The Ups And Downs Of Robotic Vacuum Cleaners

Modern times call for modern products, so as the times keep on changing, products keep on advancing technologically.  Take the vacuum cleaner for instance.  When it first came out, it was a far cry from a broom.  Once again, over the recent years, it has gotten even more advanced as the robotic vacuum cleaner was invented.

So let’s take a quick look at some of the ups and downs of robotic vacuum cleaners.  To begin, here are some of the pros.

The Ups

A robotic vacuum cleaner uses two brushes that rotate in different directions to suck up dust and dirt on wood, linoleum, and carpeted floors.  Usually, there is also a horizontal brush on the side so that can take care of the walls, corners, and other obstacles that it may encounter.  The newer models even have sensors that can detect areas of the floor that are particularly dirty and focus till that part is clean.  So you can be pretty sure that it will get the job done and clean fairly well.

Also, you won’t have to worry about your unit falling down or getting stepped on.  These also come with cliff sensors.  This means that it can also tell when there is a step, a set of stairs, or some kind of edge and it will automatically avoid that and go the other way.  As for being stepped on because it is left in the very middle of the floor, that will never happen because it will never stop in the middle of the floor. Robotic vacuum cleaners come with docking stations that they go back to when the job is done.  Heck, even when it is running low on batt and can’t finish the area that needs to be cleaned, it will stop and find its way back to its docking station.

You can even program your unit to clean when you want it to - give it the specific day and time.  As long as it is charged, it will automatically get to work - whether you want it to clean in the afternoon every day, or at night once a week.  This pretty much means that there is no need for you to “supervise” it giving you more free time on your hands to do other things.  When you think about it, you won’t even need to be in the house at all.

The Downs

You are sure that it won’t fall down stairs, however, it cannot make its way to another floor.  There are actually two ways around this problem.  You can either manually move the unit or floor or you can purchase two- one for each floor.

Another concern is that robotic vacuum cleaners only clean the floor - nothing else.  Unlike the original types of vacuums where you can even use them to clean the couch, the ceiling, and whatnot.  These are limited to wooden, linoleum, and carpeted floors only.

One more thing is that the latest models are rather pricey.  Although there are the cheaper ones that come with less features - if you are going to get a robotic vacuum cleaner, you might as well invest in the more expensive high tech kind to really be able to reap all of its benefits.

If you are looking to get an appliance like this, you want to go for the Roomba vacuum robots made by iRobot. They have been making these products for a few years now and everybody else is pretty much playing catch up.

With this said, many of the newer brands like the Neato XV-11 (not the best name but that's another story) are a bit cheaper and have obviously learned many of the lessons that iRobot had to learn on the coalface to coin a phrase. The Neato XV-11 has some good reviews too so it might be worth checking out.