I have what could probably be considered extensive robot-vacuum experience. Iāve owned a Neato Botvac D5 Connected, a Roomba 890 (Wall-E) and Roomba 985 (Eva).
Personally, I think the 890 (the Woot robot) is great for small spaces like an apartment, or if you want to just close it in one room at a time. However, for larger spaces, the ādrunken robotā method of navigating seems to allow it to miss quite a lot and I often found him lost with a dead battery, unable to find his way home. This is where the Neato and the 985 have a definite advantage. They map out an area and then methodically cover it from edge to edge with a back and forth movement, and then have an internal map that can guide them directly back to the charging station.
I do have to give the 890 credit for being dead-reliable. It has run every weekday for me for over a year now and just keeps chugging along. That was my one complaint about the Neato, it had a hardware failure that caused it to no longer be able to connect to WiFi, which bricked an otherwise good vacuum.
At the end of the day, I ended up relegating Wall-E to the master bedroom, using the virtual wall to keep him contained, and letting Eva do the heavy lifting in the main living space. I like to think sometimes they meet at the virtual wall to say hi. Itās a pretty good system that works for me.
What company is doing the refurbishing and how reliable is it?
If I leave a trail of crumbs, will the Roomba bring me a Dirty Martini?
Only clean, freshly vacuumed martinis, Iām afraid.
It does say itās Factory Reconditioned.
Anyone with lots of dogs and a very dusty house? Just wondering how this would do. I keep telling myself Iām gonna vacuum every day, but my bones wonāt let me. I would have to seek physical and mental therapy afterwards.
Yep, thatās my use case exactly. A short hair dog, medium hair dog, and long hair indoor/outdoor cat. Very sandy soil that likes to stick to their paws and get dragged in the house.
It does an excellent job picking up what it hits, but as I mentioned in my earlier post, the random bumping around can cause it to miss some spots if itās too large of an area. If I let it run its full battery in a single room, though, it does hit pretty much everything eventually. Iād say for anything more than 1000 sq ft, youād do better with one that strategically navigates itself.
A āfactory reconditionedā item was returned, inspected, and restored to fully working condition by the original manufacturer or a certified partner. And the original manufacturer stands behind it with a warranty. Itās as close to new as you can get without technically being ānewā.
We have a dog and lots of dust and got one of these. Itās not perfect by any means it misses many spots each time it runs. However, if I set it to run everyday it will usually get all the places at least once a week. We are much less dusty now.
I wish I could refurb my wife. But Iām guessing she is wishing my refurbication more dearly. Welcome to our 40 year marriage. Happy wife, happy life. Now back to our sponsors iRobot Roomba 890