Robot Vacuum Cleaner

Who’d have thought that so my fun could be derived from a robot vacuum cleaner? We were a little sceptical about it’s abilities at first, especially as we bought one of the less expensive ones. However, so far it has impressed. We gave it quite a good workout as well having not vacuumed for a while.

Once charged we set it off on an ‘auto’ clean and off it went merrily doing its thing. I don’t think spending quite as much time as we have watching it is really an effective use of our time. Once the novelty wears off I’m sure it’ll be a time-saver too.

Robot Vacuum Cleaner vs Teenager

It’s never going to do as good as job as I might do with a super powerful vacuum but I am a little OTT and very thorough. It will however far surpass Morgan’s efforts at vacuum cleaning! On a full charge it seems to clean for around 90 minutes. This is about 88 minutes more than Morgan ever managed! If you wanted fast vacuuming then Morgan was your man, but I’m not sure about the quality of his work!

Obviously the robot vacuum cleaner can’t see where the worst bits are. Nor can it see if it actually picked up a piece of debris that it has passed over. I don’t think Morgan ever really paid any attention to what he was doing either. Basically the robot vacuum cleaner seems to follow some sort of semi-random pattern that eventually takes it to all corners of the house. It also has various patterns of movement that allow it to clean the edges and corners of rooms. It seems to enter into these modes from time to time. By the end of its charge it has negotiated to most parts of the house.

Once it gets to only having 20% of its charge left it switches into a low power mode, stops suction and enters a mode that takes it back to its charging station. This bit was the most exciting part to watch. Especially when it was several rooms from the charging station and had to negotiate the lounge, dining room, kitchen, office and ‘L’-shaped hall to find its way back. Again we were pretty impressed when it achieved this. So far it’s found its way home every time.

Robot Vacuum Cleaner
Robot Vacuum Cleaner

Extra Modes

Unlike a teenager which tends to have just a single mode called ‘grumpy’, the robot vacuum cleaner has a couple of extra modes as well. In fact it doesn’t have a grumpy mode at all and seems quite happy roaming around the house. As well as the auto mode that just gets on with it, there are ‘single room’, ‘spot’, ‘edge’ and ‘max’ modes. As their names imply, the single room mode will clean a single room for 30 minutes. The edge mode will do just the edges. Spot mode will concentrate on a certain spot and will clean in an intense mode. It spirals out about a meter in diameter before spiralling back in – perfect for when you spill Rice Krispies. Max mode simply boosts the suction power but obviously reduces the time the battery will last.

So far, the auto mode seems to have worked well for us. We can also programme it to start cleaning at scheduled times so it can keep on top of the vacuuming with an auto-clean every day.

Extra Features

The cheap(ish) model that we bought doesn’t come with all the extra bells and whistles of some of the robot cleaners out there. We did only pay £139 for it and got a free accessory pack as well. By contrast, the all singing all dancing Dyson Robot vacuum cleaner costs nearly 10 times that much at £1300! It does have some pretty cool features and probably does do a better job but not that much better.

Wi-Fi connectivity and such like are all well and good but not really needed. Most have at least a bluetooth connection and an app that allows you to programme and control it from a phone. Ours doesn’t even have this feature, but it does come with a remote control that provides the same functionality. Quite often such features are fun to begin with but once you get used to such a gadget you generally just leave it in the same mode most of the time anyway. At the end of the day as long as it has the modes and features you’ll use all the time, the extras aren’t really needed and will rarely be used.

We obviously can’t vouch for the longevity of the model we’ve bought but if it continues to work in the way that it has so far then we’ll be more than happy with it. Morgan should be happy too as he will no longer have to vacuum. Not that ‘he actually did it that much anyway.

3 Responses

  1. Avatar forComment Author Mum x says:

    Sounds good, Have to find another job around the house for Morgan to do, what’s he like at cleaning windows !

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Alan Cole

Alan is a Freelance Website Designer, Sports & Exercise Science Lab Technician and full time Dad & husband with far too many hobbies: Triathlete, Swimming, Cycling, Running, MTBing, Surfing, Windsurfing, SUPing, Gardening, Photography.... The list goes on.

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