Roomba i6+ (6550)

I have mine scheduled to run at park time. I take my pup to the park in the morning and late afternoon and schedule the roomba to start at the time we normally leave. The downside is that my dog has identified the correlation. He's also figured out that he can make the Roomba move by bopping it (it dislodges from its cradle and starts up to re-seat itself). He therefore will bop the Roomba to tell me he want's to go outside.

I sometimes forget that my dog sheds unless my Roomba stops working for some reason. My place is mostly hardwood floors, with tile in the bathrooms, but I have a couple oriental rugs, big mat in the entranceway and some smaller mats in the kitchen and bathrooms. The Roomba has no trouble getting fur up off of any of those surfaces. There are places the Roomba can't reach (doors and corners) where fur and dirt will gather up, but that's quick work for a little handheld vacuum. I've had the Roomba I6+ just shy of 4 years now, and it's still going strong. It replaced a cheaper $200 Eufy that died in less than 2 years. If you haven't had a robotic vacuum before, here are some tips: \* You'll spend the first couple weeks robot-proofing your home, eliminating areas where your robot will get stuck. This will make the early days a little frustrating because it'll seem like the robot finds a new place to get stuck every day. Once these are eliminated, it'll run more smoothly. \* I've found that shorter runs are better than longer runs. The longer the run, the greater the chance that it will encounter a problem, get full or that it will run out of battery and have to recharge mid-run. That increases the likelihood that I'll have to intervene. So, I never have the Roomba vacuum everywhere in a single run. Instead, I have it do a single room (or area) each run and it does each room twice a week. Its runtime for each room is about 30 minutes and I schedule it to go at the time I take my dog out in the morning and late afternoon, so it does its thing while we're away. What's funny is that my dog has identified the correlation between the Roomba starting and us going to the park. He's also figured out that he can bop the Roomba to get it to start (when it's knocked off its cradle it starts to reseat itself). So he'll give it a bop if he wants to go outside. \* The docking cradle I have has a built-in vacuum bag, so the Roomba empties itself when it redocks after each run. The cheapskate in me hates that I have to buy the bags, but it does make the entire thing more convenient since I don't have to manually empty the Roomba's internal dust bin and can just swap bags every month or two.

That last bit is so true. I just checked and realized I paid $600 for my Roomba i6+ (upper tier but nowhere near top back in 2020) and that was on pretty significant sale. Vacuum only (back then mop vacs were brand new and were stand alone), though it has a self-emptying charge stand (not new but still a “feature”). Now, I’m looking to replace it and realize I could blow it out of the water with something 2/3 of the price. It has served me well, though.

Our i6 has been fantastic. I don’t know how the newer ones fare, but I was really impressed with our model. The way it hops over thresholds is very clever, and a huge improvement over the offbrand version I had previously. 

My home is a 4 level townhouse which is annoying in that my SF of ~2000 would be fine with just 1 vac, but hey, stairs. Main floor (living/dining/kitchen/1bath/hall is about 600 sf and I have the Mova v50 and it mop washes 4-5 times per cleaning cycle. My bedroom level is about the same SF….I would not want to be carrying the robovac up and down 2 flights of stairs 4-5 times for it to mop wash while cleaning up there, nor would I want it to mop the whole floor without additional mop washes. Carrying it back and forth that many times for mopping would negate any convenience as changeneverhappens pointed out. My basement and loft level are much smaller SF so I put my old 2020 roomba i6 in the basement to just vac (until it dies one day) and I’m currently looking at getting a P10 Pro or similar for the bedroom level. I would love to do another V50 up there as I love mine, but for that price I could do the P10 pro and even get something more basic for my loft level and never vac my house again on my own. Others have already mentioned, but you’d want lidar navigation and most robots come with cliff sensors (and you can set no-go zones) so it won’t yeet itself down the stairs or off a landing. I’d also recommend the models with spinner mops and self washing base station as they are more tested and available at reasonable prices. Roller mops are in generation 1 so it’s up to you if you want to take the risk - they are still pricier currently. If you’re actually wanting the robot to mop, I’d avoid the pad version as those just basically drag a damp cloth around. You mentioned your hair has tangled/clogged other vacs before….if that’s a concern, look for models with either as split roller (some Roborocks) or Mova, Dreame, and Narwhal have some models with the dual anti tangle brushes that have a pivot/axle only on one side so long hair doesn’t tangle. Some Mova and Dreame’s who have a single roller can be upgraded to a tricut brush that will cut up hair strands shorter so they don’t tangle. Basically you want to avoid a single roller with pivots/axle on both ends of the vac roller as long hair will get wrapped onto those. Suggest just buying from a place with an easy return policy (Amazon, Costco, etc) to see if you really like it and if works well for your needs and if not, send it back.

This! My Mova v50 has the dual anti tangle brushes and I’ve never had to remove any hair from around the brush. My roborock Q10 always has hair wrap in the middle and ends on its single brush. Even my very old Roomba i6 is better with hair cause at least the rollers are designs so the long hair gets channeled to a space by the end caps. Household with long haired humans and floofy cats.

I'm still using mu Roomba e6 , i7+ and Briavia mopper and they work perfectly in cleaning my place. IMO, no need for the newest most expensive robot :)

That is so funny. I was coming on here to see about something LR related, and yours was the second post, and I feel compelled to comment. :) I have a Roomba S6 or something I don't remember anymore, but it was a pain to get the API working and was a chore. At any rate, I do the same, but use a counter and every 2nd time it rotates I have mine clean up just the same. I even have a glade plugin that will turn on for 15min afterwards. :) I will say the LR API and HA probably saved the life, or extended the life of my 18 year old's cat, as he developed type 2 diabetes, and I never would have caught it. I have each cat's weight on a line graph and I could see him losing weight, before I could visually see him losing weight. That plus the LR keeping track of visits was a big red flag too, being he went from an average of 3.2 visits a day, to over 12, it was obvious something was wrong. Vet was impressed to say the least, but his blood sugar was north of 400. Had we not caught it before that weekend we might have one less cat here. So while the automations are handy, they seem to always create more work / automations I can't help but tinker with. But I also build computers, and just spent almost $10k on parts alone on this last one, and I just cleaned the last one I built. When I blew out the radiators, it smelled like a litterbox. :/ So now I'm thinking it might be a good idea to turn the furnace off before it rotates, then resume afterwards, because aside from the furnace fan pulling dust down the hallway or something, I'm not sure how it's ending up in my computer down the hall. :) The work never ends! HA is such a fun thing for anyone who wants to nerd out on their litterbox! LoL

I picked a roomba from vine and I'm constantly having trouble with the app. It took DAYS to set it up, and once done it has constantly sync issues. It works eventually, but it's one of those instances that paying for the brand name is not worth it.