gathermewool
Site Donor 2023
I finally gave in and purchased the Subject robovac for $215.
We have our main vacuum, a Panasonic Jetforce MC-CL945 canister vac that works extremely well, a handheld cordless Dyson V6 vac, and a regular Walmart-special broom and dust pan to keep our floors clean (mostly hardwood on the main level, except for carpet in the family room and two BR's). The highest traffic area consists of the hardwood main floor. My wife prefers to sweep every couple of days. I prefer to suck up the visual debris (mostly created by our toddler!) daily (or so...) and then vacuum with our main vac every few weeks (I was going to type 'weekly', but we all know that's a lie!)
Anyway, I've been interested in robovac's ever since my brother-in-law purchased a used high-end Roomba (can't recall if it's an 8 or 9 series), and having seen it in action in their place over the past year. For the past year plus, I haven't been able to convince myself of the purchase, since most of the cheaper vacs seemed pretty dumb and I figured I'd spend more time baby-sitting them than anything. It seemed like an overly frivolous purchase, at best, and a waste of money, at worst. Well, that is until a couple of days ago. The prices have finally come down to acceptable levels and the feature set has also improved over the past couple of years.
1. Cleaning: I emptied the dustbin after two auto-runs on just our main hardwood floor and it was packed full of dust, debris and hair! I figure it picked most of it up from beneath our furniture, which we rarely care to clean under as frequently as the higher-traffic areas. While I saw a dozen or so missed spots, the overall cleaning was pretty impressive - I didn't expect a completely packed-full bin!
The bin took all of 10 seconds to empty and re-install - just as easy as our Dyson and Panasonic vacs!
2. Smarts: I've had to save it from shoe laces, small toys and power cords six times now (it's still on its 3rd run, so this number will likely increase). The vac will stop and beep out an alarm when it encounters something it can't climb over or when it sucks up something like shoe laces, which stop the roller. I moved some of our shoes and my kid's toys to inaccessible places, but didn't really check under furniture or purposefully robovac-proof the area, so this number of errors is less than I expected.
3. Spares: It comes with a spare filter set and brushes (not the roller), and spares on Amazon are very reasonable. I figure I'm good to go for at least half a year before I need to buy a spare anything.
4. Entertainment: My toddler likes to stand over it in a triangle figure, announcing that he's creating "tunnels" for the vac to go through....over and over again. He also like to "race" his electronic dinosaur and watch it charge, waiting (im)patiently for it to get going again. I'm sure he'll lose interest, but it's pretty funny to see how he has interacted with it over the past couple of days.
5. Warning: this thing has a sensor so that it doesn't have to use its bumper to detect EVERY object, but that's really limited to walls, boxes, doors etc. For chairs and other objects that are NOT detected to be as solid as walls, it will still bump into them and then redirect. I guess the light beneath our bedroom door confused it, because it has bumped audibly into it once already. This would certainly be alarming in the middle of the night! Plan accordingly.
If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask. I'm still only 2 days into Amazon's 30-day return period, but so far I'm impressed enough to say that I'll very likely keep it.
We have our main vacuum, a Panasonic Jetforce MC-CL945 canister vac that works extremely well, a handheld cordless Dyson V6 vac, and a regular Walmart-special broom and dust pan to keep our floors clean (mostly hardwood on the main level, except for carpet in the family room and two BR's). The highest traffic area consists of the hardwood main floor. My wife prefers to sweep every couple of days. I prefer to suck up the visual debris (mostly created by our toddler!) daily (or so...) and then vacuum with our main vac every few weeks (I was going to type 'weekly', but we all know that's a lie!)
Anyway, I've been interested in robovac's ever since my brother-in-law purchased a used high-end Roomba (can't recall if it's an 8 or 9 series), and having seen it in action in their place over the past year. For the past year plus, I haven't been able to convince myself of the purchase, since most of the cheaper vacs seemed pretty dumb and I figured I'd spend more time baby-sitting them than anything. It seemed like an overly frivolous purchase, at best, and a waste of money, at worst. Well, that is until a couple of days ago. The prices have finally come down to acceptable levels and the feature set has also improved over the past couple of years.
1. Cleaning: I emptied the dustbin after two auto-runs on just our main hardwood floor and it was packed full of dust, debris and hair! I figure it picked most of it up from beneath our furniture, which we rarely care to clean under as frequently as the higher-traffic areas. While I saw a dozen or so missed spots, the overall cleaning was pretty impressive - I didn't expect a completely packed-full bin!
The bin took all of 10 seconds to empty and re-install - just as easy as our Dyson and Panasonic vacs!
2. Smarts: I've had to save it from shoe laces, small toys and power cords six times now (it's still on its 3rd run, so this number will likely increase). The vac will stop and beep out an alarm when it encounters something it can't climb over or when it sucks up something like shoe laces, which stop the roller. I moved some of our shoes and my kid's toys to inaccessible places, but didn't really check under furniture or purposefully robovac-proof the area, so this number of errors is less than I expected.
3. Spares: It comes with a spare filter set and brushes (not the roller), and spares on Amazon are very reasonable. I figure I'm good to go for at least half a year before I need to buy a spare anything.
4. Entertainment: My toddler likes to stand over it in a triangle figure, announcing that he's creating "tunnels" for the vac to go through....over and over again. He also like to "race" his electronic dinosaur and watch it charge, waiting (im)patiently for it to get going again. I'm sure he'll lose interest, but it's pretty funny to see how he has interacted with it over the past couple of days.
5. Warning: this thing has a sensor so that it doesn't have to use its bumper to detect EVERY object, but that's really limited to walls, boxes, doors etc. For chairs and other objects that are NOT detected to be as solid as walls, it will still bump into them and then redirect. I guess the light beneath our bedroom door confused it, because it has bumped audibly into it once already. This would certainly be alarming in the middle of the night! Plan accordingly.
If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask. I'm still only 2 days into Amazon's 30-day return period, but so far I'm impressed enough to say that I'll very likely keep it.
