Artificial (un)Intelligence

In addition to relying on professional help to keep our lives a little saner, we also turned to robotics to eliminate some of the boring chores that needed to get done. Enter: iRobot's Roomba 805, a Costco-only model in the 800-series. That means improved suction, scheduling (run on Tuesdays and Thursdays at noon, for example), the ability to identify and concentrate on particularly dirty areas, a bumper to stop it from damaging anything it bangs into, and a sensor to say when the bin is full. It does not hook up to wifi or "learn" your house, but its bumper and sensors are supposed to make it smart enough to trace the walls, clean the middles, and no what *not* to do (like wedge itself onto or under something where it can get trapped).

Having used it for a couple of months now I can say that we are not particularly impressed. It has reduced the need for me to vacuum, so in that sense it has succeeded. However, its stupidity and repeated failures, along with its very loud noise, makes us consider whether or not we really want to keep it around.

An example:

The Rock N Play, we decided, is Roomba kryptonite. It finds it every time and can't resist trying to hop the rockers. We've have to move it to the hallway on cleaning days (we only have the Roomba doing the main square of the main floor, i.e. kitchen, dining room, living room, sun room), stick it on top of tables, anything to get it out of the way. Fortunately by now, baby has transitioned away from it so we won't have it around as an obstacle anymore.

We do, however, have no intention of getting rid of our sofa...

It seems to either wedge itself in and get stuck or make its way underneath (if the sofa is pushed far enough back from the rug) and then find itself unable to get out. Either way, it means cleaning has ended.

There was also that time the "invisible fence" got turned off and it really tried to make a break for it, though really Roomba isn't to blame for that one:

And then there's the permanent wood stain damage from when a (brand new) battery leaked out of the other invisible fence while it was sitting up on our cabinets. Ugh! Again, maybe more the fault of Duracell than Roomba:

Another complaint that I have with Roomba is how many "rug turds" we get on the floor after it finishes vacuuming. I think this is because we have a new rug in the sun room that keeps shedding, but I still don't understand why it just drags those little things around everywhere on its bottom brushes and can't suck them up like, you know, a vacuum:

Finally, my perhaps most significant complaint is how annoyingly noisy it is. We can't really watch TV or have a quiet conversation while it's running (though it is so oddly hypnotic to watch that maybe we don't need to). This shouldn't be a problem since we set it to run during the day when we're out. But once it gets stuck on or under something, it stops. If that happens early enough in the cycle, then the house doesn't get cleaned. And so we have to run it that evening (or, *gasp* take out the real vacuum).

So what to do? We like the idea of having a robot cleaner, but I'm not sure we love our actual Roomba. Upgrading would get us a few smart features, but for quite a bit more money AND wouldn't solve the noise issue. We're considering taking the advice of our favorite home review website The Sweet Home and buying a different brand that is significantly cheaper and quieter. Even if it's just as stupid, the $200 smaller price tag and the fact that we probably could run it at night means it might be worth it.

Do you rely on robots to clean your house? What are your experiences with them?