Robot Vacuums

Published: May 17, 2022   Jamison Gerzetich

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Let’s face it, when it comes to Home Tech, there is no more awesome gadget than a Robot Vacuum.  I currently own 7 of them.  I have been working with them for almost four years now, and I have come up with some valuable Tips and Tricks to help anyone looking to buy one of these helpful little robots for their home or apartment.

 

My 1st suggestion is that if you do not understand the technical aspects of these nifty little machines, you need to get educated because understanding how they work is a requirement for getting the most out of them (this is true about most things).  I don’t want to get into the details of how Robot Vacuums work, but you can read this article to educate yourself from CNET to understand the basics.

 

REALITY CHECK***

Let’s face some facts when it comes to Robot Vacuum cleaners.

      • You are not George Jetson and you don’t live in the Skypad Apartments in Orbit City. A Robot Vacuum will not bring you chips and beers while watching TV and respond to your every command.
      • A Robot Vacuum will not clean your home better than most standard upright vacuum cleaners.
      • A Robot Vacuum requires significant time and effort to set up and clean effectively.
      • A Robot Vacuum will require you to rearrange your furniture and change your living space to work effectively.

 

If you cannot accept the limitations of a Robot Vacuum then stop here and stick to pushing your old vacuum around the house the old-fashioned way.

 

The good news is that most of these limitations can be overcome. You can end up with a machine that does its job and only requires a minimal amount of time and energy to maintain, freeing you from pushing a vacuum or broom around a couple of times a week.

 

 

1st thing you must do is buy a Robot Vacuum

 

To know which Robot Vacuum will be best to fit your needs.  You will have to evaluate the space you wish to clean.  I can help push through the minutia on this one.  If you are in luck and you have an open floor plan, no furniture, no cords stretched across the room, no stairs or drop-offs, and flat even surfaces.   You are the 1% of people that will have a great experience with a Robot Vacuum no matter which one you buy.

 

For the rest of us in the world that live in our houses and have a mix of flooring materials, stairs, carpet, tile, and lots of furniture and other obstacles, you are going to need a Robot Vacuum with some smarts, controls, and an array of sensors or you’re not going to have a good experience.

 

All Robot Vacuum cleaners do well on even flat flooring, but if you are like me, you will have to get a model that handles a mix of tile and carpet.   For carpet, in particular, you will need a Robot Vacuum with enough suction since the use of suction is how carpet is cleaned.  Most manufacturers will rate their units on how well they work on carpet, and if you have a lot of carpets, you will want to buy a unit rated to do well on carpet.

 

A Robot Vacuum with a stair sensor is a must if you have stairs, but most Robot Vacuums have this capability.

 

Moping versus Sweeping?  If you want your space moped, I suggest getting a mopping robot dedicated to doing that task in that area.  DO NOT** waste your money on a Robot Vacuum designed to do both.  My practical experience is that the Robot Vacuums that do both vacuum and moping require a conversion process to change them from vacuum to mopping, which is a painful and time-consuming process.  The amount of time to perform this conversion is much more than it would take to mop a typical floor the conventional way.

 

Besides, is it really a good idea to mix a lot of water and chemicals with a sophisticated, expensive piece of hardware that contains a large lithium-ion battery? I think not!

 

There are several brands of Robot Vacuum cleaners on the market, and I don’t want to debate which manufacturers are the best.  To answer that question, you would have to establish what you mean by the word “Best” and define those parameters precisely, which I will not take the time to do here.

 

Do you need more than one?  General, you want one Robot Vacuum for every 1000sqft of living space.  You will want one on each floor if you have multiple floors.  I have two running downstairs, which is about 1000sqft of living space, two Robot Vacuums are a bit of an overkill, but I’m thrilled with the results.

 

Select a Manufacturer

 

Here is a list of the most popular (Best) manufacturers:

Many more makers come to the market every year, but these are your top ones.

 

REALITY CHECK***  If you want to get the best experience with a Robot Vacuum and can afford to pay the big dinero ($400+), buy one of these makers’ top models; you can find one of their latest and greatest on their websites. I don’t have access to review these models myself, so I cannot tell which one of these high-end models is the best.

 

I can help you by discussing the Robot Vacuum cleaner’s features, the techniques you can apply to get the most from any robot, and things you should avoid.  This is not so much a buying guide but a collection of helpful tips and tricks to get the most out of whatever Robot Vacuum you have and avoid spending money on junk that will not get the job done and leave you with a bad experience.

