×
Gadgets
Lifestyle
Gaming
×
Robot vacuum patrols living room while someone sits on couch

When You Want Your Device to Suck: Are Robot Vacuums Worth It?

Leave Cleaning Your House to the Machines

Without a doubt, vacuuming your house has to be one of the most annoying chores that you have to do. What makes it so annoying is that you have to do it, no matter how clean you try to keep your home.

Dust just seems to creep in from every corner. If you put it off for too long, you might end up with some serious sinus issues. There isn’t any upside to this never-ending chore, unless you opt for a robot vacuum cleaner, that is. These dust sucking bots have been around for a while now, so why doesn’t everyone have one of these toys?

The Upside of an Automated Sucker

You’ll never have to sacrifice your free time with an old vacuum to make sure your home is dust-free. Robot vacuums can be programmed to clean the house on select days and times. You don’t even need to be there to listen to the deafening noise it creates while cleaning your carpets. Set it up while you are at work and you can come home to a house that is spotless.

We all know that if you want to get to the motherload of dust, you have to move some furniture. The real impressive dust bunnies hide under couches, sofas, and beds, and you have to put your back into it if you want to dispose of those suckers (excuse the pun).

However, most robot vacuum cleaners have a sleek, flat design which means that they can explore every inch of your home and get to places that you can’t, or that you just don’t want to.

Sometimes, you are blessed with a glorious mess in just one area. Although you don’t have to clean the whole house, you still need to go and get your vacuum. But robot vacuums are rather nifty in the sense that they can be programmed to spot clean.

Sometimes, vacuuming your house is not good enough, and you still need to drag the old mop across the floor as well. But, certain robot vacuums double as mops as well! Once they have finished getting rid of the dust, they can also do a second round of mopping.

Although this feature still needs a bit of tweaking and development, it is better than the alternative, and will still save you plenty of cleaning hours.

The Inevitable Downside

When something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. Although these little robots can make your life a a lot easier, there is a downside. Before you can let your automatic cleaner run, you need to vacuum proof your home.

Seeing that you aren’t there when it goes over a stray sock or a small toy, it will get stuck. You have to ensure that there aren’t any materials on your floor that you don’t want to be sucked up.

You have to ask yourself, how smart is this thing? The truth is, your robot vacuum is about as stupid as they come. It cannot assess whether it will get stuck under a cabinet or not. It just mindlessly patrols your home in search of an area that has not been vacuumed.

This is where design comes in. Most robot vacuums are pretty much the same in size, however, some are just half an inch too high off the ground, and this causes them to get into sticky situations. When this happens, the only way to get it out is to take it out yourself, even if it’s stuck under a heavy cabinet or sofa.

These little robots are programmed to find their way home to their charging stations when their batteries get low. However, every now and then, you find the odd rebel that gets stranded in the middle of the dining room. It happens, and sometimes they can’t get to their charging stations in time.

Robot vacuums aren’t the biggest machines around. Their size is what enables them to get to most areas of your house, but that is also a limiting factor. They don’t house a very large dust compartment, so you need to empty the bag and clean the filter quite regularly. If you neglect to do this, it becomes a drone that wanders your house when you aren’t there and does very little to clean it.

The other drawback of these machines is that you ultimately still have to vacuum. They are great for general purpose cleaning, but they just cannot get into tight corners. You’ll still need to haul your manual vacuum around from time to time.

These machines don’t make any less noise than a regular vacuum, but they are slow movers. If it takes you around 30 minutes to vacuum your whole house, it might take a robot vacuum as much as 90 minutes to perform the job.

Although robot vacuums aren’t perfect, they sure make the mundane task of vacuuming a lot easier. In fact, when you get your first one, you might find the whole thing rather entertaining.

Once the novelty wears off, you might realize that it is a great time saver. Even with all of its flaws, it definitely helps to have a cleaner that can take care of business when you are not around.