Roomba

[Aardor]

Anyone have one of these? I am probably moving into a place that is all hardwood/mostly one big room, so these look ideal as I am very bad about cleaning regularly. A friend of mine has one, and said to make sure the model I get has "on-board scheduling" so I can set it to run at a certain time, but wasn't sure if I needed "wireless command center," which is a remote used to set the times to run the roomba, and also remotely controls the roomba. Anyone know if you need both (the 560 has scheduling, but not command center), or just scheduling? Also, any other general experiences with the roomba would be appreciated.

[Fairweather Pure]

I have a friend that has one and says it does a pretty decent job, but her house is rather low maintenance to begin with. My house is all stone and hardwood floors, but it's multi leveled with no railings or walls so a Roomba is out of the question for me. The first time it took a 3ft drop onto a rock floor would be the end!

[cadalano]

im pretty sure that they dont drive off ledges



i refuse to get one because one day they will become self aware and revolt against their tyrant masters

[laneela]

Anyone have any experience with a Scooba? I wants one.

[Syenye]

You can get virtual walls to control where they go so they don't fly down a flight of stairs.

We have a Roomba and never use it. When we first got it, my husband would follow it around and watch it. I also have the scheduling remote and have never used it. We'd probably use it more often if we didn't always have electronics and books lying around the house. I'm pretty lazy but I find that vacuuming the old-fashioned (with an upright) way is much less work.

[Drinsic Darkwood]

My parents bought one recently. From what I've seen, it works well enough. As mentioned before, it won't fall down flights of stairs or anything, it has plenty of sensors that prevent it from going over edges or hitting walls at full speed. Occasionally it might get stuck on the corner of a really thick rug, but other than that, it does its job.

[Lalanae]

I have a Roomba & a Scooba & had them both for years.

Honestly, they are not worth it. We've spent so much time trying cleaning them and repairing them that it doesn't save you any time.

The Scooba is the worst of the two. We bought it at Best Buy when it was released on the market. We also picked up one of those Best Buy warranties and it came in handy. We traded it in TWICE. After that, Best Buy stopped carrying them. The problems we've had with it has varied. One time it wasn't squirting water. After a few hours of troubleshooting via their website I figured out that the top piece wasn't quite connecting with piece in the bottom and that stepping on it was the only way to fix it. It's out of commission now because it won't hold power. Bought a new battery and it won't work. It's junk. The battery, when it worked, only lasted about the amount of time to clean 1 room. It doesn't get corners either.

The Roomba is not a bad piece of equipment, but if anyone in your house has hair longer than 3 inches, you'll spend a lot of time trying to rip twisted hair out of various parts. Cleaning the primary brush was pain, but now they have a tool you can buy that helps. I may save a few minutes sweeping my floor, but every couple weeks I have to spend 20 minutes or so cleaning it out really well. It's a wash time-wise in the end.