Roomba Review... Some of you have been asking us about our Roomba so I decided to give a review here. Overall I would say I recommend it and that we love it. But I will say that it depends on the kind of person that you are, Roomba has a personality that is not for everyone.

On the surface the concept of a robot vacuum cleaner is awesome and I believe in reality it is awesome. The first time I spent the afternoon reading to my kids while my bathrooms, kitchen and living room were cleaned by Roomba I knew we had made the right decision. But in our house atleast you can't just put Roomba down and leave her to clean without any assistance from you. You do need to help her out occasionally by emptying her dustbin and cleaning out the brushes. Also you need to have a basically clean house to start with.

People who will love Roomba: anyone with pets - (Roomba is incredible on dog hair - like nothing else I have seen), people who have all hardwood floors (there is no reason to not have roomba if you only have hardwood), people who have mostly clutter free floors (few toys and little things strewn about), people who love new technology (serona still loves to just stare at her while she works and loves saying we have a robot), early adopters of technology who expect and adapt well to the inevitable bugs.

People who will hate Roomba: people who love straight lines on their carpet (she follows a REALLY crazy pattern), people who don't like to empty dustbins(everytime you use it), people who don't like to "tinker" with technology (the brushes need to be cleaned regularly), people with cluttered floors (it needs basically cleared off floors), people who want it to do everything.

I love Roomba and I don't mind that I have to clean her out every single room (sometimes 2-3 times for a large room) but you see I used to have dog hair and carpet fibers all over my home making it look dirty and now I do not. I used to have to get down on my hands and knees to pick up dog hair with my hands or a brush and do that throughout the house - now I just have to clean it off the brushes a few times a day and Roomba runs around the house picking it up.

I also can read to my kids, do homeschool, cook, blog, or surf the internet while she cleans the house. That simply can not be beat in my book. I just have to empty out her dustbins and clean her brushes a few times and change the battery a few times to have a clean house!

If you are expecting no work at all, you may want to wait for a different model - but if you want a vacuum that makes your life easier - buy Roomba. I think she does an outstanding job cleaning the carpet and floors (better than our old upright) and you can do something else at the same time. I would add that you should buy the rapid charger and the extra battery (while pricey they will multiple your happiness level with Roomba) we quickly discovered Roomba would not work for us without it - but once we had that - it worked wonders.

A last note if you have all hardwood floors in your home - go buy one right now - your floors will be barefoot clean all the time and Roomba requires very little maintenance on hardwood floors (our carpet fibers appear to be what causes the most maintenance) and if you struggle with pet hair - roomba is your answer.

Peace,
Tenn