iRobot - 670

Friend of mine has kids and came over several times and asked me what I was doing to my floors that made them feel so clean. I had no idea but around 6 months later I gave them my old Roomba 670 (the stupid one that bounces randomly off everything) while I upgraded to a Roborock Q5 Max+. Only after running my Roomba for a week in her apartment did she realize that the feeling she had in my house was from having actually clean floors. Since then she's tossed the Roomba and picked up the Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra and *loves* it. Now her floors feel cleaner than mine and I've debated upgrading to a robot that does mopping but probably will give it another year to let the technology mature and come down in cost.

You can get third party batteries that work fine. I would guess that it's unlikely that the manufacturer makes their own batteries anyway. Batteries are still available for my 5+ year old roomba 670

I mostly agree. I had to stop using scheduled runs after my X1 omni spread dog poo throughout the house (including rugs). My dog is toilet trained but just decided to carry in an old poo from outside one day. I couldn't have predicted it. At the same time the uses and priority of features vary so much between users. Some people are minimalist and tidy, so won't have to babysit robots either way. Another example is my garage robot vacuum, that just needs to handle large debris like leaves and twigs. My ancient roomba 670 has a bin opening the length of the roller, which is uncommon now but perfectly suited to the debris in my garage. I get that this is an obscure use though.

If it's just one room, get one of the old random bounce around Roombas with the bristle roller. 500 or 600 series. They're great at picking up litter and combing embedded pet hair out of carpet. I have a 692 I keep just for that. They're also super cheap because everyone wants the self-emptying models now. I see the older ones pretty often at thrift stores and Facebook Marketplace for under $30.

Older roombas are simple, reliable, durable, effective, and cheap. But they don't have smart navigation or mapping where you can ask them to clean specific areas. If you want navigation they become less cheap and less durable. I have a 10yo 600 series roomba and a new Roborock Q5. Q5 is great but I'm skeptical that it's going to last as long.

Four cats, two with LOTS of hair. Our old Roomba 600-series works just fine, both on persian carpets and wooden flooring.

I have a Roomba 564 Pet I bought when my son was 6 months old. He's now 14 and the Roomba would be still doing the job if this little bastard had not screwed the elly plaque's screwheads. I bought a new battery I cannot replace because of that (I'll Dremel them out after the Spring clean out). So it was working since 2011, August. The other Roomba, a 600 something bought on discount in a clearance sale when my son was 6 or 7, is still going strong. I wonder how the Dreame L50 Pro Ultra is going to perform. It is my Mother's Day present, but we're not done with the Spring-clean so it just worked in the living-room.

I beta tested a shark and an update randomly disconnected it from the app and it would not connect again and their beta test support was useless in getting it reconnected. Tried blaming it on my mesh system. I went as far as to get a stand alone router/wifi from my internet provider and hook that up and try to connect it that way and still the same thing. The app would freeze once it found the robot, even after updates. I really liked how the vacuum worked up until then but I’d never buy one after that. My 600 series Roomba and i3 Roomba have never had Wi-Fi issues on any of our network iterations over the years. I ended up buying a Eufy over Black Friday.

I have a 600 series that works perfectly. After 6 years

Picked up a Roomba 600 Series at Costco going on 10 years ago now. Changed the brushes and beater bar a few times and it's still working flawlessly.

675 or other 600 series model from a thrift store. $20. Doesn’t empty its self but if you want that you prob need to buy a new one or from someone off marketplace. Honestly emptying the bin yourself after it’s done takes 30 seconds :)

As proven by the roomba 600 series time and time again suction isn’t always the most important factor in how a robot vacuum cleans but it’s sweeping mechanism is. Suction is also a metric easily manipulated by these companies.