Robot vacuums vary in price a fair amount! Which one should I buy?

[minkah]

Wading through reviews is getting me nowhere fast, cos so many people say it's "good for the price" ie they lower their expectations according to cost.

I don't want something I make allowances for because it was cheaper...nor do I want to just throw cash at this if I don't need to.

Really fed up of trying to figure it out. Advice from experienced robot vac owners needed, please!

We've had an iRobot Roomba for about 6 years. It's on it's 3rd battery but doing fine.

Thankyou chamleon, that's good to know. They are continually updating the roomba's, it seems.. Each one 'better' and more £££ than the last, and as a new user, I've no idea if the updates are really just tweaks that are of little account to the average user, kind of like the endless iPod versions that apple releases.

I have a Roomba 760 which is absolutely marvellous. They work best IME on hard floors but they are great - much more thorough than I am. Long charge, easy to empty, cleans under the furniture and picks up all the pet hair.

Mine self docks and programmable so can be used when I go out. I really do love it - I spend a lot less tie cleaning and because it's no hassle the house looks clean most of the time.

I have mainly carpets. Just really want the house to look better groomed, and without me losing time, attending to it!

Thankyou missB!

Love our Roomba. We were considering replacing our lounge carpet but after a month of using the Roomba regularly in there, carpet looked fab. Only problem I find is that the rubber bumper sometimes marks the paintwork on doors and skirting boards but does clean off ok.

Which model did you get, Bapple?

Marking place to look up some of these later.

What's the most effective way to 'use' one - do you need to tidy your floors so it has free reign?

I assume that you have to leave it primed on different floors in the house so that it does upstairs and downstairs and that you still have to vac the stairs yourself?

Do you think the cats will phone the RSPCA on me if I get one? I have visions of it bursting into life and doing it's thing while I'm at work and the cats are snoozing around the house .

I'm not sure that the cats would be too bothered

I've had my roomba 650 a week now and I am so pleased with it. I have saved so much time already and the house looks much better.

We have quite a short pile lounge carpet and it works very well in there - gets up lots of cat hair and loads of dust (even after I had been over with the henry). And as Missbeehiving said it works really well on hard floors.

My cats hate the Henry with a passion and immediately leave the house when I get him out but aren't bothered at all by the roomba (it's quite quiet)

Well I got tired of confusion about diff models, and ordered a roomba 770. Will report back!