Okay, so my wife is a clean freak. I would like to eliminate some of the suck, and I think a good start is a robot vacuum. I have read a lot of reviews and I am definitely leaning toward the iRobot Roomba. The problem is the iRobot website and Costco’s offerings don’t match.

We have no pets. No shedding. We don’t wear shoes in the house. It’s a pretty damn clean place to begin with. I usually buy the best and most expensive model of whatever I am looking at. So I have been looking at the best of the iRobot lineup, and I question if I really need that?

Most if the house is lifetime vinyl wood plank. The bedrooms are a short almost Berber like carpet.

Does anyone here have an iRobot and if so, which model? Do you like it? Is it decent? What do you like, what do you hate?

We have a Eufy 11s. Love it.

After going through many reviews, we went with the Roborock S4. So far, it works very well and we really like the laser mapping function in the app. We previously owned one of the earlier Roombas; it was alright.

There are lots of good reviews on YouTube.

https://youtu.be/bYjlDwY9wPo

Some of the main questions:

1. What is your budget?
2. Do you need it to mop, too?
3. Do you want it to empty itself? (Heavily tied to #1)

quote:

Originally posted by flesheatingvirus:
After going through many reviews, we went with the Roborock S4. So far, it works very well and we really like the laser mapping function in the app. We previously owned one of the earlier Roombas; it was alright.

There are lots of good reviews on YouTube.

https://youtu.be/bYjlDwY9wPo

Some of the main questions:

1. What is your budget?
2. Do you need it to mop, too?
3. Do you want it to empty itself? (Heavily tied to #1)

Budget is $500. Would spend a little more if it was worth it.
No need to mop
No need to empty itself. (It’s already vacuuming for me, emptying it is the easy part)

I went through three of Roomba’s top of the line robots in less than 8 months. S7 or S9? I can’t remember, I’ve done my best to forget that fiasco. They sucked, in a bad way. WAY overpriced and there was nothing “smart” about the way they functioned. Constant issues with all three. Next I tried a Neato with not much better results. Currently I have the Shark robot and have been pleasantly surprised. It’s working well, does not get stuck and doesn’t spin around aimlessly. It cost half as much and has a lifetime warranty. I’ve read good things about Roborock, but they do not have a self emptying bin yet.

Still pleased with our Neato Botvac after nearly 3 years.

Ours vacuums around 1175 sq ft & takes about 90 minutes on the 'Turbo' [high-suction] setting.

It has to pause to recharge & I usually empty the bin then, as it's usually pretty full (dog hair).

Ours is the older model, that relies on a strip of magnetic 'tape' (like a flooring transition piece) to restrict access to areas.
We have a strip at the entrance to the hallway to the master bedroom (it would 'knock' on the door when we had it set to vacuum at night), and a strip keeping it out of the office (too many cords on the floor).

Newer models, I believe, let you restrict areas via the app (I assume once it's mapped the area once).

Thanks for the feedback thus far.

I am planning on buying from Costco, so if we are completely disappointed, it can be easily returned.

I have been stuck looking at the models Costco offers. They have everything from basic to self emptying and the prices are pretty great.

If anyone else has a robovac, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Roomba here, ours just died, well, it's in need of new drive wheels since the rubber wore down on the old one and it runs sideways with one side shorter than the other.

It is the older 500 Series so it's run for several years and just recently decided it's going to be in need of service. Each drive wheel is $30, we've replaced the battery pack once.

You can tell it's not running because of the amount of dog hair, dust etc we're picking up with the regular vac. These things work, the 500 doesn't have the mapping software, so we do have to close doors to the master bath, and the pool area...

Looking to replace this one due to age, but I could drop $100 into it and it would run fine..

Upgrade is the idea since I'd like to map off the house and mark out areas for it to avoid. Hardwood and rugs everywhere, it does a good job.

We have only had the iRobot Braava Jet for a few days but so far it seems great. We have almost all hardwood and tile with two small area rugs which we vacuum by hand. We opted for this model because of the wet mop function.

