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Hello!
I'm not usually one to advertise/comment products or so... but this I felt I should pass on. We got ourselves a Roomba 880 (latest top model).
I had the following expectations:
- It will navigate quite intelligently.
- It will clean ok, to at least make the big areas look cleaner (less dust and hairs) in between our similarly planned regular cleanings
And I was wrong on both accounts.
- Its navigation IMO is quite stupid, no matter how they try to advertise it. It does learn the room, and will not hit the same things with the same force. The one thing that seems to be offsetting it is that if it changes position without knowing it (e.g. when it turns when it expects to go straight, which it does around our table leg), it no longer knows properly where it is in the room (but it seems to catch up again). But despite this, it does seem to get nearly everywhere, even in a complicated room.
- It cleans very well, but really very well. It takes quite some time even for small rooms, and it passes most areas I don't know how many times, but after that it really is clean. It may even replace our regular (manual) cleaning with small cleanings for the places it cannot reach.
It is less noisy than I anticipated, and the battery lasts much longer than expected.
We got the highest model as it supports the "virtual lighthouse": a beacon that you put in the door opening and that restricts it to one room until that room is cleaned, then it is allowed through. For a complicated shape of room, it makes sense; in our case we have no doors between kitchen, corridor and livingroom, making it is a very odd and quite large shape, throw some furniture in there and it gets even more difficult. The lighthouses allow things to be done area by area, which is useful: if it gets stuck, at least you know which rooms were already done. It navigates and works also more efficient in smaller, nicely shaped rooms, so the lighthouses help with getting things done faster.
We still need to roomba-proof the rooms a bit. It did not get caught on a cable under the bed, but it is slowing it down (and I'm not sure it will always escape it). Also, not to have the wear on the cable, it feels better to suspend the cable. A loudspeaker cable I put in a flexible semi-transparent electricity tube that lays on the floor: it looks nicer than a cable and Roomba has completely no problem with it (this cable is along a wall though, so it cannot move it).
Some weird shaped furniture legs in the livingroom may cause it to get stuck, so that also needs some roomba-proofing. It sometimes bumps a bit harder into things than I expected it would, but I don't anticipate problems due to that (our furniture should be able to take it, in situations with more fragile furniture I'm not sure I would like it).
It comes with 2 walls/lighthouses, but I will buy a few more. Our front door opens inward towards a wall, so if it would ever get stuck behind that one (while we would not be home), it would be very difficult to enter.
All in all, after the first week, I would say it is better than I anticipated...
And the feeling that a room is being clean while you watch a movie or read a book is priceless...
Jörg
I'm not usually one to advertise/comment products or so... but this I felt I should pass on. We got ourselves a Roomba 880 (latest top model).
I had the following expectations:
- It will navigate quite intelligently.
- It will clean ok, to at least make the big areas look cleaner (less dust and hairs) in between our similarly planned regular cleanings
And I was wrong on both accounts.
- Its navigation IMO is quite stupid, no matter how they try to advertise it. It does learn the room, and will not hit the same things with the same force. The one thing that seems to be offsetting it is that if it changes position without knowing it (e.g. when it turns when it expects to go straight, which it does around our table leg), it no longer knows properly where it is in the room (but it seems to catch up again). But despite this, it does seem to get nearly everywhere, even in a complicated room.
- It cleans very well, but really very well. It takes quite some time even for small rooms, and it passes most areas I don't know how many times, but after that it really is clean. It may even replace our regular (manual) cleaning with small cleanings for the places it cannot reach.
It is less noisy than I anticipated, and the battery lasts much longer than expected.
We got the highest model as it supports the "virtual lighthouse": a beacon that you put in the door opening and that restricts it to one room until that room is cleaned, then it is allowed through. For a complicated shape of room, it makes sense; in our case we have no doors between kitchen, corridor and livingroom, making it is a very odd and quite large shape, throw some furniture in there and it gets even more difficult. The lighthouses allow things to be done area by area, which is useful: if it gets stuck, at least you know which rooms were already done. It navigates and works also more efficient in smaller, nicely shaped rooms, so the lighthouses help with getting things done faster.
We still need to roomba-proof the rooms a bit. It did not get caught on a cable under the bed, but it is slowing it down (and I'm not sure it will always escape it). Also, not to have the wear on the cable, it feels better to suspend the cable. A loudspeaker cable I put in a flexible semi-transparent electricity tube that lays on the floor: it looks nicer than a cable and Roomba has completely no problem with it (this cable is along a wall though, so it cannot move it).
Some weird shaped furniture legs in the livingroom may cause it to get stuck, so that also needs some roomba-proofing. It sometimes bumps a bit harder into things than I expected it would, but I don't anticipate problems due to that (our furniture should be able to take it, in situations with more fragile furniture I'm not sure I would like it).
It comes with 2 walls/lighthouses, but I will buy a few more. Our front door opens inward towards a wall, so if it would ever get stuck behind that one (while we would not be home), it would be very difficult to enter.
All in all, after the first week, I would say it is better than I anticipated...
And the feeling that a room is being clean while you watch a movie or read a book is priceless...
Jörg
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