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I don't think there are tens of millions still in use. Unless you design your house and buy your furnitures taking these roomba into account, they get stuck ne

I don't think there are tens of millions still in use. Unless you design your house and buy your furnitures taking these roomba into account, they get stuck nearly every where or at the first sock left on the ground by someone in your household. They have a number of wearable most owner will not even want to replace and will start being inefficient rather quickly. Add to that some battery wear and I don't think there is a lot of +5y old devices in the wild. I and most people I know went back to regular vacuum cleaners. The thing is, those robots really don't solve a real problem as vacuuming and mopping are the easiest and quickest job when it comes to cleaning the house. Dusting all the furnitures + objects on top of them and cleaning the bathroom and toilets correctly are both much more time consuming and annoying jobs.

ToucanLoucan 11mo ago
I am one of those weirdos! I bought a roomba in 2015 and it's still going. Second battery, sixth set of rollers and brush, god knows how many filters. Mine's also a dumb one: no wifi or pathfinding, just boring old "drives around until it smacks into shit" navigation. I gave it googly eyes in 2017 and named it Harold.
- dpedu 11mo ago
  I used to have a similar dumb one (Roomba 860 if memory serves) and it would take the same path over and over again in certain corners of my house, which meant my carpet ended up with unsightly wheel tracks on it from the repetition. I don't think it did a very good job vacuuming either, no matter how much it ran, a normal vacuum would always pull a boatload more crud up. It's an interesting idea but it just didn't work for me and I wouldn't consider buying another.
  - ToucanLoucan 11mo ago
    It's not for hardcore use for sure, not a replacement for a proper vacuuming. I use it in my office/part of my basement, it gets the vast majority of stuff up and keeps the cat hair under control. I don't know that I'd buy another, especially because the new ones creep me out with all the cameras and such, but as long as I can keep this one running, it does a good enough job.
ghaff 11mo ago
A lot of people probably bought them for the novelty and then decided they weren't really all that useful for their homes and lifestyles. At least that's what a number of friends have told me. Cordless stick vacs also came in and made a lot of vacuuming jobs quicker and easier.
crazygringo 11mo ago
> The thing is, those robots really don't solve a real problem as vacuuming and mopping are the easiest and quickest job when it comes to cleaning the house. Hard disagree, because vacuuming is something you often need to do daily. Spending 10 min/day becomes over an hour a week. That's a significant chunk. If you have smooth floors, running a Roomba kind of becomes a no-brainer. On the other hand, I only need to dust once a week, and that takes all of 10 minutes. Cleaning the bathroom is similarly once a week (assuming you wipe/brush the sink and toilet bowl as necessary after use). Reducing vacuuming time, to me, is the #1 thing you can do to save cleaning time, if you live in a Roomba-compatible space.
- vel0city 11mo ago
  I agree with this take, it has been my experience as well. The robot vacuum isn't there so you never need to vacuum, the robot vacuum is there so you can have decently clean floors daily and only need to do the deeper cleaning once a week or so. But I also get the difficulty when you have a space with lots of larger debris around. The robot vacuum was excellent before kids. Now with little kids that will leave toys and other obstacles all over the place, it requires diligence to pick up after them (and work to teach them to clean up their toys and socks) to ensure the vacuum can be effective.
- armonster 11mo ago
  I've never met anyone in my life who vacuums at that rate. Not sure if your personal germophobia counts as a counterpoint.
  - dylan604 11mo ago
    You don't know anyone with pets that shed a lot? Most of my shedding pet friends try to vacuum daily, and if a day is missed it is very obvious. People that don't vacuum that frequently, I'd assume, are also the type of people that don't clean a litter box for a week instead of daily.
    - happyopossum 11mo ago
jacobsenscott 11mo ago
Yeah - they don't work well at all. And work from home is definitely incompatible with roombas. Those things are loud and run for a long time. Both ours are in the storage room collecting dust.
- ncruces 11mo ago
  They're doing their jobs if they're collecting dust. And I'll show myself out…
wafflemaker 11mo ago
>Dusting all the furnitures + objects on top of them With furnishing optimized for dust generation (less materials where the dust-shitting microbes live, like material curtains) and daily Roomba runs (plus eventual air filter running in the background) there is very little to dust off of surfaces. If there's little dust on the floor, it doesn't get kicked up and doesn't land on things. Ergo - Roomba makes dusting easier.
- TeMPOraL 11mo ago
  Keeping a basic air purifier (i.e. fan strapped to HEPA filter) at low power but constantly on would also help with the dust problem, I believe. There's not going to be much dust on things if it gets sucked out of the air before landing on things.

