Robotic Vacuum Cleaner? #122
Comments
nelsonic
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help wanted
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This is an impressive amount of research 🚀 I've been a huge fan of robot vacuum cleaners since they gained the ability to clean entire floors without requiring human intervention. For me these are a no-brainer if they're quiet enough to clean overnight because the last thing we want is someone to be cleaning the floors during the day when people are trying to work - this is really their biggest advantage. My biggest question with these has always been how they handle corners. Eventually it would be great to graduate to an auto-empty one, that would be extra cool 🎉 A few things to keep in mind for our specific case:
The other point to note from an admin perspective is that this should be bought from a PT-based company in order to eventually be able to reclaim the VAT so this may condition timelines a little. |
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@iteles would you expect any less research? 😉 As for the robotic mop totally agree that a separate device is preferable. My only "concern" with it is that the mopping pads are disposable (i.e. wasteful/landfill) They sell washable ones separately, we would probably get those. The feature to pair the mop with the vac so they work together is pretty cool! I would actually quite like to test the Robot vac on the current (insane amount of) dust in the house |
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Bought it. Cause I really want to test it ASAP. |
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The Roomba has been doing it's thing cleaning the middle floor of the house for the past week. This morning I got a notification saying that it needed my attention. Obviously, it's not "smart" enough to avoid this kind of object so we need to maintain clear floors so it can operate. |
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Good that it notifies you rather than just conking out. Was it easy to get out and fix the issue? Very pleased with it so far! |
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@iteles yeah, the plastic that got stuck just unrolled with the rollers. 👍 |
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@iteles what is your perception of the iRobot Roomba 960 so far? ❓ We bought it for Have you had any further thoughts on the mopping robot? (especially after your recent efforts...) 💭 We had discussed the potential for having a second iRobot in the basement (where dirt gets tracked in from Road/Garden) ... Any further thoughts on this? Don't worry, I don't check MediaMarkt as part of my morning routine ... 🙄 The newer models of Dyson handheld vac are extortionate!! 💸 |
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I'm glad we got the Roomba but it does seem to get stuck quite often, especially with tangled hair (if you think it's bad with one woman in the house, wait until there are multiple) and a couple of times on phone charger cables left on the floor. It's good for Big expanses with no obstacles, so ideal for the middle floor which will be kitchen/dining/coworking and even then it doesn't manage the whole floor (it's never made it into the kitchen for example). I think that in the basement we'll run into a similar problem with all the self-closing/tap to enter doors and won't get much coverage other than the corridor. Not that cleaning isn't needed in the corridor! I wonder whether with the earth that get trapsed in, we'll need mopping more than vacuuming of that flooring? I get this image though, so it looks like the sales are over! What are YOUR thoughts on the Roomba so far? |
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I have zero regrets buying the Roomba. I would gladly buy another two to have one on each floor without having to carry it up-and-down stairs. I would consider cutting a "Roomba flap" into the bottom of all our doors to allow it to enter the rooms and clean. The one thing that I've noted is that it get stuck very easily on any sort of debris on the floor. Which is both bad and good. It's bad that it can't cope with smaller obstacles, though fairly understandable given that its camera points upward for avoiding bigger obstacles. But it's good in that it's a reminder to not leave things lying on the ground. Obviously the Roomba does not clean everything ... but we went into this knowing that.
So I think we need to have a "chairs on desks" at the end of the day policy, like we had in School. This morning it got "stuck" behind the door in one of the bathrooms:
And this evening it was dragging around your webcam like a tail (because it was left on the floor next to your desk...): Conclusion:Overall I think the Roomba is a no-brainer for people with uncluttered houses/apartments or spaces with even floors. I would consider buying another one right now for the basement: But I'm happy to keep moving our current one up and down stairs until "Black Friday" when it might be cheaper ... TakeawayI'm really glad I bought the Roomba 960 when I did. Complimentary Investment: Mopping RobotI still think we should consider getting the Mop Robot as a compliment. 💭 > #139 |
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I have no regrets about the purchase either. There are a couple of things that annoy me about it, chief among them being that spaces in corners and behind doors often have visible dust or particles left on them. But then, it's not magic! The only other thing is that it's quite loud. You definitely can't have it on whilst you're on the same floor and you can't sleep through it if you are already awake when on the floor below (more sound insulation is needed in our case as we have a lot of open plan. I don't think I've been woken up by it though but lighter sleepers may be - this is one to test. The mop will definitely complement it a lot! @nelsonic For now, I would suggest that we close this issue for now as complete and reopen when we feel we might need to purchase others? Unless you want to use it to test different scheduled times. |
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@iteles I'm quite keen to do a Video Review and "How To" because it will be useful to both us and other people. Specifically how to empty the dust bin, how to rescue it and other trouble-shooting. |
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I reckon that should be a separate issue to avoid a lot of scrolling, especially as this is a very image heavy issue. But that's great, we should definitely do that (and find a way to empty it without covering the dust bin in dust). |
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Seeing as we're placing an order from iRobot anyway, it might be worth considering whether we want to have one of these in stock for maintenance: They're actually slightly cheaper in the UK if we want to get them sent to the UK and then over here (totally not worth it for any other accessories because they are usually more expensive - e.g. €29.99 mop heads here are £29.99 mop heads there; same with postage, it's €6.50 here and £6.50 there): |
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@iteles makes sense to have the spares. I haven’t read anywhere online that they discontinue parts for their units, but it’s likely we will need it. We just need to store it accessibly. 👍🏻 |
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Well, thanks for sharing the information. Almost there are different brands of Robotic Vacuum for pet hair cleaning and surrounding. The most I use Roomba 360 but it probably all come for use in different work. |
Context
In the past I've been sceptical about robot vacuum cleaners because the suction power is less than a full-size vac and they (used to) get easily "confused" by unexpected obstacles.
