Roomba

Watching my Roomba iRobot 550 clean the family room, dining room and kitchen is fascinating and also agonizing. It is meant to help me with the chore of vacuuming and sweeping but watching it go over and over the same spot and missing others can be jarring. Still it is an interesting contraption and certainly very clever. It knows how to avoid falling over the edge of a step, it knows when it bumps into a wall or object and it knows how to un-entangle itself from wires. And get this, it knows how to go back and dock itself in its base station to recharge the battery when it is out of juice. How cool is THAT?

And it comes with 2 virtual walls that I can set up to confine it so it does not wander where I do not want it to. Virtual walls!

Funny thing is I ended up moving chairs, small tables and miscellaneous objects out of its way and curling up carpets as it wound its noisy way around the house so that it would have an easier time doing what I would otherwise be doing. it doesn't pick up everything such as the peanut skins from the munching while watching the telly. But then again, it is meant only to do the in-betweens. You still have to do the heavy lifting to really clean the place. Now at least I can space out the thorough cleaning.

Having said that though, last week when I first tested out my Roomba on the living room carpet, I was astonished at how much wool came out of the cannister and the cleaning brush when I finally sat down to clean it out. That little boy has some suction!

My Roomba. What a joy!