Roomba vs. Shelby — A Roomba Product Review

We've had Roomba for about 2 weeks now. We've used just about every other day to help deal with Shelby's fur. Here are some first impressions.

The first time
Roomba's instructions are easy enough to understand. Unfortunately it takes 12 hours to charge. There is a quick charger, but it's a separate purchase. (And we didn't buy it.) 12 hours later, we gave Roomba its first run. It needs to be watched the first time so that we can evaluate any trouble spots where Roomba might get stuck. After that, it doesn't need supervision. In general I was impressed. It doesn't fall off stairs, and I saw it lift itself off if a wire tube furniture leg when it high-centered. We moved chairs out of the room so that it could get around everything. We did find that Roomba's power swtich was the exact same height as one of our door stops, and as a result Roomba would turn itself off accidentally. Luckily, Roomba comes with a little "virtual wall" module that let's you seal off a room. So we seal off that door stop when Roomba is at work. The module takes batteries, which are not included.

How well does it vacuum?
We set Roomba loose on the dining room, which has not been vacuumed well in about 6 months. (Some of this dirt and dust has been here so long that it should be paying rent.) It came back with a dirt bin full of hair, dust, and other crap. I then set it loose again on the same room immediately after. It pulled in less, but there was more dirt and hair. I set it loose a third time. This time it pulled in significantly less hair and dust. About 1/3 the amount of the first session. I haven't had time to compare this to other vacuums. I mean, why doesn't it get everything the first time around? We're willing to forgive this, since
Roomba's low profile means it gets under things that haven't been vacuumed in years. This is great! We saw it go under the curio, and it almost made it under the couch. We shimmied up the couch so it would go underneath.

Maintaining Roomba. Roomba needs to be emptied after each room. It's dirt/dust container is small. Ths air filter is also pretty small. There are 3 areas that need to be emptied. The dirt container is separated into two compartments, and occasionally, stuff gets sucked into the lower tray. It sound like a pain, but it's not hard. The directions recommend that we remove foreign items from the brushes as well, but we haven't found any yet. For as much hair that Roomba is picking up, I find this remarkable.

Battery Life. The battery life is OK. Not great, not lousy. Just OK. Roomba has done up to 3 large rooms before running out of batteries, so for us, it cannot do the whole house on one charge, but it can do one floor. That means it will take 12 hours before we can vacuum the second story.
We have low-pile berber carpet and wood floors. Roomba's instructions say that it works best on low-pile carpet, and not at all on a high shag carpet. The higher the pile, the fewer rooms it can clean on one charge.

Durability. I can't say much about this yet, since we've only had it two weeks. So far so good. Nothing's broken. Parts of it do feel cheaper that on a standard vacuum, but that might be due to its small size.

Noise. Roomba is not as noisy as a standard vacuum, thouth I wouldn't try to watch TV or listen to the radio with it running. It's about as loud as my dishwasher.

What is Roomba good for?
You'll have to decide if Roomba is right for you. The ideal situation for Roomba would be a low-pile carpet or smooth floor (wood, laminate etc.). Do a good cleaning with your vacuum, or even better, a carpet cleaning. Then use Roomba for maintenance cleaning. For example, set Roomba loose on the first floor on Mondays, and the second floor on Tuesdays, letting Roomba charge for 12 hours inbetween. Keep a small vacuum around for times when Roomba is charging, or for emergency spills. Since Shelby sheds constantly, Roomba has worked out very well for us. It takes care of all the vacuum maintenance with no supervision required. Shelby has stopped barking at it, and doesn't appear alarmed when Roomba is doing its thing.

By the way, no one paid me to review Roomba. I paid $200 at Target, but found it cheaper online.