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.

They're a little high and mighty. I got banned for recommending a 650 to a tiny home owner on a budget. It maybe the most basic of them but it gets the job done in their size. Anyway as a long-term Roomba owner and I'm talking over 10 years can make some recommendations. I do currently own a mova though

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.