But I've kept an eye on the developing tech waiting for it to "mature" to a useful state.
The latest generation of of robots are impressively sophisticated.
They avoid (falling down) stairs, have rubber bumpers to avoid scratching furniture, map out your room(s) using an on-board camera and return to the charger when running out of battery!
Read the history if you're curious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robotic_vacuum_cleaner
Problem
I have never minded doing the vacuuming in the apartments we've lived in in the past, because the most I've had to do is around 30 mins and with a podcast or audiobook it goes fast.
When we moved to MDC we had 4 rooms (and 2 flatmates) split over 2 levels for a total of 110m2. That meant that we either had to have a "cleaning rota" where we took turns to clean and would have to deal with the fallout of someone taking shortcuts or worse being "away" on their day. 🙄
So we decided to hire a person to do our house cleaning (including vacuuming) for 3h/week. We paid our cleaner more than the London living wage and they did a good job! It was one of the best investments we could make because it freed up time for us and meant we didn't have to think about cleaning. I spent the "free" time reading which extended my skills to pay the bills.
In the Braga home we are lucky enough to have a decent amount of floor space/area.
We have over 600m2 of floor area spread across 4 floors, it's whole other beast to clean!
In the biggest (co-working/learning) room, the floor area is 42m2 (9572 mm x 4354 mm to be exact; measured using freakin' lasers); there are really nice 2-bedroom apartments smaller than this!
Vacuuming this house will take a competent/experienced person over an hour (closer to 2!). And given that we intend to have several house mates (it's co-living!) the cleaning frequency will need to be higher than the once-a-week we had in London. Also given that we have a garden and a lot higher movement, we could even need daily vacuuming (every weekday). 💭
Let's assume that it would take our cleaning person 5h/week and we pay them €5/h (which is 20% above min wage), that's €25/week for vacuuming. Multiply that by 52 weeks we get €1,300/year.
€1,300/year on vacuum cleaning ... 😮
So ... If we can find+buy a robot vacuum cleaner that can cut down on that work,
it can be a very worthwhile investment. Not only will it save us money (if it's reliable),
it will also save human time. We don't mind paying people to do work. We just don't think cleaning is particularly interesting work, so if we can automate it, we should!
One of the biggest advantages of a Robot is that it can work while we are all sleeping thus reducing the noise people are subjected to during the day.
The Roomba 960 (detailed below) has a noise level of 65db.
We just need to program the robot to do the cleaning on the co-working floor at 3am when everyone is asleep. Once it's finished with the "middle" floor, it will return to charge itself (3h charge time) and will be ready to be emptied (by the house keeper) and put to work on a different floor. So we it can do 2 floors per day.
Initial Research
I've done a decent amount of research into this and would encourage anyone considering helping with this issue to do the same if you haven't already. This is a good place to start:
https://youtu.be/4Fed8durfb4
Yes, there really is a YT channel called "Vacuum Wars" that has 100k+ subs!
https://www.pcmag.com/picks/the-best-robot-vacuums
Obviously, there's not much point reading/watching reviews for products that are only sold in the US. Unless they are considerably better, the cost of shipping and import taxes into PT are cost-prohibitive.
iRobot Roomba?
iRobot Roomba https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roomba is one of the oldest players in the robotic vacuum cleaner market and they have over 50% market share. They have several patents that make their robots unique. (obviously some of the Chinese clones/copies have similar features because they aren't too concerned with intellectual property rights ... but iRobot Roomba had them first and in most cases is still better)
https://www.statista.com/statistics/934089/worldwide-robotic-vacuum-cleaner-market-share/
As you can see from this graph, Ecovacs is growing fast and grabbing market share from iRobot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecovacs_Robotics
The Roomba 675 model is the most popular (in sales) robot vac they make. It has all the "core" features of but no camera assisted smart navigation. I don't think I would buy the "base" model as it has lower suction and battery life and we probably need a bit more for the space we have. 🤔
Checkout this Roomba buyers guide for a comparison of all the models:
https://youtu.be/9sNU_1ZSPrs
Roomba 960
At the time of opening this issue, the Roomba 960 is the cheapest model that includes camera assisted smart navigation (obstacle avoidance), that makes it the best value-for-money (IMO).
