$300 to spend, tile floor, cat litter & mulch

miamicanes · Joined: 13 May 2008 Posts: 22

I'd like to buy a Roomba or Scooba (eventually, both), but for now I have about $300 to spend and the following situation:

* First floor is 18 x 15 living room, 3 x 10 foot hall, 3x6 foot half-bath, and 18 x 20 kitchen + dining room -- all tile. The half-bath and hall are adjacent, and the hall connects the living room to the kitchen + dining area.

* Second floor is mostly berber carpet... but isn't a major concern anyway. It would be a nice perk if I could use it here in my computer room, bedroom, and the hallway connecting them... but the only thing that really bothers me up here is the cat litter tracked daily all over the master bathroom's tile floor.

* The floor gets dirty daily... but the majority of the "dirt" is cat litter, or cat food (mostly dry) that somehow ends up on the floor next to the dish. A sizeable minority of it is red mulch from the back yard that gets brought in by my cats. There's cat hair, too... but not really overwhelming amounts (both cats are shorthair). I'm mainly mentioning IT in case the Scooba, or any higher-end Roomba models, are known to choke on even small quantities of cat hair.

At first, a Scooba seemed like a natural choice since the floors I have the biggest problem with are all tile. But then it occurred to me that a Scooba might not be very good at cleaning up the debris that accounts for the majority of my "dirty" floors (cat litter, mulch, food). DOES the Scooba do a good job of sweeping up things like tracked cat litter, mulch, and dry food? Or if I bought a Scooba, would I end up having to sweep the floor with a broom before I could unleash the Scooba on it?

Likewise, I know that neither the Scooba nor a Roomba is likely to help much with "floor food", simply because most of it ends up adjacent to the food dishes, and there probably isn't enough clearance for either robot to get close enough to clean it up. But there's a secondary concern -- if I leave the robot running while I'm at work, I'm equally concerned about the possibility of its side brushes sweeping debris INTO the cats' food/water dishes and contaminating them. Is that likely to be a real problem? Or is/are the Scooba/Roomba good about not blindly scattering debris encountered along their peripheries?

What's the lowest model(s) I can get that can either clean the entire first floor on a single charge (~700-800 square feet, with hall in between), or at least automatically break it up into smaller tasks with recharging sessions in between without personal intervention? In other words, find its way out of the charger to the living room, clean the living room, hall, and guest bath (assuming I remember to leave its door open), find its way back to the charger, recharge, find its way to the kitchen/dining room, clean them, then find its way back to the charger. Can any model even DO something like that? Say, at the very least, if I were to put the charger base between the two, and tell it "clean everything to the left of the dock, recharge, then clean everything to the right of the dock and recharge"?

Thanks!

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

There are currently no Roomba models that will start cleaning, charge mid-mission, and go out for more cleaning. Once they hit the dock, they're done until next scheduled mission, or human intervention.

I would point you in the direction of a 4xxx model, simply because they have the reputation of handling pet hair better than the 5xx series. Can't compare myself, but I love both of my 4xxx's.

The 5xx series that are compatible with Lighthouses might be something to look into, however. As you'd be able to break up your space into manageable chunks of space for the 'bot to spend time in each area of the house.

It's all what's going to work best for your environment.... but the 4xxx's are generally cheaper, and handle pet hair much better, and don't have RoomBarf problems transitioning between tile and carpet.

Don't know how well that the Scooba will clean up litter and larger items. I don't think it's vaccuum is meant to deal with debris that large. But, I wouldn't worry about a Roomba flicking debris into the pet's food dishes. The side brush sweeps things into the path of the roomba, and then passes over what it just flicked under itself. On occasion, it'll flick stuff away from where it should go, especially on tile, but it'll pick it up on another pass of the area.

miamicanes · Joined: 13 May 2008 Posts: 22

When you say that 4xxx models handle pet hair better, does that include both the Discovery-ancestry ones (42xx?) that apparently are easier to maintain , AND their earlier kin (41xx?)? Or are the changes to the "Discovery" series that made it easier to maintain the reason WHY the (apparently) newer 5xx-series (and possibly the 42xx series?) have a more difficult time dealing with pet hair?

