Robot vacuum / hoover

[Bancha]

Hello wise women of Mumsnet.

I want to buy a robotic hoover. Please can you recommend some to me?

I’ve looked on the robovac website and their all singing all dancing bells and whistles model is £1500..... I’m such a mug I’d probably spend that BUT before I completely lose my mind (and my money) I’d love to hear your experiences of really expensive models and cheaper ones as well.

General questions I have - when can you put it on? Is it very loud or could I set it to go on at night or in the evening? Do they cope with going around dining chairs or do you have to pick them up first? Can they cope with changing surfaces (wooden floor to rug to play mat etc)?

I’ve read good things on mumsnet about a eufy, but they get a really poor Which? review.

I want a robot vacuum to reduce the amount of housework I do (currently hoover the ground floor of the house daily if not twice a day) I don’t want to have to go over what it’s done/bits it’s missed/the edges of the room etc etc. I have a cordless dye on which I like and would still use in addition to a robot vacuum.

Thanks so much in advance

Dyson*

I got one from amazon warehouse deals just after Xmas. It cost me about £150. Don't spend £1500 that's insane!

It's been life changing for me. I have a timer set for 9pm when I'm usually at work and DH asleep. I come home to a clean carpet and it's great!

We had to get rid of the living room rug because it was getting stuck. It can't get under kitchen chairs and often I find it stuck under radiators or under the sofa! But it was definitely worth the £150 and I wouldn't be without it now.

Also, needs emptied every day as it gets full of dog hair and it's too noisy to have on when you're watching TV or on the phone.

Oh and the best thing about it is that it forces me to pick stuff up off the floor before I go out, like dog toys or blankets etc, because Mr. Hoover won't like it, so my downstairs is generally tidy all of the time!

Eufy 30c max - absolutely fantastic little gamechanger! I bought mine in Black Friday sale on Amazon last year for about £150ish and couldn’t be without it now.

It’s not too loud and just works it’s way around table/chair legs. You can set it to just do edges or just roam it’s way around, it comes with edging strips (which I haven’t used).

Mine has no problem going from carpet to tiles and carpets to rug and you can control it remotely via the app.

This is so helpful, thank you. Good to know you don’t have to spend so much. Hoovers always seem so expensive so I assumed a robot one would need to be reasonably expensive for it to work

don't have any advice but I'm thinking of getting this one, if anyone has had it www.myrobotcenter.co.uk/en_gb/irobot-roomba-980
had an Irobot one which I bought 6 years ago which was really good, but I'm sure they've probably come a long way since! This one is double the price elsewhere but on this website is much more affordable!

I have an iRobot. I think it cost roughly £550 from John Lewis.

Pros-
It cleans both rugs and floor well
Has never got stuck
Easy to programme as it maps rooms
Can set timer so come home to a vacuumed room.
Cons -
It has a small bin so needs emptying often
It is too tall to get under sofa
We have a rug with tassels and it has destroyed some of the tassels.

Overall it saves so much time and I really love it!

This is so helpful. I think the bells and whistles one will take itself over to its own little bin and empty itself, and then carry on. The ground floor of my house is reasonably big (not massive) so this was something that appealed to me quite a bit, as I’d be disappointed if it could only do some of the floor before getting full

The Eufy g30 goes up& down rather than bouncing randomly
Keep an eye on the website for offers & have a look on Topcashback as they offer have a cashback deal with Eufy
You have to 'hoover proof' the rooms you want the robo hoover to be in charge of ( move cables block areas they get stuck in)
I love mine & very quickly got an upstairs one as well as a downstairs one, one less job in a busy week

Eufy every time. It's amazing

@Amelia666

Eufy 30c max - absolutely fantastic little gamechanger! I bought mine in Black Friday sale on Amazon last year for about £150ish and couldn’t be without it now.

It’s not too loud and just works it’s way around table/chair legs. You can set it to just do edges or just roam it’s way around, it comes with edging strips (which I haven’t used).

Mine has no problem going from carpet to tiles and carpets to rug and you can control it remotely via the app.

This, after seeing many MN reviews I went out and bought one a month ago, love it! I’m definitely going to try upgrading in the prime and Black Friday sales to one that mops too.

I have an Eufy 11s. It goes on during the night. No noise problems and changes from hard flooring to carpet to rug easily; no fringes though. Unless your floors are filthy it won’t need to be emptied mid hoovering. Mine doesn’t have an app to control it but I don’t need to be told it’s finished. Only £100 or so on a cheap offer.

I've just treated myself (how sad is that, can tell I'm getting old) to the 30C on offer on Amazon for £145. It comes tomorrow. I can't wait. I've wanted one for ages and just got a good pay rise so this is my celebratory treat to myself. Really hoping it will mean we have crap picked up from floors.

@LadyDanburysHat ooh can you let me know how you find it? I would find this a massive treat as well!

