Jul 032009
Well, I have been using a robot vacuum cleaner for a few months now and it’s brilliant. No need to push around a vacuum cleaner once a week; you can set the robot going in the morning just before heading off to work and it gets going.
Of course there are a few “issues” involved :
- If you have anything that is just the wrong height, the robot can get stuck underneath. It is short enough to vacuum under sofas and the like, but gets stuck under my coffee table, and my storage heaters. I can move the coffee table, but the storage heaters need to be blocked somehow.
- It has not happened to me, but if you have something a little on the wobbly side it is possible that the robot could knock something off when it nudges around. In fact it is a bit more of a knock than a nudge.
- You cannot really leave things lying around. Of course that is really good if somewhat tedious. And of course you’ll find things you thought you lost during the first week whilst it nudges all those hidden things into the light.
- Cables need to be tied up out of the way of the robot. You may think that seating them carefully against the wall will be fine, but the robot will try and drag that cable into the middle of the room. I’m sure it found more usb cables than I’m supposed to have 🙂
Lastly, it may be worth thinking more carefully about whether you need a clock and a scheduler on the robot. I do, but have only used it once to make sure it works. It is easy enough to hit the ‘start’ button that scheduling seems unnecessary. Besides it is always an idea to give a room a quick scan to check that the robot isn’t going to try to do something you don’t want.
Now all I need is a robot that will go up and down the stairs!