Roomba 650 (R650020)

I do really like mine, BUT, I recently got a cordless vacuum because although I love R2Clean2 (my robo vac’s name), it’s a pain to run. Gotta pick up all the stuff, barricade certain areas, and it takes forever, usually 30 min to do my 800 sq ft apt. I can manually vacuum in 5 minutes. Also, the mop feature sucks. I thought it was doing well and I would even spray cleaning solution on the floor before running it… when I did a deep clean and used my trusty spin mop a few months later, I was disgusted at how black the water was. Took several manual moppings to get the water light brown again.

I love it for vacuuming. Mopping, not so much. I thought it was great and used the mopping feature for months. Figured I would do a deep clean with my trusty spin mop one day. I was disgusted at how dirty my floors were. Took me several moppings to finally get the dirty water where it wasn’t black. So, now R2Clean2 just does vacuuming and I mop with my trusty spin mop.

So many questions. Namely, how the hell does a company that was once at the top of its market let itself go to seed like this? And secondly, why on earth what I need my fucking vacuum cleaner to be connected to the cloud? My iRobot 650 that I bought used over a decade ago is still going strong.

My neighbor threw away a perfectly good 960 and I've been using it for three years, 3 times a week on 750 sq ft. (It had hair wrapped around the brushes, once I cleaned it out it ran just fine). It's easy to take apart and clean. I haven't had to change the tires yet, they are still going strong. I'm still on the original battery as well. The bin latch to the filter breaks easily (I've gone through 2 and now I just leave it broken). I do have to clean hair out of the brush ends often but that's easy enough to do. It's hasn't broken down on me yet. On my old 650, I replaced the side brush motor and tires which would be the same process on this model. I'm very happy with it especially since it was free.

I have a "dumb" Roomba that I bought way back in 2016 on a Prime Day sale. It doesn't have any of the smart features that a lot of the newer models have. In general it's not perfect but I would say it does a pretty good job and if you don't like vacuuming as a regular chore it'll allow you to vacuum more often than you personally would which overall is a net positive. Since moving to a bigger place a few years back, I ended up buying a Miele canister vac so that I can efficiently clean different parts of my home simultaneously. So the Roomba is vacuuming one section while I use the Miele to vacuum another section. The smaller your place the more effective a robot vacuum will be as your primary vacuum, but if you have a bigger place you'll still have to charge the vacuum after one section, then move it to another location to finish the whole house.

Someone will buy it. The product line won't go away. Regardless the vacuum will work fine for a long time even if app access is lost. I have a 2014 version I still use on the regular. 

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.