It has not gotten stuck nor gotten 'lost', it maps where it has been and repeats up to 3 passes but we intend to drop that to 2 pass. We can assign different areas via the map and clean them on a schedule. We may change our opinion over time but for now we are on the positive side.

We got it from Bed Bath & Beyond, MSRP was $500 but found a 20% off coupon and made the purchase. Time will tell.

We have 2 Neato BOTVACs. Very pleased. One is a BOTVAC CONNECTED, the other is a D7.

May be out of your $ range.

We have a Shark self emptying model. Love it. You can turn it on from your phone or schedule it.

I just got a lower end Coredy on Amazon Prime Day for about 50% off.
I did not want all the fancy WiFi and phone app stuff. I just wanted to set it to run at 1:00pm Daily.

I have to say that after a week I am very surprised and impressed. It takes about 2 hours to finish. Our 1st floor is broken up into 4 rooms split with a hallway down the middle. Entry to the kitchen is narrow.
There is an area rug in the living room, dining room, and den. It makes it everywhere with no issue then it goes around the edges.
The thing is genius. I was vacuuming daily as we do have a dog. Now I vacuum once a week with our big corded vacuum and there is not much in the canister.

Only had one issue so far my boys made this Halloween tree with orange Christmas lights. The cord was on the ground and the vacuum sucked it up and got stuck.

We have a dining room and kitchen table and it just makes it’s way through the chair and table legs like a pinball machine but just keeps on going.

Worth every penny!

Coredy Robot Vacuum Cleaner, Fully Upgraded, Boundary Strip Supported, 360° Smart Sensor Protection, 1400pa Max Suction, Super Quiet, Self-Charge Robotic Vacuum, Cleans Pet Fur, Hard Floor to Carpet https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B0..._encoding=UTF8&psc=1

We had the Ecovacs Deebot N79. It regularly got stuck, kept going over the same space and not moving to the other side of the room, much less moving to another room, and even though I got a second docking station, it invariably could not locate either of them and had to be manually placed so it could recharge.

I had decided to dump it and upgrade to one with geofencing capability, but then saw that a very basic robo-vac (eufy Anker BoostIQ 11s) was on sale on Woot for $150.

I gave it a try and it's been great. Even though it is built very similar to the Deebot, its performance has been night and day different. It rarely gets stuck, it runs from room to room, and even if its on the other end of the house when the battery runs low, it finds its way back to the charging dock. It is a terrific little robo-vac.

Roomba 650. 4 dogs, 3 medium sized parrots, 1 cat. It knocks the fur and feathers down to a manageable level. I’ve had it for a while, and it’s held up.

Do any of these things cope with long hair very well? My wife is shedding.

So we went to Costco today. I started looking at the robovacs. They have the i4 and the i8. Then I spied three of the model 985. These were priced at 379.97. (Notice it ends in .97? Discontinued. $120 off).
I had been reviewing this model, but Costco was out of stock.
Needless to say, WALL-E is now mapping the house.

Thank you all for the replies and suggestions.

Seriously, had someone told me when I was a kid, that I would have a robot vacuuming my house for me when I’m 46, I would have spit Pepsi all over them in laughter.

Aside of 2020 sucking, this is pretty awesome.

And the downside is trying to figure out the features Of the roomba. It’s like trying to follow a map to Mordor.

quote:

Originally posted by tigereye313:
We have a Eufy 11s. Love it.

Second!

Edit: Paid about $150. Had to send it back once for a broken side sweeper gear. We hadn't policed the cords properly and it got tangled. I think we bought the 4 yr warranty (we have 3 dogs and a cat). Long hair will wrap around the drum but a weekly 3 min cleaning with the provided razor-tool handles that. We run ours for an hour, once a day. Sometimes twice. We just bought new carpet during lockdown and it keeps it looking brand new. Best money we ever spent!


Bruce

I was on Amazon and saw that they had some of the Roborock models on special today...

https://www.amazon.com/deal/be...de-b962-ed4fac190c85