Romba - robot hoover - who's got one and would you recommend it?

[dizzydo]

Saw talk of this on another thread. Pleaseeee tell me more!

I have wooden floors downstairs, so I know that would be fine but would it 'mount the rug'. It is quite a thick rug

I love my roomba. He is called Robbie and lives in a corner of the livingroom. He came from Costco about 3 weeks ago after I had a thread on here asking about them.

He uite happily pootles about from carpet to hard floors and even mounts the rug!!

If I leave the doors open, he finds his way throughout the whole of the ground floor and back to his dock.

When we got him, DS started feeding him crumbs.....he followed my DS gobbling up the crumbs as he went!

What model is it Pacific?

Maisie, it is the 530. It does not have timers etc on it but all the other functions are the same as any other 500 series. It cost £165 in Costco.

The 530 definitely gets up thick rugs from hard floors maisie - my mum has that in her house.

How frightening it must be to have a poorly roomba. I'm in love already!

Why are you all calling this gadget HE? If it gets on with the hoovering with minimal fuss then surely it's a she?

i think i may get very fat if i bought one
are oyu all fat?

Does anyone know if the tile cleaning one is available in the UK yet. is it called scooba or something like that?

snorkle/anyone - I need to know this soon. Why doesn't it feel that having one is any less effort? I'm imagining it could be the answer to all my dreams, come home, dust, clean, but at least all the floors are clean.

It feels like effort because you spend as much time cleaning the roomba as you would have done hoovering. You also have to pick things up of the floor but under furnature like sofas/beds that you wouldn't normally if you were doing a quick hoover. Ours is forever 'choking' on socks left under the bed. It is very satisfying though watching it work.

yep I'm fat. I was fat before I got one though. I'll keep you posted about weight gain since purchase.

We use cushions to stop it cleaning places we don't want it to go. Still to use the virtual wall thingy. Watch as they make a total mess of tissues.

Monkeybird, my parents have a robot lawnmower, it is THE BUSINESS.
They've had it 6-7 years and it's still going strong. It was expensive but they have a huge lawn and there's no way they would've wanted to spend their lives mowing it.

Ah, I had always thought they were for small lawns. Ours is fairly big and takes a lot of mowing but my mums requires a tractor to mow it. Would it handle that? Might need to get one of those...

Just for something to take the bins out and I'm sorted.

The lawn is divided into 4 or 5 "rooms" with underground wires, and the mower can do about 2 of them before it needs recharging (goes for hours). It's a bit like the roomba in that it moves around randomly, so a bit frustrating if you're watching it, as you're going "no, go back, do that bit". But it gets around to it all eventually.

That's right, no stripes.
His name is Larry

We've got a Robomower and DS loves it!!! When he was smaller could sit on it and drive it round the garden! Not bad at cutting the lawn too - no clippings to get rid of is one of the best bits, although can be a bit temperamental at times. (No worse than DH cutting the lawn though