By Alice Wang
This should really be titled "Why I Love my Robot Vacuum Cleaner." I've put together a list of reasons why you should get one. They're cool. They're robots, and they clean your house. What more can a person ask for?
1) The Roomba Really Cleans. This is something that an owner of a Roomba can see for themselves. When you empty the robot, all this dirt and dust and hair falls out. You may be saying: But that happens with my normal vacuum cleaner. Test it out. Vacuum your living room as thoroughly as you can manage, and then set the Roomba to vacuum it after you. It'll come back with more dirt than you would expect. I'm not sure exactly how the technology works, but iRobot has definitely figured out how to make a robot clean a floor.
2) Vacuum Daily! Something that was unthinkable before suddenly becomes a possibility. Vacuum Daily! Why not? I'm not exactly what you would call a neat freak, but we have hardwood floors. Vacuuming daily keeps our house free of the little gritty pieces of tracked in dirt that can be so annoying on hardwood floors. Of course, you will need to empty your robot vacuum when it gets full and clean the brushes here and there, but that's not a big deal. I would bet that if you suffer from allergies, using this strategy would be helpful, especially with pet dander.
3) Roombas Clean Under Furniture - It's way easier to clean under furniture and beds with a robot. You can't really get a normal vacuum cleaner under a bed, so you're stuck doing other things which are much less pleasant, like crawling around on the floor with a duster or broom, or moving the furniture. A Roomba can fit under chairs, dining room tables, desks, coffee tables, and other furniture. Dust bunnies will be a thing of the past.
4) Watch the robot vacuum work. I will be the first to admit that I still find the Roomba fascinating to watch. I have found myself following it around the house. It will bump into obstacles, disappear under furniture, zoom over to stairs and stop, and then pester your pets. Complicated furniture arrangements like dining room chairs become mini robot obstacle courses. Sometimes the vacuum cleaner will take a while to get away from them. I'll admit, it's not as dramatic as watching an episode of 24, but it's very amusing.
5) Roombas can be scheduled. Most of the iRobot line can do this today. We don't take advantage of this much, we admit. For us, it's easy enough to grab the robot and turn it on before we leave in the morning. Our house is small and the robot vacuum can clean a floor on one charge. We come home to find it on the automatic self-charger (at least most times). With the iRobot models that do this, you can schedule seven cleanings each week. If you have a large house, you should be able to come up with a system that doesn't make you have to work very hard to get the whole house clean. One problem with this strategy is that sometimes Roombas get stuck. Once we've had ours get wedged under a piece of furniture. Another time, it got stuck going over some cords. The iRobot Roombas have special technology to help keep them from getting stuck on cords and carpet fringes, so it isn't as much of a problem as you might expect. We were able to adjust our cables and furniture so that the Roomba wouldn't get stuck while vacuuming.
6) Roomba Remote Control. If you get tired of watching it zip around the room, you can get more amusement by using the remote control to drive your robot under all those obstacles. This isn't a totally superfluous option. If there's an especially dirty area of your floor, you can use the remote to make sure the area gets a thorough cleaning. The Roomba is going to clean the area anyway, but it's fun!
7) Got Pets? Get a Roomba. I love having pets, but I'm not so excited about cleaning up cat hair. If you've got pets then you know what I'm talking about. The hair gets tracked around and ends up in clumps. What's on your floor ends up on the furniture. So it's great to have a robot cleaning up all that hair. iRobot has a couple of Roombas that are specifically designed for pets. The current models are the 532 and 562 "Pet Series" vacuum cleaners.
8) It's a robot! Yes, it's a robot vacuum cleaner. That's really cool in and of itself. I may not be commuting to work in a hovercraft, but at least I have a robot that cleans my house. It's also something your friends will want to see.
9) Make Cool Roomba Videos. There is no shortage of cool videos of iRobot Roombas on YouTube. Click here to see a search on YouTube. You can join the pack and film your own masterpiece.
10) Get Your Mad Scientist On. iRobot has designed the Roomba and published information that makes it easy to be a hardware hacker and do your own diabolical robot experiments with it. Maybe you want to put a telepresence camera on it, or a nerf gun. iRobot has already put the hard work into building a dependable mobile platform. Now you can turn it into something cooler! See the iRobot Create for the Roomba educational system.
