Is a robot vacuum worth it?

Every day – weekend, Weekdays, rain or sun – whichever Robot vacuum I currently start the test at 9am. It’s always a good sign. I breathed a sigh of relief and continued with whatever I was doing, satisfied with that at least Which The dreaded chore is finished at my house.

When I first started testing robot vacuums eight years ago, it sometimes seemed like more trouble than it was worth. I Cleaning the floor. I have meticulously maintained the various sensors. Now I don’t care. (I mean, yes, I care about robot vacuum manufacturers, I just care a little less.) Even if He stumbles On my daughter’s latest knitting project, or that he can’t clear the kitchen because I didn’t empty the water tank. Just go, little soldier, go.

Robot vacuums are So Smarter now. They can navigate through many of the most surprising minefields lego bricksOr stuffed animals or piles of shoes than you would have expected even two or three years ago. As a working parent with two elementary school-aged children and a dog, I need all the help I can get. Maybe he will clean the entire house; Maybe only 50 or 65 percent of it will be cleaned. But as someone who constantly battles chaos, consistency is what matters.

She is a beauty queen

Image: Amazon

It’s taken a while for me to get into this Zen state (and also to amass enough robot vacuums to have a working army in every room and floor of my house). Based on my years of talking with many families (and trying to force a robot vacuum on them), these are some reasons why a robot vacuum might… no It will be worth it for you.

• You live in a small space. If vacuuming only takes an hour or so, why bother?
• Your home has a complex layout. Many 1970s homes have strange, complex designs — a sunken living room, a playroom at the top of some stairs, bedrooms upstairs. Although stair climbing brooms do exist On the roadAt the moment, it is not worth carrying the vacuum cleaner from room to room.
• You have carpets with strange tassels. The 1970s were bad for robotic vacuum cleaners. Shag rugs are also bad, as is a lot of low furniture.
• You hate maintenance. You can’t really afford to empty the tiny dust bag or refill the water container. I will say here that you will likely have other issues that need to be addressed before getting a robot vacuum.

I don’t even rely solely on a robot vacuum to keep my house clean. I have it too Dyson stick vacuumA Carpet cleanerAnd a regular broom and mop in the closet. If my child spills a bunch of flour under the counter while making pancakes, I won’t pull out my phone, open the app, and watch a robot vacuum move slowly to clean her up.

It’s also not great for deep cleaning. No matter how much the company hypes up the robot’s suction power, it will never be as precise as the smallest hand vacuum. It’s just physics. The motor and battery of the robot vacuum cleaner are smaller.

Even the best navigation system can’t accommodate everything that’s happening in a crazy, dynamic environment with a bunch of organisms and animals running around. If I have people coming over, I still have to walk around and do things like put down pillow forts and pick up pieces of a tree trunk that my dog ​​decided to uproot from the firewood pile and bring home to indulge in in the warmth and comfort of the living room.