Roomba Vacs

Either of you guys have any experience with robot vacs?

I have a pet hair problem, with two shedding little monsters.  My spaniel in particular throws off a new dog every day or two.  Both boys bring in grungus from the back yard.  Our linoleum (kitchen & laundry rooms) is white&gray octagons and shows every little speck of dirt. Now that we're in a single story home, with almost entirely hardwood or linoleum floors, I'm thinking a robot vac might come in handy.

This one can be set up to run on a schedule, to vacuum up after we've gone to bed.  It makes an internal map of your house so its movements aren't merely random bump'n'go.  It can be programmed to clean certain rooms or certain areas only.  It automatically finds its charger when the charge falls below 10% and recharges itself.  It can be launched to start cleaning from Alexa or an iPhone app.  Sounds promising?
https://www.techhive.com/article/3513485/amarey-a980-review.html
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07X7ZMVM5?tag=techhivecom-20&th=1&psc=1&ascsubtag=US-003-3513485-002-1443909-web-20#customerReviews

It's 2.95 inches tall.

My couch is 3.25 inches off the ground.

I'm ordering this fucker.

It was 81% charged when it arrived. The manual recommended fully-charging before the first use.

That took almost 4 hours.

I set up its little charging stand and put the vac on it, so the contacts hit the little metal tongs. The vac immediately drove away, turned a little circle, and then drove back onto the charger. Apparently I didn't line it up to its satisfaction? The on-off light started pulsating pink ("charging") until nearly 7:00 pm.

At seven I noticed the on-off light was solid blue ("charged") so it set it to do the first clean / mapping. It started going back-and-forth across the living room, at each wall turning making a 180, one width away, then heading back to the opposite wall. When it encountered obstacles -- furniture, the fireplace, table legs -- it kinda felt its way along them until it could complete the 180, then took off back on its quest. Once it had the basic floorplan of the living room -- mapped out in real time on the iPhone app as I watched -- it came back to the "gaps" and started driving around their perimeters, filling in their shape, seeing if there was any way to get underneath them. After an hour of this, the vac announced its bin was full and stopped (it's been a while since we vacuumed under the furniture...)

I emptied the bin into the garbage can, and set the vac back onto the floor.

It started mapping again. New map. What happened to the old map? No idea. Will it be married to the new map at some point? No idea.

It was still merrily mapping away when I went to bed at 9:40 (at 31% charge, shown on the app.)

I woke up at 3:45 and came out to look for it. Nowhere to be found. Checked all the rooms with open doors. No sign. App said "0% charged" so the "find me" didn't work (normally a cheery voice replies, "I'm here.")

Finally discovered it wedged way underneath the TV stand, buried in wires. Apparently it'd gotten hung up and died.

Pulled it out, cleaned the bin, and put it back on its charger.

It's still charging as of now (7:38am.)

I mentioned this incident to a friend of mine, who has his house professionally cleaned. His reply:

Quote :

I have the cleaners coming on Feb 3. They have yet to get stuck under furniture and die.

The verdict so far is decidedly mixed.

On the plus side:

• It does a nice job.  Where it's cleaned is spotless
  
• The artificial intelligence it uses to explore a room, then go back and nail down details, is impressive
  
• Operation, cleaning and emptying are easy
  
• it got under our couch and ottoman just fine
  

On the negative side:

• It takes FOREVER to charge, like eight hours from 0% (for less than 2 hours run time)
  
• I still haven't figured out how to save maps, or have the unit start using its map instead of just roaming about on a grid.  Supposedly you can name areas of the map, and tell it to "clean the kitchen only" but I'm not there yet
  
• It failed miserably on the shag throw rug in the bedroom
  
• When running it's quiet but not quiet enough (on hardwood floors) to run it while watching TV
  
• The 500ml waste bin is big, but not big enough for our effusive shedder.  I've emptied it 4 times
  
• The unit has a fisheye camera on the top surface, which I guess is somehow tied into the mapping feature.  Does this mean it won't operate in a dark room at night?  Yet to find out
  
• It tries to pull cables into its mouth and won't let go (power cables, phone cords, internet cables... all of which I have in abundance.  They're tucked away underneath things, but the vac has a knack for finding them)
  
• I'm not sure if it can store more than one map.  Our bedroom, at the end of the hall, is quite separate from the rest of the house and it'd be handier to just carry the thing in there sometimes and say, "Clean under the bed" (if I can teach it to stay away from the throw rug).  Otherwise I'll have to let it map the hallway and guest bedroom and then tell it to ignore them most of the time.  Do I want it to clean my music room?  The door is closed most of the time and there are a lot of cables.  Still, it might come in handy if it can store multiple maps
  
• The instructions for pairing the unit to Alexa are in Chinese.  Maybe I can translate with my phone?
  

Okay, after a week of struggling with it -- every day -- I'm returning it. The product simply isn't ready for market.

The internet connection was unstable and refused to stay connected (unlike everything else on my network). Once disconnected, no amount of fiddling would re-connect it: not power-cycles, not the connection routine, not waiting it out. The vacuum never completed a map; it started out doing random exploration each of the six times I launched it. It got stuck under tables, on rugs, on the thresholds between rooms and twice it simply ran out of power and died. It never recharged itself on its own like it was supposed to, and manual charging took all night. With no internet connection, the last time I charged it the power light turned blue but the app showed 16% charged. I never got to the point where I could even explore the Alexa integration. And with all that random exploration, the vacuum still only visited three of my eight rooms -- even though it was open to all of them.

I'm done with it. It did a good job of cleaning, but the product is WAY more trouble than a broom-and-dustpan.

I have been reading this thread and have been somewhat confused. I bought my daughter a Roomba and she has had little or no problems, and is satisfied with it. I was about to ask you which model of Roomba you bought - there are a bunch of them - and I noticed that you didn't buy a Roomba, but got an Amarey.
May I ask if there is a specific reason for the Amarey instead of the Roomba? Have you considered and rejected the Roomba line for some reason(s)?
I really can't see any value (other than fun) in any of them unless you spend so little time at home as to make it worthwhile.

Sure.

1. To my knowledge (ICBW) Roombas are strictly bump 'n' go.  They do not do targeted cleaning
   
   
2. TMK Roombas cannot be set to clean on a schedule
   
   

3. And one reason for wanting a robot vac, rather than just a dustpan & broom, is they can get under furniture, under the bed, etc. Our pethair does not discriminate.

https://homesupport.irobot.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/10214/~/overview-of-roomba-900-series-cleaning-modes

I'm not pushing for Roomba, but it appears that they may have what you are looking for. For sure they have targeted cleaning and scheduled cleaning.

From the same website:


The vac has no internal maps. It sweeps back and forth until it hits an obstacle.

Although Roomba does have some models which map your home, I wonder about the usefulness of the feature. Any minor change to the room's contents and the map is no good. If the vacuum has to skip around a sleeping dog, does that change the machine's map? I don't think the machines are smart enough to make good use of a map, except as a means of exclusion. And there are simpler ways to exclude a room or area than full-on map making.