See: https://www.irobot.com/roomba/900-series
https://youtu.be/QPoOC9qDhUM
It retails for £599 on Amazon UK and has a 4.5 star average with 3000+ reviews:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/iRobot-Roomba-960-Vacuum-Cleaning/dp/B01IEEVDOK
Even a die-hard technophobe/sceptic cannot ignore that level of customer feedback/praise!
Right now Worten has the 960 model 25% discounted to €379 which is pretty "cheap" ...
https://www.worten.pt/pequenos-eletrodomesticos/aspiradores/aspiradores-robo/aspirador-robo-irobot-roomba-960-autonomia-75-min-7088551
I'm thinking of buying one to test it out. 🤔
Can the Roomba be used in a multi-floor home?
https://www.reddit.com/r/roomba/comments/as4rt1/multiple_floors
Roomba i7 vs Roomba 960: https://smartrobotichome.com/roomba-i7-vs-roomba-960/
The Roomba i7 is more recent and has the "iAdapt 3.0" software (as opposed to 960's "iAdapt 2.0"). This lets it remember the layout of your room and not have to do as much discovery on subsequent cleans. Also it has self-emptying feature which seems good. But there's not much point memorising the layout (position of furniture) in the co-working room given that all the desks/tables are on castors so can be re-configured during the day. 💭
Right now the i7 is also discounted on Worten, but it's still more than double the price!!
I would sooner buy two 960 units leaving one in the basement permanently where there I expect there to be more dirt/dust because of the 3 doors to the exterior and regular access to the garden from the leisure room.
The s9+ series while obviously better (more suction power and smarter features) is €1,500!!
If money was no object, I would just buy one s9+ for each floor of the house and not waste any more time on research. But we don't have that kind of cash to burn. And we don't want to have a vacuum cleaner that costs more than a high-end laptop because it will be target for theft!
Side note: "Roomba Rodeo" appears to be a thing: 🤣
https://youtu.be/rRsstfoKQeo
Briefly considered ordering this Refurbished unit:
https://outlet-pc.pt/rob%C3%B4s-aspiradores/45131-irobot-roomba-robot-966-vacuum-recondicionado.html
But I think I prefer to buy it from a PT retailer so I have a local warrantee.
The retailers in PT with the best after sales (customer/tech) support are MediaMarkt and Fnac.
At the time of writing MediaMarkt is charging €589 for the Roomba 960 which is closer to the Amazon UK price ... https://mediamarkt.pt/pages/search-results-page?q=roomba
Fnac doesn't have the 960 in stock so it's not worth linking to them.
They have the other (cheaper) models that don't have the camera, but I'm not interested.
Clones?
As with any successful tech, there are many generic sounding brands with cheaper clones of Roomba products. Just check the "sponsored" products in the search results on Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=robot+vacuum
I'm fairly open minded about tech, I buy products form "upstart" creators on KickStarter,
but I'm quite "conservative" when it comes to "smart" tech.
The reasons I would not consider a cheap clone is:
Dyson?
We already own several Dyson products in the house including 2 vacuum cleaners, 2 fans and 5 hand dryers (because they are best-in-class for low noise and efficiency). But Dyson is a recent entrant into the Robot vac market (2018) and they have a lot of catching up to do.
The recently released Dyson 360 Heurist is an upgrade on the Dyson 360 Eye that had mixed reviews. It has received better reviews from tech people on YT:
https://youtu.be/Stj_12GOR48
https://youtu.be/SBaXUUE2o94
https://www.dyson.co.uk/robot-vacuums/dyson-360-heurist-nickel-blue.html
This tells us 2 things:
The reviews are not clickable so we cannot actually read what people think on the Dyson site.
The 3 reasons I would not consider a Dyson at this time are:
Price is ridiculous. £799 is a lot given that it doesn't any differentiating features.
Height of the machine is 120mm much taller than the competing 91mm from Roomba. That means the Dyson will get stuck under more furniture. This is less of an issue for us
@homebecause we are custom building most of the furniture so we can factor in the height of the machine.For reference the height of the bottom step in our central staircase is 106mm:
Yes, it's dusty under there right now. Why do you think I'm opening this issue?! 🙄 😉
It does not have any brushes to reach into corners or clean around the bases of furniture the way Roomba does, so I highly doubt the effectiveness in a real-world scenario. 🤔
Also, I've gone bit off Dyson since he backed the Leave.eu Brexit campaign and then promptly moved to Singapore! Obviously, politics should not be factored into a tech decision, but in this case I would prefer to give my money to someone else. thetimes.co.uk/sunday-times-rich-list
Anyway,
tl;dr... not considering a Dyson 360.Todo
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