iRobot - Roomba 780

My first robot vacuum was the Roomba 780. And it’s still going strong ~15 years later… a few batteries later but it’s been a workhorse.

I have an older roomba(700 series something or other, 12 years old now I think). It also has a documented interface that you can connect to whatever you want(such as an esp32 board) and control it yourself It may not have fancy doodads but it’s built to last, easy to disassemble, has ready parts availability even this late, and doesn’t depend on any cloud bs. If this dies I’ll probably try to repair it first. Failing that I will try to buy a used one. Because like op said, if it depends on the cloud it’s not yours

I bought one a while ago for the novelty since it was a black Friday sale (and I suck at keeping a schedule to vacum. Didn’t have mapping but I thought it would be smart enough to still navigate just fine. Instead it just rams into things then randomly changes direction. Meanwhile, a coworker bought some  bootleg that cost a fraction of the price and it runs flawlessly. All the extra shit that roomba charges for in it’s higher tier models are included for free.  Never buying another roomba product. They’ve clearly just been coasting off of brand recognition.

We named our Roomba Harry. We have a lab/beagle mix.

I bought a Roomba that can mop and vacuum (pricey models are great). I bought a bunch of replacement rags/mops on Temu for a few euros, and exchange them every now and then. All you have to do besides that is fill its water tank with clean water and floor soap. I also went on my Roomba's App, drew out a map of my house, and set a cleaning schedule for every single day on setting 'deep clean'. And he keeps the floors like 98% spotless, while we have 2 long-haired dogs and 1 short hair cat. We still vacuum and mop ourselves like once a week or so. But if need be we could easily skip that. The difference has been amazing. Googly eyes are optional. ;) Why do it yourself if a robot can do it for you?

I love my Roomba (no mop), and have owned it since Covid. Use my Upright e/o week, then Roomba 3-4 days each week. Am Amazed at the amount of lint/dust/hair/crud I find in Roomba on day-1 after 4 days of not using either. The upright bag needs replacing only once a year.

Not technically a roomba, but that didn’t stop us from naming it Goomba the Roomba! It’s been great, forces us to pick things up off the floor.