Saturday, December 30, 2006

Worksaving Device?

My sister gave me a Roomba--the robotic vacuuming device that is supposed to clean all by itself. She had received it as a gift, but after trying it out for a while, she decided it wasn't for her. She said her house is too big and the thing had gotten itself lost a few times.

I tried it out in the upstairs hall. I watched it for a while to be sure it would not fall down the stairs. It came to the edge several times and turned around so I figured it would be fine by itself. I left it and went off into another room. Then I heard a crash. Roomba had fallen down the steps.

Nevertheless, after a charge it seemed to have suffered no ill effects from the fall. So the next day I put it in the dining room. It whirled around for quite a while until it had depleted all its energy. It had collected some dirt--though I am sure our regular vacuum which has far more suction would have done a more thorough job. Still, the rug looked neater--and some small crumbs had been picked up.

Today I put it in our little library. Again it ran around for a while until it ran out of power. Again, it picked up some dirt. I should do an experiment and see how much the regular vacuum would pick up after Roomba has finished.

But it is a nice gadget.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've always wondered how good that thing really was. It looks to small to do much deep cleaning, but rather pick up just the surface stuff to make the room look neater.

Just Nancy said...

My husband borrowed one from a friend when we lived in PA and had a HORRIBLE matted UGLY green carpet. The Roomba was clearly either baffled or the carpet was clean (yeah, right) because it would go to one corner, turn around, move a little to one side, then stop. It did that two or three times and we said, Nope, don't need one.

Angela's Designs said...

Poor Roomba! In my house, it is one story, but I would worry about tripping over Roomba. I'd be the danger. Sooner or later I'd trip over it, or kick it.

Angela's Designs said...

Got extra words in there somehow... LOL. See, tripping over my fingers while typing!

Katie O'Sullivan said...

we have the latest roomba, made "especially" for pet hair... I still have to vacuum, but it probably saves me time. And the crop circles it makes thru the rugs are funny...

Katie O'Sullivan said...

we have the latest roomba, made "especially" for pet hair... I still have to vacuum, but it probably saves me time. And the crop circles it makes thru the rugs are funny...

Penelope Marzec said...

Katie,
Our roomba was probably the original model. It would have choked on pet hair. You should put up a photo of the crop circles. ;^)