On Tue, 13 Jan 2004 17:21:39 -0800, "SteveB"
wrote:

Hey, I consider carpet cleaning as a form of home repair, sooo
.................

Anyone use a Roomba vacuum? A little robot frisbee looking thing that is
supposed to be automatic.

Likes/dislikes? Pros/Cons?

Steve

I bought one for my mom last year. She has health problems and can no
longer do anything strenuous like vacuuming. That little thing is
awesome! It won't replace a real vacuum cleaner, but the house can
now go for several weeks before I or one of my sisters needs to go
over and take out the real vacuum.

It has a beater bar and suction. There's also a small rotating brush
that sticks out the sides to pick up dirt next to walls and corners.
It does an incredible job on hard floors, something that normal
vacuums have a hard time with.

There's nothing to using it...just punch a button S, M, L depending on
the room size, it plays some musical beeps and then takes off. It
doesn't sense dirt, it just has some type of preprogrammed pattern
that lets it roam around and eventually it does cover everything.
It has a number of sensors so it will NOT commit suicide by going over
stairs or balconies and it rarely gets itself stuck. If it does get
stuck it'll turn off and beep every so often until you come and rescue
it.
If you don't want it to leave a certain area and there's no door to
lock it in all you need to do is put up a "virtual wall" sensor. It's
just a little silver thing you set on the floor and the Roomba won't
go past it. One was included with it.

It has a very large powerful battery that lasts a long time.
Typically it'll do one level per charge. The charger is intelligent
where you can just leave it plugged in.

Construction of the unit is great. It's heavy and nothing feels cheap
or flimsy.

Complaints:
Dirt cup is very small...this thing picks up an amazing amount of dirt
and it needs to be emptied at least twice per level. After cleaning
the house a couple of times there's also a filter on the cup that
needs to be removed and washed. The dirt cup is easily accessible and
takes about 1 second to remove.

It doesn't like fringe used on throw rugs. The fringe will get pulled
up into the beater bar causing the Roomba to get stuck. After a few
seconds it'll turn the beater bar off and try to back its way out. If
it can't free itself it'll shut down and beep for help until you
untangle it.

Overall it works great and I don't think I need to mention the
coolness/fun factor

George