) have made me stick to my manual vacuum cleaner. I hope to someday change my mind once robot vacuum cleaners reach a higher quality.
I have 2 of them - one of the older models and one about 2 years old now. They won't replace even the cheapest regular vacuum for heavy-duty use, but they're great for when you are too lazy to vacuum it yourself, and they're outstanding for cleaning the dust bunnies out from under beds and sofas.
The original Roomba took forever to charge and the algorithms in it were prone to get it into "lobster traps" and other stalled situations. The newer system has a faster charger (still too slow), and smarter code, i
"The Future" is a little closer... (Score:3)
My house (and business) use Neato's, but I'd hardly begrudge the Roomba for making people think "robot vacuum cleaners should be in my house now".
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That is interesting as I had not heard of those before. Here's a link to their site: http://www.neatorobotics.com/ [neatorobotics.com] although I see they only make a vacuum, and not a wet mopping thing like iRobot does. I wonder how effective the are wet mopping robots are.
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I've been less impressed by the Scooba (iRobot's mopping robot) than Roomba. It's slow, requires quite a bit of maintenance on every use, and can't cover a very large area on a single tank of water. I haven't found that it saves much time compared to scrubbing the floor by hand.
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You have made my day with that info. Here's why: About a year ago I gave some consideration to how much time and effort (and cost) was involved keeping the floor clean in my house. The house gets very dusty quickly because of where I live. I opted against a Scooba back then primarily because the price was way out of my priorities and budget.
But I did buy an expensive mop and bucket from the local five and dime. I just stared at all the options long enough, so I wouldn't have to constantly get my hands wet w
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Another thumbs up for Neato. I got mine about 18 months ago, and I basically only take out a regular vacuum to hit the stairs/corners (and cobwebs) occasionally.
The "robot" part of the Neato makes a Roomba look like a toy, and the suction is much more powerful... however, they did have some QC issues and I had to return mine twice... once for a broken wheel spring (new ones are redesigned), and once for an RPS error (the lidar unit wasn't turning).
Sam
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I've had mine for a few months now and possibly one of the best things I have done. There's one spot mine likes to get lost in my house because it's not a regular layout, but other than that... the carpet has never been cleaner! It also forces me to keep the floors picked up and serves as a gentle alarm clock at 7:00 in the morning (only 4 times a week.) It's not terribly loud, but it's movement that wakes you up.
Nice, if the batteries would last (Score:3)
I've owned a Roomba for ~3 years. After the second set of batteries went out 6 minths ago, I gave up. It cleaned OK (if emptied reguarly) & would park & recharge OK (kept a close eye), but not ready for prime-time.
Re:Nice, if the batteries would last (Score:5, Interesting)
The batteries are cheaper than a maid, and more thorough for those things it does.
A pain to keep running (hair wraps on spinning bits), but still less work than sweeping it yourself - transforms a long boring daily task into a much shorter one with intermittent tech skills required: Google search "WTF does two beeps mean on a Roomba", ah: get screwdriver, remove edge sweeper, cut away hair wrapped on hex shaft, replace, good to go for another 50 uses.
Really pleased with it (Score:4, Informative)
It didn't immediately decrease the time spent on vacuuming, though — I'd waste the time previously spent pushing a vacuum around just watching it do its thing. Now, at least, I can just let it run, but I do get a feeling of "wow, that's rather cool" each time I run it...
And designed to be user-repaired, or at least parts replaced, which is always a bonus.
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Borrow a Dyson and see how much crap the Roomba leaves behind -- if you have a carpet, that is. Perhaps it's usable on hard surface floors.
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Re:Really pleased with it (Score:4, Insightful)
That's a vacuum cleaner salesmen's wet dream. There will always be something to pick up. This is why all salesmen will be glad to show off how much their cleaner picked up that your "crappy" cleaner missed. Hell, I'll bet if you vacuumed your carpet after the Dyson or Kirby, you'd still pick up dust.
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To suck a gold ball through a garden hose you're producing a lot of vacuum but very little air power. Most power is then wasted: with a huge pressure differential the turbine stalls. On a Dyson the turbine stalls much earlier than on your golfball sucker, but then turbine isn't all that different from a wing. Low stall speed means inefficient blade when operating at nominally high speed. What you want from a vacuum is high air power.
Sure high vacuum is nice when you got a clog, but that's a tradeoff that IM
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Borrow a Dyson and see how much crap the Roomba leaves behind
Sad to say, we have a Dyson — we had it before the Roomba. The Roomba is great on the wooden/tiled floors downstairs, and only just passable on carpet upstairs. The Dyson is used for the stairs and the skirting boards and behind doors etc. where the Roomba cannot easily go. The Roomba is convenient, and, frankly, fun, but I would not be able to do without a more traditional vacuum cleaner yet.
Running the Roomba every day is no effort, so it gets run a lot more often than I would bother to vacuum, a
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Smitten (Score:2)
Roomba has a place in all of our hearts [botaday.com]
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10 years ... (Score:2)
Obligatory Onion articles (Score:5, Funny)
http://www.theonion.com/articles/new-roomba-blender-makes-smoothie-out-of-everythin,29539/ [theonion.com]
http://www.theonion.com/articles/roomba-violates-all-three-laws-of-roombotics,2184/ [theonion.com]
http://www.theonion.com/articles/roomba-maker-unveils-military-robot,15331/ [theonion.com]
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Missed one, from their radio service: Roomba Continues Gathering Evidence Against Human Captor [theonion.com]
The future is now. (Score:2)
I grew up watching those little robots zipping around on the bridge of an Imperial star ship, so when I first powered up the thing I was a giddy. I felt like I was one step closer to the idealized future envisioned in my childhood.
Interesting to read this considering we got a Roomba about two months ago. iRobot clearly put a lot of thought into it's design, at least from a mechanical standpoint. It's fun to watch for the first 15 minutes. However, that amusement then turns to intense frustration as the dam
Re:The future is now. (Score:5, Insightful)
I grew up watching those little robots zipping around on the bridge of an Imperial star ship, so when I first powered up the thing I was a giddy. I felt like I was one step closer to the idealized future envisioned in my childhood.
Unfortunately, we're a lot closer to that Imperial future in a lot of ways we'd rather not be.
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The Neato shuts down the vacuum when it's returning to the base. It's generally been awesome for a scheduled 4 times a week cleanup. It's gotten stuck a few times due to the layout of my house, but I'd say it's 95% on top of it's game. Once I figured out what it tends to get stuck or confused on/with I haven't had it act up or get lost in a few months.
Roomba = Junk (Score:2)
My only comment, Spent the money on the Roomba and the Scooba within 18 months both were completely dead.
The Roomba lost its mind and no amount of fiddling could get it back.
The Scooba was replaced 3 times due to a design flaw that iRobot refused to admit to, but is well documented on the web.
Good enough for most, perhaps... but not for me. (Score:2)
Hey, DJ Roomba! (Score:2)
http://djroomba.com/ [djroomba.com]
Rockin' the house and keepin' it clean!
DJ ROOOOMMMBAAAA (Score:2)
also starred in an episode of NCIS (Score:2)
The Halloween Episode (season 4 episode 6) a roomba was active in a crime scene (and got stomped by Gibbs) and "collected" the brass.
Thanks for reminding me they turned 10 (Score:2)
I forgot about it after it was brought up here just five days ago [slashdot.org].
Are they still loud? (Score:2)
I wanted to get one, but they are loud like vacuum cleaners. :(
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