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

4xxx means anything with a 4. 41xx, 42xx .. no matter.

I have a 4296 (Which the model 4296 is just a refurbished older model with the new Scheduler accessories, mine happens to be a 4220 SE) and a 4230 Blue Scheduler.

Love them both, but the 4230 does run a bit quieter. Don't know if it's because she's new versus the refurb 4220, or if it's just the model difference.

As far as your other question, we'll have to wait for someone else to chime in... I have no idea. ;)

richnorto · Joined: 03 Sep 2007 Posts: 246

For your budget, I would buy both a roomba and scooba. You will probably find the roomba does such a good job that the scooba is only needed once or twice a week. Find a good deal on a 4xxx - wait and watch as you can get them new for as low as $139 with 1 yr. warranty through buy.com, Amazon, ecost etc. This would need to be run before a scooba mission anyway as the scooba is designed to get only dust/small particles. I would go with a cheaper scooba. You can get deals through HSN or buy. com using coupons 1st time buyer/new credit card etc. and possibly get a longer run battery in the mix. You will want to be home when the scooba runs anyway as you will have to empty and refill the tank. I would suggest breaking up the downstairs anyway for best coverage as you will probably miss areas if you let it roam that far. You could run it while watching tv in the evenings with no effort.
BTW, I wouldn't worry about the side brush throwing anything into the cat bowls. It pretty much sweeps stuff into the roomba and is not very forceful.

wsngmartin · Posted: May 13, 2008, 9:15 pm Post subject:

Hi Miami and welcome to RR

If you are curious about a 5xx, consider costco if you're a member. Some of our forum members really love em, but some of us (like Gravity and myself) favor the 4xx's. The biggest advantage of the 5xx, IMHO, is that you can try it and then return to Costco if you either don't like it or encounter some malfx issue.

HSN also has a 60-d trial, and the 535 is a great deal, esp w/ a 15% off coupon for first timers. Problem is if you decide you're unhappy w/ it or encounter problems with it after the 60 d. period you're on your own.

I love my 4xxx's and I am impressed by how well they clean (3 big short haired dogs, 1 cat, a parrot w/ dander who flings seeds at roomba), but they do need a certain amount of maintenance if you want to ensure that they last, bc the inner workings are not sealed off and are susceptible to pet hair and debris getting in there. The discontinued 4xxx's were great buy opportunities, but are getting harder to come by. The new 4xx's run around 200 dollars, but lack scheduling accessories and a dock, though they can be bought as upgrades.

Also, if all you're looking at is tile, you might consider the dirt dog. It's a sweeper, no vacuum fx, but does a bang up job on litter, kibble, mulch, and run around 130 shipped from amazon.com. I think iRobot has a free shipping deal for Father's Day on them too. Frys.com runs about 100 plus shipping but presently sold out. It doesn't come w/ a dock, and has the slow charger and the non-aps battery, but with all-tile floor you will have a very decent run time, and with your budget might be able to buy 2 to service your entire downstairs.

wsngmartin · Posted: May 13, 2008, 9:23 pm Post subject:

miami
i think the changes they made to address the problems w/ the 4xxx's did result in the lack of pickup seen w/ the 5xx's.
just my ruminations.
the 5xx's don't get tangled in things like tassels, but they also don't seem to pick up as well. the brushes pick up the bigger particles and there is no vacuum associated w/ the brush part. the suction itself is stronger so maybe fine particle pickup is better w/ the 5xx's. my 5xx leaves too much pet hair behind.
but there is also this mysterious phenomenon with the 5xx's called "roombarf". it spits back stuff. i think there's 2 kinds....strands of pet hair (my kind) and dust-based roombarf that others have seen that seem to be related to fine debris getting caught between vacuum lips.
my friend krang (kelly) had such problems w/ roombarf on her all-tile living area downstairs that she banished it to her upstairs. and stocked up on 4xxx's. she'd be a great commentator on this but she's been kinda busy lately.

miamicanes · Joined: 13 May 2008 Posts: 22

Hmmm. Suppose I were to buy a 4xxx-series with home base, put the base under the stairs (it's open below them), flanked it with a pair of infrared barriers, built a circuit with a microcontroller or two that enabled me to automatically power up a single infrared barrier at a time, and programmed the Roomba's scheduler to run, recharge, and run again. Say...

