cheaper than roomba & works just fine I got a great deal on mine as a today's special value from QVC, and paid only $117 for it. After letting the battery charge overnight, I tried it yesterday and it works just fine, with a remote control and more features than I expected! It doesn't get to the very edges of every nook and cranny, and only works on low pile carpet and hard surface floors, but I am very pleased with how well it navigated on its own and how well it cleaned the floors. The recharge time is much shorter after the initial time. For the impatient there is a rapid recharger available for purchase separately. The debris is collected in a cup you empty after each use, so no bag is required, but the replacement filters are not cheap (about $29 for a dozen from Lentek, $24 from QVC.) Not good for carpets -- okay for hardwood and linoleum I too bought this through QVC for a cheaper price. What caused me to return it is the countless times I ran it over the same area (on 1/2" carpeting) to pick up things it missed. On smooth surfaces (linoleum) it seemed more effective -- but this wasn't an economical replacement for my $5 Swiffer. Although it was fun to watch as it ran, I had to follow it around because it would get stuck under the couch and in corners (it shuts down after a few attempts to reposition itself). It's a fun novelty item but should not be considered a serious cleaning machine. If you do decide to get this, don't throw out your old vacuum -- you'll need it. Great help around the house I bought this from Walmart for $90 about three weeks ago, after reading others' reviews of this and similar products on a variety of websites. The negative reviews actually were more useful than the positive, to convince me to buy it, because they explained what the machine will NOT do. I find this to be an excellent vacuum, but only if your expectations and needs match its capabilities.
I was never looking for a robotic vacuum that would completely replace my old one. I have two dogs and three cats, so vacuuming is a daily task in my house. However, I'm disabled, and that means daily vacuuming is simply out of the question. There's too much else to do in the house to blow all my energy on rug cleaning.
This little critter isn't really a vacuum cleaner so much as it's a robotic dustbuster. I vacuum once a week, and run the robot the other six days of the week, as far as its charge will allow it to go. It will never replace me as the primary cleaner of all things carpeted. But, it makes it so I don't have to choose between having a clean house and having some energy to enjoy my clean house with my family.
I didn't install the little brush things that came with it, because I read a review on a site that suggested it runs better on carpet without them, though it misses more dirt that way. Since I only want the vacuum to fill in on the days I'm not up to cleaning, and I was half afraid that once they snapped in I wouldn't be able to remove them, this trade-off suited me just fine. So they're still in the little baggy in the box that the vacuum came in.
My model came with a remote control, which I used on the first day to pursue all of the animals, so they'd develop a healthy fear of the vacuum. The last thing I want is for my animals to decide it looks like a fun thing to take outside and tear to bits, espeically with a fully-charged battery and who knows what sort of electrical current. I can run it unsupervised since they all watch it warily and generally steer clear, just in case it decides to chase them again.
The animals prefer to hide in the living room, because it's got a step down and the cliff sensor in the vacuum means they're safe. It doesn't work perfectly; it tends to avoid cliffs better head-on than if it comes at a very sideways angle. But all it does then is tip into the living room, hang there for a few seconds, and then shut off and give an error beep. I could see that it might slide all the way down a flight of stairs like that, but since I don't live in a home with stairs, that isn't much of a concern to me. It doesn't move fast enough to fall off a single step with very much force, certainly not enough to do itself harm. The cliff sensor does kick in at odd times. It refuses to walk off the rug onto the tile in the dining room, for example. But usually after a few tries, it goes at it at that sideways angle and the cliff sensor fails. I can't really complain about a limitation that means it spends more time vacuuming under the dining room table, though.
The maintenance is reasonably simple; it takes a minute to assemble the parts, which I store in a drawer right next to the outlet that I use to charge it. Now and then my husband takes it and picks out stray furs that get every which way inside. This is roughly comparable to the maintenance he has to do with my regular vacuum, which routinely gets clogged with pet fur.
After it finishes its 20-minute run, I hunt it down, clean out the dustbin according to the directions, and set it up to run again in another location, and repeat that process until it does the "my battery is dying" signal. It sounds like a lot of having to babysit it, but I find 20 minutes to be just about right for taking breaks from other tasks in the house.
Sometimes finding it can be a challenge, and the second day I used it, I spent two hours searching for it, pointing the remote randomly and pushing buttons to get it to make noise. It had wandered into the dining room and under an old baby changing table that I use for shelving. After the first week I grew accustomed to the places that it generally gets into, that its infrared sensor doesn't recieve input from the remote control, and I don't lose it anymore.
You do have to order replacement filters, and change the filter every few months. It doesn't hold up to the cleaning process for longer than about three months, according to the directions, though I find with daily use it wears out in about a month. I've yet to discover whether the ordering process is a hassle, though I did note that you can't order them online. There's an 800 number in the manual, that you call to order. I'm hoping that'll be easy.
Overall, I'm actually rather content with this vacuum; its capabilities fit my needs pretty well. Good I like this bot. I have one problem with it though. My living room carpet is dark and the poor little bot thinks it's at the edge of a stairway when on the dark carpet, and just keeps backing up! (the 2 reflective sensors that see the edge of a stair don't reflect enough infrared light back on the dark carpet).
Overall, I like it a lot for the price. It picks up a lot of dust/dirt. Good product.
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