iRobot Roomba 400 – My Initial Review

Well as you may know, I purchased an iRobot Roomba robotic vacuum the other day from London Drugs. Apparently I got a great deal on it since I purchased it for $99 and it appears that you can now get them for $139, so saved $40 by shopping on sale. Pretty good savings as I said before and the fact that I’ve been eying these for quite some time.

So I received the notice that the delivery guy was there and gone at around 1pm on Tuesday – so I was able to pick it up yesterday when I went home for lunch. Now they say that you’re supposed to charge it overnight to ensure the battery is blah blah blah.. whatever I wanted to try it out.

So I started it up, and away it went… the verdict is..

I’m in love with this thing..

I let it go until it ran out of juice at lunchtime (which wasn’t long since it was only partially charged) and it actually surprised me by going from my kitchen to the living room. This doesn’t sound like much to you guys I’m sure, but you have to understand that there is almost 1/2 an inch of a level change between the two surfaces – if I had known that these vacuums made easy work of going over that edge, I would have had one of these a LONG TIME AGO!

Another thing I didn’t realize is that it has a ‘cliff detector’ – meaning that it will detect when it’s going to head down the stairs and stop itself. I guess I should have guessed that since I’m sure that would have been one of the main concerns over anyone looking to purchase an unattended vacuum.

So I let it charge all afternoon. Last evening while we were making dinner for my folks whom just returned from Florida after a few months I let er go… I repeat… I love this thing.

It went UNDER the bed in my bedroom, it cleaned the bathroom floor, it made its way to the living room and swept up everything (read: pet hair) that it came across.

2 DAY UPDATE

Well I used it again yesterday to clean up downstairs, and encountered my first problem with it – I let it go down in the mudroom (really small area) when we took the hounds for a walk and when I got back it was sitting in the middle of the room.. wasn’t moving. I left it for a minute then it made the ‘uh-oh’ beep which it does when something is wrong (anything from stuck, to charging, etc..etc..) – anyhow, it beeped once which told me that one of the brushes couldn’t spin.. I checked it out very easily and sure enough there was a rock in there that was blocking it. Removed that, and boom.. back up and running… in fact it kept going for at least another hour and from what I could tell vacuumed up the entire downstairs! I’m back to smitten. So yes, it works.. and if you’re interested.. buy one.. if you have a mostly hardwood all over your house you won’t be disappointed, I don’t have a lot of carpet (only a few mats) so I can’t really pass judgment on it’s cleaning ability on carpet.

I know a lot of people whom read my blog would be surprised that I splurged for this item.. but like I posted when I originally wrote about buying it – it’s already paid for.. it’s our new way of saving up for things before we purchase them. Our next items are iPhones. We both want one – but we want to purchase them outright instead of going on another contract and having to wait months and months for it… I suppose we could settle for the $79 V-Touch 16GB VL-885 MP3/MP4 2.8″ Touch Screen, but like a competitor to the Roomba, it’s just not the same.

Now I want to automate everything – the next logical thing that I hate doing and could be automated – mowing the lawn! And of course, they have these things already!! Check out the products here for those. And what about getting up every morning to feed Hunter and Bella?? Well.. we could resolve that little issue with the auto pet feeders!! This is actually enough information for another post.. but i was thinking if  I had a doggie door, and an automatic food dispenser.. hell it’s like the dog is completely self-sufficient!

Ok.. got off topic for a minute there, but bottom line.. Roomba’s work.. they are awesome.. and I’ll have more than one.