ToucanLoucan 11mo ago

I am one of those weirdos! I bought a roomba in 2015 and it's still going. Second battery, sixth set of rollers and brush, god knows how many filters. Mine's also a dumb one: no wifi or pathfinding, just boring old "drives around until it smacks into shit" navigation. I gave it googly eyes in 2017 and named it Harold.

dpedu 11mo ago
I used to have a similar dumb one (Roomba 860 if memory serves) and it would take the same path over and over again in certain corners of my house, which meant my carpet ended up with unsightly wheel tracks on it from the repetition. I don't think it did a very good job vacuuming either, no matter how much it ran, a normal vacuum would always pull a boatload more crud up. It's an interesting idea but it just didn't work for me and I wouldn't consider buying another.
- ToucanLoucan 11mo ago
  It's not for hardcore use for sure, not a replacement for a proper vacuuming. I use it in my office/part of my basement, it gets the vast majority of stuff up and keeps the cat hair under control. I don't know that I'd buy another, especially because the new ones creep me out with all the cameras and such, but as long as I can keep this one running, it does a good enough job.

ghaff 11mo ago

A lot of people probably bought them for the novelty and then decided they weren't really all that useful for their homes and lifestyles. At least that's what a number of friends have told me. Cordless stick vacs also came in and made a lot of vacuuming jobs quicker and easier.

crazygringo 11mo ago

> The thing is, those robots really don't solve a real problem as vacuuming and mopping are the easiest and quickest job when it comes to cleaning the house. Hard disagree, because vacuuming is something you often need to do daily. Spending 10 min/day becomes over an hour a week. That's a significant chunk. If you have smooth floors, running a Roomba kind of becomes a no-brainer. On the other hand, I only need to dust once a week, and that takes all of 10 minutes. Cleaning the bathroom is similarly once a week (assuming you wipe/brush the sink and toilet bowl as necessary after use). Reducing vacuuming time, to me, is the #1 thing you can do to save cleaning time, if you live in a Roomba-compatible space.

vel0city 11mo ago
I agree with this take, it has been my experience as well. The robot vacuum isn't there so you never need to vacuum, the robot vacuum is there so you can have decently clean floors daily and only need to do the deeper cleaning once a week or so. But I also get the difficulty when you have a space with lots of larger debris around. The robot vacuum was excellent before kids. Now with little kids that will leave toys and other obstacles all over the place, it requires diligence to pick up after them (and work to teach them to clean up their toys and socks) to ensure the vacuum can be effective.
armonster 11mo ago
I've never met anyone in my life who vacuums at that rate. Not sure if your personal germophobia counts as a counterpoint.
- dylan604 11mo ago
  You don't know anyone with pets that shed a lot? Most of my shedding pet friends try to vacuum daily, and if a day is missed it is very obvious. People that don't vacuum that frequently, I'd assume, are also the type of people that don't clean a litter box for a week instead of daily.
  - happyopossum 11mo ago

jacobsenscott 11mo ago

Yeah - they don't work well at all. And work from home is definitely incompatible with roombas. Those things are loud and run for a long time. Both ours are in the storage room collecting dust.

ncruces 11mo ago
They're doing their jobs if they're collecting dust. And I'll show myself out…

wafflemaker 11mo ago

>Dusting all the furnitures + objects on top of them With furnishing optimized for dust generation (less materials where the dust-shitting microbes live, like material curtains) and daily Roomba runs (plus eventual air filter running in the background) there is very little to dust off of surfaces. If there's little dust on the floor, it doesn't get kicked up and doesn't land on things. Ergo - Roomba makes dusting easier.

TeMPOraL 11mo ago
Keeping a basic air purifier (i.e. fan strapped to HEPA filter) at low power but constantly on would also help with the dust problem, I believe. There's not going to be much dust on things if it gets sucked out of the air before landing on things.