Talk to me about robot vacuums

[StuffingMyNuts]

I don’t want to spend a fortune but I do want one to clean my amtico floors downstairs.

Any recommendations that won’t break the bank balance.

Do I really need the mop version? It’s the dust that is driving me mad as we are in a new build and the development is still ongoing and creating lots of dust.

Are they ok for LVT? Not had amtico before.

Will the dog need therapy? He hates the current Henry Hoover?

Will it get stuck under my furniture?

Will it save me sweeping the floors everyday or is it going to be an expensive mistake? I had a cable free vacuum a few years ago which cost about £400 and it was shit at doing its job and ended up in the skip having kept my faithful Henry.

Mines a divvy. It gets stuck, gets lost, tries to eat stray socks....it's a bit like a crap dog tbh.

But I'm vacuuming way less, my house looks nicer all the time and it just feels cleaner.

Mines eufy

Mine's a Eufy too, fairly basic, it does a good job on our amtico. I don't let it run unsupervised, because it does get stuck or pick up a random charger cable ends or similar and the cats don't like it, just set it going while we're doing other things.

I bought the cheapest Eufy about 3 years ago. Was about £90 I think on Black Friday. He’s fab! Gets under and behind furniture, doesn’t moan and feels like I've got a little helper! He bumbles about for about an hour on a charge, maybe a bit longer. Think the more expensive models do a map and are more regimented in their approach.
It’s great with dog hair and general floor debris. Only really used downstairs here, all tiled, but have occasionally taken him upstairs and does a reasonable job on carpet.
He did once get stuck under the wood burner and had to be rescued but apart from that problem free.

Eufy is a good entry level robot vacuum. Cheap, decent, quiet to run. The only reason I replaced her was because she was constantly eating shoelaces and cables. My family were particularly bad at remembering to not leave them on the floor. The Roomba doesn’t do that, but is quite a bit more expensive. I’ve just splashed out on one that mops as well, but that’s also not cheap.

My cats hate it.

it gets caught on so much stuff (admittedly we are not a tidy household). Gone back to Henry.

Hmm sounds like a robot vacuum might be as good as my actual dog. A bit of a pain in the arse but actually makes my life better.

Think I might bite the bullet and get a fairly cheap one. Off to check out the reviews on Amazon.

Hope the dog forgives me and doesn’t end up trying to eat it 😆

I got a Vactidy cheapo one does the job and mops for £130 or thereabouts. Only get about 30 minutes per charge but it recharges fast. Love him. The dogs barked initially but got sick of barking at him and now just give him a stink side eye. Yes he’s a him - my little mate - and I love running him under the beds.

The same for my Eufy. He’s got a mind of his own, he switches on when he likes and we often find him in the corner eating a sock.

Mine is called Terence the twat for his love of being dopey! He's a cheap eufy (think £120ish) and he's the best thing I've ever purchased house wise. He bumbles around, cleans the carpet and the LVT like a dream, one cat legs it up high and glares at him. The other lies on the floor and lets him bounce of him. He fills his bucket up daily and it just is great. I set him off whilst doing stuff and just rescue him on occasion.

Get a eufy. Love mine. Deals well with dog hairs and dust. Mops too! Amazing.

We just recently got a mopping one and I feel like it just spreads stuff around and makes bits of the floor sticky. I am a bit unimpressed with it TBH. However can't really complain because I have not been mopping myself. We also have LVP and I'm scared to ruin them with the steam mop we had for the old place 🙄

For actual hoovering they are good. It's not as good as a proper hoover but it does drastically reduce the amount you have to do proper hoovering.

I realised the other day with the amount of time I picked mine up, moved it etc I’d have saved my back by hoovering!! I can’t really comment op, I always say if you had incredibly clean floors it would be fab, but we wear shoes in the house and have a shedding dog so it’s better (I don’t always though) if I sweep or hoover first then let the robot at it and then it might be ok to mop. Personally I’d prefer a cordless/ something lighter than a Henry (well Hettie but either way don’t tell he because I love Hettie otherwise!!!)

We have a Tapo called Hamish, he mops and hoovers and empties himself in his wee house. He maps the floor out and you can send him to various zones that you choose on the map or just set him away across the whole floor. I love him.

Well I have bitten the bullet and ordered one on offer from Amazon. Not terribly expensive but hoping it helps keep the dust down. Now just need to think of a suitable name to call it 😁

Mine's a basic eufy. I love it. Like a poster said above, it's a bit of a divvy, but it does do a good job of allowing me to have that 'just hoovered' look much more frequently. It doesn't replace the hoover, but it is a moderately effort-free way of making sure that the bits of floor that need a daily clean up can receive it without taking up much of your time.

When you first start using it, it is a bit like having a puppy. You need to tidy away various things like chaotic electrical cables that it could choke on, and manage low under-furniture spaces where it might get stuck.

But once you have mastered that it is fine. And some of its vulnerabilities will just make you love it more, especially when it is overtired and low on charge, helplessly wandering around in its quest to return to the charging point for a suckle at the breast. It will get there in the end, but so uselessly that your heart will bleed.

Only annoying thing is that you do need to replace the brush and the filter in accordance with manufacturer's frequency instructions if you want to main full performance. Easily bought on Amazon, though, including cheaper generic versions

Another annoying (but sweet) thing: If it is synced with your phone you will get little bleats from time to time which (for me at any rate) are the same as my WhatsApp notification sound. So you will think 'oh lovely, some chat from my sister' or whatever, but it will just be 'Fido's bumper is stuck', 'Fido wants mummy to clean its sensors' etc

Ok I think my life might be transformed. I haven’t tried the mop function but have vacuumed several times including moving the charging station as I ignored the space it needed to find it and thus finding it got confused finding home but now it seems happy. I think twice a day downstairs might mean my sanity is saved from the drudgery of keeping the floors relatively clean 😌

Oh and the dog seems unfazed even when it bumped into him. I have named him Harry 😁

I have this one and I love it! Had it about 8 months and no issues!

Does anyone have one with multiple dogs? I fancy getting one but don’t know if it would choke on the dog hair 🤦‍♀️

I have a Roomba, and little Rory is great. He takes himself back to base if he needs to charge or empty his bin and deals with rugs and hard floors without issue. Our dogs and cats are short haired so we don’t have industrial amounts from them, but I have very long hair and he twirls it up into little hair doughnuts on the end of his rollers in a way Henry hoover envies.
he’s also very good to take upstairs where he can pootle around under the beds which was shocking to see the dust collected when we first had him

4 dogs. It’ll change your life. Do it !

I live in a 4 bedroomed house. Godfrey thinks I live in a three bedroomed house!
I rarely use him now because he didn't get into the corners. He's ok for a quick tidy up, but most months I never use him.
He struggled in my teenagers bedroom.

We have a Roborock Q8 that includes a mop, at about £300. It's got a decent camera so avoids objects and had a really good making function so you can tell it not to go near the TV cabling. Before that, we had an early model Roomba that did random walks and bounce off things. The Roborock was worth the upgrade and will with spending extra over the basic Eufy because its much better for hair, does a much more thorough job and doesn't leave marks on the skirting boards.

The mop function is normally rubbish, but the vac is great at keeping daily dust and dog hair down.