1) The Roomba Really Cleans. This is something that an owner of a Roomba can see for themselves. When you empty the robot, all this dirt and dust and hair falls out. You may be saying: But that happens with my normal vacuum cleaner. Test it out. Vacuum your living room as thoroughly as you can manage, and then set the Roomba to vacuum it after you. It'll come back with more dirt than you would expect. I'm not sure exactly how the technology works, but iRobot has definitely figured out how to make a robot clean a floor.
2) Vacuum Daily! Something that was unthinkable before suddenly becomes a possibility. Vacuum Daily! Why not? I'm not exactly what you would call a neat freak, but we have hardwood floors. Vacuuming daily keeps our house free of the little gritty pieces of tracked in dirt that can be so annoying on hardwood floors. Of course, you will need to empty your robot vacuum when it gets full and clean the brushes here and there, but that's not a big deal. I would bet that if you suffer from allergies, using this strategy would be helpful, especially with pet dander.
3) Roombas Clean Under Furniture - It's way easier to clean under furniture and beds with a robot. You can't really get a normal vacuum cleaner under a bed, so you're stuck doing other things which are much less pleasant, like crawling around on the floor with a duster or broom, or moving the furniture. A Roomba can fit under chairs, dining room tables, desks, coffee tables, and other furniture. Dust bunnies will be a thing of the past.
4) Watch the robot vacuum work. I will be the first to admit that I still find the Roomba fascinating to watch. I have found myself following it around the house. It will bump into obstacles, disappear under furniture, zoom over to stairs and stop, and then pester your pets. Complicated furniture arrangements like dining room chairs become mini robot obstacle courses. Sometimes the vacuum cleaner will take a while to get away from them. I'll admit, it's not as dramatic as watching an episode of 24, but it's very amusing.
5) Roombas can be scheduled. Most of the iRobot line can do this today. We don't take advantage of this much, we admit. For us, it's easy enough to grab the robot and turn it on before we leave in the morning. Our house is small and the robot vacuum can clean a floor on one charge. We come home to find it on the automatic self-charger (at least most times). With the iRobot models that do this, you can schedule seven cleanings each week. If you have a large house, you should be able to come up with a system that doesn't make you have to work very hard to get the whole house clean. One problem with this strategy is that sometimes Roombas get stuck. Once we've had ours get wedged under a piece of furniture. Another time, it got stuck going over some cords. The iRobot Roombas have special technology to help keep them from getting stuck on cords and carpet fringes, so it isn't as much of a problem as you might expect. We were able to adjust our cables and furniture so that the Roomba wouldn't get stuck while vacuuming.
6) Roomba Remote Control. If you get tired of watching it zip around the room, you can get more amusement by using the remote control to drive your robot under all those obstacles. This isn't a totally superfluous option. If there's an especially dirty area of your floor, you can use the remote to make sure the area gets a thorough cleaning. The Roomba is going to clean the area anyway, but it's fun!
7) Got Pets? Get a Roomba. I love having pets, but I'm not so excited about cleaning up cat hair. If you've got pets then you know what I'm talking about. The hair gets tracked around and ends up in clumps. What's on your floor ends up on the furniture. So it's great to have a robot cleaning up all that hair. iRobot has a couple of Roombas that are specifically designed for pets. The current models are the 532 and 562 "Pet Series" vacuum cleaners.
8) It's a robot! Yes, it's a robot vacuum cleaner. That's really cool in and of itself. I may not be commuting to work in a hovercraft, but at least I have a robot that cleans my house. It's also something your friends will want to see.
9) Make Cool Roomba Videos. There is no shortage of cool videos of iRobot Roombas on YouTube. Click here to see a search on YouTube. You can join the pack and film your own masterpiece.
10) Get Your Mad Scientist On. iRobot has designed the Roomba and published information that makes it easy to be a hardware hacker and do your own diabolical robot experiments with it. Maybe you want to put a telepresence camera on it, or a nerf gun. iRobot has already put the hard work into building a dependable mobile platform. Now you can turn it into something cooler! See the iRobot Create for the Roomba educational system.
11) I added an extra reason. One thing that's cool about Roombas is that there is a community. Here's a cool site if you're looking for more information about Roomba vacuum cleaners. There are educational users, robot fans, and people who talk about what the best Roomba models are on forums. Dig in!
Alice Wang is a writer who is also an expert on kitchen gadgets. She also keeps fish in a pond in her back yard. She writes about gadgets mostly. A great example being robot vacuum cleaners. More to come!
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Alice_Wang
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