Which roomba can go from hardwood to carpet and back to dock

tommer12 · Joined: 14 Jan 2007 Posts: 6

Im looking for which roomba works the best between area rugs/carpets to hardwood floors. I'm not sure which one will be able to "climb" up on the area rug, then back off to hardwood floors?

Thanks much!

Gravity · Joined: 01 Mar 2008 Posts: 122 Location: Sandusky, OH

Depends on how thick your area rug is. My two 4xxx's climb the area rug in our living room just fine. Occasionally they'll catch an edge just right and bounce away from it, only to come back from a different angle and make it up just fine.

I can't comment on how the 500 series handles area rugs from personal experience, but I've read where the area rugs are the big culprit in losing side brush arms. I'm sure someone else will chime in with their experience, but I'm quite happy with my 4xxx's.

coldpenguin · Joined: 13 Apr 2008 Posts: 26

I was concerned too before I purchased a 560 around 2 weeks ago.

I have predominently laminate flooring.
I have several oriental rugs. One is oval, and has tassles all the way around. One is rectangular, almost 1" in height.
The oval one presents no problems.
The rectangular one, presents a problem rarely, and when watching the roomba, I don't think it is roomba's problem. The issue is that I have a chair nearby. The roomba runs off the rug, hits the chair, wall, table that I have nearby, causing an almost 270 degree turn required, around three quarters of the width of the roomba off of the rug. The roomba rotates on the spot, and sometimes the sidearm can go under the rug. When roomba tries to mount the rug, because the arm is beneath it, it fails. It turns around and tries again though, and will eventually make it. This is not an issue if I remember to push my chair in, making the turn around 240 degrees.

So the rugs, all in all get cleaned OK.

I also have a doormat, this is around half an inch thick. The roomba will sometimes ruffle this up, but doesn't get stuck.

I also have a small, ?throw? rug upstairs. Very thin, with tassles. These get caught in the roomba and the 'bot ends up folding the rug up, but continues to clean once it has let go.

Hope this helps,
Gareth