Any Roomba owners that can answer a few questions please?

[user1066]

I have a hankering for a Roomba. Just the basic model, but I have a few questions, please, before I decide to shell out. I have a small, modern two bed semi, but have dog that is likely to attack it if she is near it so I can't leave it running when she's around and certainly not when I leave her at home alone!

1. How long would I need to leave it running to clean a small lounge and hallway?
2. Does it go from room to room if I leave the doors open? Is it happy going over those metal carpet room divider strips in doorways?
3. How loud is it? Will I be able to set it running downstairs at bedtime and still get to sleep?
4. Can I change where I leave the docking station, so I can then leave it running upstairs when I head out to work in the morning and the dog is kept downstairs?

Many thanks

We have two 700 series (both bought cheap from ebay).

1 They tend to run either for as long as they think are necessary or until the battery runs too low, whichever comes first. They generally run for about 40 minutes in our house if left to their own devices.

2 Yes and, as long as they are reasonably flat, yes. Though they have some intelligence, they are pretty dumb and basically keep going in straightish lines until something inside tells them to turn or they hit something. So if a door is open, they go through it. They can manage quite small bumps but ours will happily get stuck on the base of an IKEA Poang chair - they climb up so their wheels are off the floor! (Solution: tilt the Poang so it's resting on its front.)

3 How light a sleeper are you? If you are in the same room then you would probably have to raise your voice and you wouldn't want one on if you were watching TV but if there's a closed door between you and a Roomba it's generally ok.

4 Yes. It just plugs into a standard socket. That said we have fixed ours down with tape on a tiled floor because the Roomba tended to push the docking station around rather than dock. It would probably work better on carpet.

5 Regardless of claims, they will eat cables, particularly thin ones, and one of ours fried itself by getting stuck under a low piece of furniture and burning out its motor - the replacement motor units are around £50 but an easy fit. You learn to make sure cables are off the floor or otherwise protected and some of our furniture now stands on the DCs old wooden building blocks.

6 Roombas can't do everything. They can only do floors and can struggle to do big jobs. You do still need a conventional vacuum; it's just that you don't need to use it anything like as much. You also need to take them apart every couple of weeks and clean them out as dust gets all over the insides - it's a screwdriver job and takes about 15 minutes. I'm pretty sure there are videos showing how to do this on YouTube. Brushes and filters wear out and need to be replaced.

All said and done, though, DW wouldn't be without them.

^^ great response
Keep an eye on eBay as many nearly new ones go on - I got my second one this way
You won't regret it

Thank you, everyone.

I know you said you have liking for the Roomba hoovers but have you looked in to Vielda? I brought this model a while ago and it's really good. My review of it so far.

I really didnt think this would work. I have a cat and a dog and I could easily hoover pet hairs twice a day....(although I never could be bothered, and hence got used to tumbleweed hairs greeting me in the hall every time I came home). This is absolutely brilliant for maintenance, keeping things presentable...yes, you will have to hoover the skirting and corners yourself once in a while, yes, it will snag on rug fringes, or occasionally get stuck and need rescued, no, its not suitable for deep pile carpets, and yes, you will have to do the stairs yourself.....but, oh my God, for a lazy person who has laminate/tiled/vinyl floors or short pile carpets....its bloody brilliant. I cant understand the negative reviews that cite 'problems' such as I just listed...they arent problems if you dont expect it to do things it never claimed to do in the first place!!
I wanted a roomba, but there was no way I was paying several hundred pounds for what, essentially seemed to me, to be a lazy assed gadget. I bought this with birthday money, as a present to myself, as it was fairly cheap and I couldnt think of anything I really wanted. I would actually buy it again if it broke.

In terms of how powerful it is.....I really bought it for my hardwood floors, but one day it got itself stuck in a small circle on a mat I have at the door that I forgot to lift, and when I rescued it, it was almost embarrassing how clean the wee circle it did was compared to the rest of the mat.

Another point....in a second-hand way, it nearly makes you be a bit tidier anyway, as you are more inclined to clear the floors of stuff it might get caught in...I had to rescue it the other day as it managed to suck up almost an entire block of post-it notes I had missed. My regular vacuum wouldnt have lifted that....not that it should....but the point is, there must be some good suction there!

I know it doesnt have the advanced features of, say, cleverly returning itself to the charging station when its running low...but.....to be honest, Im not sure you need to pay a hundred quid more to do that.....it does my hall, kitchen, and large living room easily on one charge, and Im always here when its on...I dont go out and leave it becasue it DOES get caught in things and need rescued....and, frankly, if youre the sort of person that wants to go out to work and come home to a clean house, then you probably need a maid, not a robotic hoover.
If you want the moon on a stick, you'll be disappointed. If you expect what it says it will do, but are a bit skeptical, you'll be very pleasantly surprised!!