[planetjones]

My Roomba sits abandoned in our cellar. The side brush broke just after one year and didn't spin anymore. But the whole concept of the Roomba is flawed IMO. Our apartment isn't particularly complex, but it was impossible to leave the Roomba to do its job without first making the apartment inert. And inert means removing cables, trailing plant leaves and anything else from the floor. It also means setting up the lighthouses to prevent Roomba 'romping' with lamp bases. Unfortunately one of our lamp bases is badly scratched from where Roomba climbed on top and wouldn't get off.

Eventually we admitted defeat.

We bought a Dyson fluffy. It may need me to control but the balance between convenience and cleaning is much better.

I won't waste any more cash on these automatic hoovers until they have proper reasoning and decision making.

[seiferteric]

Totally agree. I got a neato botvac connect and I use it maybe once a month when I can babysit it. My dream of having it on a twice a week schedule were shattered the first time I ran it and it got stuck several times in several different ways. It got stuck under a chair, under my cabinets, on a shag carpet, but the most absurd was in the kitchen, not touching anything at all, the sensors were confused by the reflection between the stove and refrigerator. Not to mention if you don't use it for a while, it forgets its settings or something and I have to go through the setup process again to add it to my network. sigh...

[supernumerary]

The lawn-mower attached to a pole concept seems just as useful, especially if you're already clearing floors of obstacles before hand. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QoQZSU_ex4