 

REALITY CHECK***  Do not buy a cheap $100 Robot Vacuum. You will not be happy with it, and it will end up in the trash or at the bottom of your broom closet if you can keep yourself from smashing into the wall in frustration and disgust.

 

Get The Features and Capabilities You Need

 

When buying, these features listed below are the must-haves you need to ensure the best chance of success with living with this new indispensable home appliance.

 

  1. Charging Base Station – The Robot Vacuum must have a charging station and be able to get back to its base on its own when the cleaning cycle is complete or it’s low on power.  You do not want to have to search for your robot when it runs out of power and you do not want to constantly have to plug your vacuum into a wall charger manually every time you want to use it.
  2. Online App – The Robot Vacuum must come with a mobile application. This is a must-have for anyone who wants to track their Vacuum and interact with it anywhere in the house or on the planet.  A Robot Vacuum with just a remote will not get the job done and will waste your time and money.
  3. Suction – The Robot Vacuum must have good suction.  Vacuum cleaner suction is measured in PA, which stands for Pascal, which measures the vacuum’s suction.  The general rule here is that the more suction, the more better.  Remember, your Robot Vacuum will always have less suction than an upright, so the more powerful it can pick up, the better chances that you will be happy with its performance.  At a minimum, I would not waste my money on any vacuum with less than 2000pa.
  4. LIDAR – This sensor is a must-have if you want to use and maintain your Robot Vacuum successfully.  LIDAR stands for Light Detection and Ranging. You can read up on how this works here, LIDAR.  Robot Vacuums with LIDAR capability usually have a round disc-shaped sensor protruding from the top of the unit.

Why is LIDAR with a Phone App essential?  When your Robot Vacuum can map a room and see your walls and furniture, you can now tell the Robot Vacuum where you want it to go and, more importantly, places you want to avoid like furniture, pet feeders, and cords.  You have no idea how much time and effort this feature will save you, and in my experience is the number one reason you will either be satisfied with your Robot Vacuum owning experience or not.  This feature also eliminates the need to set up electronic barriers, physical barriers, or magnetic strips to keep the Robot Vacuum from areas you don’t want it to go.

 

Options You May To Consider

 

  1. Base Stations With a Storage Tank– This is a nice feature to have because you will soon discover that emptying the dust, hair, and debris from your unit will become a weekly choir, and having a base station that will transfer these contents to a storage tank in the base station means you can go months before needing to empty it.
  2. Remote Control – If you have an app-enabled unit, you don’t need one, but when the wife and kids need to control the Robot Vacuum like to pick up a floor full of cereal they just spilled, having a remote available to put your new family friend on the case is handy.
  3. Magnetitic Striping – Units that are set up to sense or recognize a cheap magnetic strip that you can run underneath a door sill or entryway is a nice feature. This will permanently keep a Robot Vacuum out of an area you don’t want it to go.  Again, if your unit has LIDAR, you can do this same thing with an Application.
  4. Camera Enabled Avoidance – Some advanced units have camera-enabled avoidance systems to keep them from running over objects dropped on the floor. An excellent example is a kid’s toy or even a family pet’s little mistake. You don’t want to think about what a Robot Vacuum cleaner does when it runs over a fresh pile of your little pets’ gifts and the clean-up you must do afterward.

 

You Bought Your 1st Robot Vacuum, Now What?

 

Set aside some time and go through all the materials and instructions that came with your Robot Vacuum; remember, knowledge is power.  You may want to find a drawer in your house to keep the instructions and any tools or accessories that came with them because you will need them.  Get familiar with how to take your unit apart and access the dust collector and rollers because you will need to access these parts sooner rather than later.

 

You will find from reading the materials that these Robots are packed with sensors and decades of programming to make them as autonomous as possible.  Each manufacturer has its method for cleaning a room, getting around objects, and dealing with obstacles.  I’m not going to try and discuss those details here but trust me, the more popular makers are just simply going to have better programs and will ultimately work better than your cheaper Robot Vacuums.

 

Find a flat surface along a wall away from cords, chairs, or furniture to set up your base charging station. Remember that with the robot in place charging, everything will stick much further from the wall, and you want to keep it out of foot traffic lanes.