@Bancha I will do. So excited for it to arrive

So Dustin arrived on Friday. He is great. We moved all ca les out of the way and he just poodles around. Permanently clean floors are a thing of joy. He fits under my sofas and the bookcases etc. In the living room. Which get cleaned once in a blue moon by me. The cat is terrified of him but I'm sure he'll get used to it. I am currently trying to decide a set time for him to work.

I have the Eufy 15C Max and he is honestly my favourite household appliance appliance.

I have stuck googly eyes on him so he can see where he's going.

He is excellent on hard floors I set him off every night while we are watching telly and every time he comes back with a full tank - I don't know where he gets it from but what a treat to have clean floors every day with no effort.

I can't imagine being without him now and if he broke I'll be replacing him pretty quickly!

Sorry forgot to answer your questions but mine just works his way round the dining room chairs I don't have to move them.

He just clambers onto rugs and does those with no problem. Changes easy from the hard floor on the carpet and then onto rugs. Like another poster said you do have to tie up trailing cables out of the way so he doesn't get tangled in them. If he does get tangled he stops working and cries for help.

@IDoAllMyOwnStunts @LadyDanburysHat this is really helpful thanks so much for the reviews! Think I’m going to go for it. I can’t wait!

I got an Eufy 30C Max last August (c=WiFi connectivity, 30=boundary strips, MAX = extra power).
The majority of the Eufy's bounce about randomly, also have a spot and edge mode. The general mode is a mix of all three. It isn't quick but over the course of the 90-120 mins vacuuming in seems to do a good job in all of my spaces.

I haven't tried any others but I think at this price point it is likely they are all much of a muchness.
I don't have Which? anymore, it would be interesting to read the reviews.

Mine is set for 3.30am every day and does the lounge, study (both carpets) & hallway (LVT).
Twice a week I manually set it off in the kitchen & conservatory (both LVT).
Once a week I manually set it off upstairs (all carpets).

I don't have much stuff lying around, cables have been tidied so it doesn't catch them, goes round chairs fine, ears my conservatory door mat, but this is very thin - I just pick it up and shake it before setting it off and put it back down after (after robovac in that area I then set the robomop off). I throw the dogs toys into a basket before I go to bed and thats about the extent of my need to tidy for it.

I empty it every day, either when I get up or just before I go to bed. I also have to clear the beater brush daily as both my and the dog hair gets entangled in it.

If/when it breaks I will be replacing immediately.

I keep reading that they don't replace a proper vacuum, so I guess my standards are lower than others! For me having it done daily (with the dog) is so much better than doing it manually which I'd only do once or twice a week.

I do still have other vacuums, a cordless which I'd got about a year before and and my old corded.
The corded gets brought out for the car, and heavy duty jobs.
The cordless gets used if I just want to go over somewhere, for the stairs, for upholstery.

@Chasingsquirrels

Thanks so much for this and the lev of detail. I’ve been looking at the eufy site this morning and there’s some that seem to do mopping and vacuuming. I have a toddler so I absolutely need to hoover each day as well as mop otherwise my entire house would be caked in weetabix. I’m not sure whether the mopping function is really worth it though due to the weetabix (and all other food) factor. Would you say your robo mop is thorough enough or is it sort of like wiping your floor with a baby wipe or equivalent?

I had two vileda robot hoovers , I bought then from lidl as an offer for about £80 each (2017) i believe the same model was around £200 online I want to say they were brilliant and they were except for I have long hair and that got would around the brushes and caused them problems , we had to regularly cut the chunks of wound up hair out of the Hoover , more noticeable on carpet less of a problem on hard floor
Aside from the hair issue they trundled around our hard floors very well , occasionally got stick in a corner or alcove but collected up day today dust and bits very well
Due to the hair issue I no longer have them but am looking for one that can deal with it

I got the iRobot Braava Jet 250 a couple of months ago (I understand it is now discontinued) from the myrobotcentre site someone linked to above - quick delivery (I believe it was dispatched from Germany) and quite a bit cheaper than elsewhere.

It basically is wiping a cloth over the floor, and I deliberated for quite a while as I thought it would be a bit pointless, but I am actually really pleased with it.
I set it off twice a week, which is about 5+ more often than I'd bother doing it! If it was muddy I'd do it more often.

You can get one with both clean and dirty water containers which sucks up the dirty water, but that was a lot bigger and I don't think it would have gone under my kickboards.

I have the iRobot vacuum cleaner and also the iRobot jet. I love the vacuum cleaner and use it every single day. The mop was much cheaper and I don’t really use it that much. I think in some houses it would be a lot better.
The vacuum cleaner goes up and over rugs and things easily and detects stairs not to fall down. It insists on getting stuck under one dining chair if I forget to shove a cushion under it. But you probably have different chairs!
I would love the one which empties its own bin; mine is an older model. I wouldn’t buy it because I don’t have the money, but if I did, I absolutely would.
When the iRobot breaks, I probably won’t be able to replace it, but I shall miss it terribly. It’s been going for about three years. We have had to replace the filter regularly and I think another part, which wasn’t cheap.