 

Go through the rooms and areas your Robot Vacuum will run and look for any power cords or obstacles the unit will suck up, or that may get tangled up in the main roller or side brush.  I had to do a lot of rerouting and even mount power strips onto the wall to keep my charging and power cords from being tangled up by my Robot Vacuum. This is an excellent example of when a Robot Vacuum with LIDAR-enabled room mapping comes in handy. You can cordon off areas in the room you don’t want the robot to go to avoid any cords or obstacles that will cause a problem.  NOTE** You will have to run your LIDAR-enabled Robot Vacuum and let it go through each room to develop its LIDAR mapping.  You may have to do these a couple of times to get an excellent accurate map.

 

Look for furniture the Robot Vacuum is going to get stuck under.  These units usually have a low profile and will get under any couch, lazy boy, or even entertainment center, so use your phone application and room mapping to corroded off these areas.  I spent a ton of time pulling my dumber non-LIDAR enabled Robots out from under several pieces of my future, which got old quickly.

 

REALITY CHECK*** Robot Vacuums are going to get stuck.  This is a fact that you cannot avoid, and you will have to deal with it.  It may take weeks of trial and error to get the space adjusted, and your unit set up to keep it from getting stuck.  Trust me, the 1st time you can run your new little helper around the entire space without an issue and return to the base station completely trouble-free will be an accomplishment.

 

Look for areas of your room with many legs and limited access.  These are typically couches and chairs, or between and behind an end table and couch where if the Robot Vacuum gets into, they will have limited entry and exit routes.  You can handle these three ways.  The 1st is to cordon off these areas in your vacuum’s application for your LIDAR-enabled Robot.  You can also use a magnetic strip or electronic barrier.  The 2nd option is to make the space larger by moving the furniture to open the space.  That will create more accessible routes that your Robot Vacuum can find to get in and out quickly.  The final option is to move the future and make the space smaller so your Robot Vacuum is not tempted to try and get in there.

 

This process may be ongoing for several weeks until you have found all the sticking points preventing your robot from cleaning the entire room and returning to its base station successfully without your assistance.

 

You Bought Your 1st Robot Vacuum, But You Didn’t get the LADIR?

 

What can I say! You didn’t follow my advice, but now you are stuck, or maybe you got one as a gift.  Ok, I understand!  If you are dealing with a unit that will not allow you to keep it out of areas or, more specifically, get under your furniture, you have some options.

 

  1. Magnetic Strips – Most Robot Vacuums are set up to recognize a magnetic strip that you can attach to the bottom of your furniture are slide underneath your carpet.
  2. Electronic Barriers – These are usually devices that can be put down that create an electronic barrier that your robot can see and not cross.
  3. Physical Barriers – These are sandbags or pieces of plastic that you stick under your furniture to create a physical barrier that your Robot’s bumpers will hit and keep it from going under.
  4. Bumper Extensions – On the front of all Robot Vacuums is a set of bumpers that depress inwards to let the unit know it has run into something. You can add extensions to the tops of these bumpers to increase the height of the bumper and allow it to be activated when it’s about to go under something.  I 3d printed a set for my Eufy, and I will tell you they work great.  My Eufy went from getting stuck every day and needing to be fished out from under my couches to never getting stuck.  I’m working on a guide for these bumpers, and you can find a set of these on Thingiverse, but I had to make a lot of modifications to make mine work.  I will add a link to that guide when I have it complete.

 

Robot Vacuum’s Ownership Long Term

 

You will have to think of your Robot Vacuum ownership in the long term.  I have my units scheduled to clean once a day, and my house has never been cleaner.  It took weeks of trial and error and modifications, but I can say that I love my Robot Vacuums, and I save time and energy using them.  We used to have a maid service to clean our house, but we had to stop during the pandemic.  My Robot Vacuum has eliminated one of the biggest reasons to use a service, and I could not be happier.

 

REALITY CHECK*** Robot Vacuums have parts that will wear out and need to be replaced.  Most have air filters that have to be cleaned and replaced regularly, and they have gears, brushes, and rollers that will wear out over time.  So if you plan on using these as I do daily, they will wear and require replacement parts.

 

I can honestly say I love my Robot Vacuums, and I sometimes feel like George Jetson living in the future!

 

Please leave comments below if you have any questions.  I will be happy to help.

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