9:30 am: left barrier is off. Right barrier powers up.

10am: Roomba wakes up, cleans area to the left of the powered-up right barrier, then returns to its base.

2:30pm: right barrier turns off. left barrier turns on.

3:00pm: Roomba wakes up, cleans area to right of powered-up left barrier, then returns to its base

Assuming that it has about 250-300sf to clean when it heads to the left, and about 400sf to clean when it heads to the right, how likely would I be to end up with a full dustbin before both were completed (rendering the whole scheme moot)?

Assuming the dustbin can handle ~700-800sf, would I even have to BOTHER with the clean, charge, clean strategy using barriers as timer-controlled shepherds to send it down the hallway to the left or right? Or could it actually clean both areas on a single charge?

If it has both the dustbin capacity and battery life to do the whole thing in one shot, how intelligently is the Roomba 4xxx series likely to handle areas connected by a long-ish (~10 foot) hallway? Would it tend to spend most of its time in the open areas, and give both roughly equal attention per square foot? Or would it tend to spend inordinate amounts of time running back and forth down the hallway just because it could, and/or tend to neglect one area over the other?

edit: Whoops, it looks like only one run per day can be scheduled anyway, but the virtual walls themselves can be independently scheduled, so I could schedule one to turn on on M/W/F, and the other to turn on on T/R/S. Or, maybe use the virtual lighthouse to confine it to one side of the charger at a time...

wsngmartin · Posted: May 14, 2008, 7:39 am Post subject:

hi miami
i have to 'fess that i've never learned to use my LH/scheduling features, too lazy to read the manual. and i like watching them anyway, and keeping an ear out for stuck bots, etc.
if i can recall what i've read, roomba is the brainchild of some very gifted roboticists at MIT. they're also responsible for the robotic technology that has gone into the space exploring bot (rover?pathfinder?i'm blanking) on Mars, and landmine-sweeping bots in warzones. IMHO, the robotics part is great, roomba's achilles heel is dirt and pet hair. now if they teamed with oreck or dyson....ah, the possibilities.
but back to roomba, it uses technology similar to minesweeping technology. my observation is that it does a remarkably thorough job, you just can't watch it too closely bc it does take its time. i have a long hallway upstairs and i set roomba free the carpet marks show how thorough that little critter is.

Jeff Carver · Joined: 19 Jan 2008 Posts: 94 Location: Massachusetts

I have to pick up my dog's bowl, esp. the water bowl, when I run a Roomba in the kitchen--otherwise, the bot bashes into the bowl and splashes water. I don't know how you could work that on scheduled away-time cleaning.

The Scooba's a nice mopper, but its pre-vacuum function is pretty limited. I always run the Roomba on the floor first.

I use our regular vacuum for cat litter cleanup. (Or my wife uses a little hand-held.) I don't like all that grit getting into the works of the Roomba.

miamicanes · Joined: 13 May 2008 Posts: 22

OK, it seems like just about everyone agrees that the 4xxx Roombas do a better job at cleaning up cat hair than the 5xx series does... but how much more tedious is it to actually MAINTAIN a 4xxx (equipped with pet-optimized brush & beater) compared to a 5xx? Put another way, how much convenience has to be sacrificed in favor of increased maintenance time for the sake of better performance?

As much as I'd prefer superior results, if it came down to spending 5-10 minutes/week cleaning a 5xx, vs 30+ minutes cleaning a 4xxx, it would really be fairer to compare the performance of a recently-cleaned 5xx against the performance of a 4xxx clogged with so much hair, it can barely move, because that would be a more accurate real-world use case ;-)

IS it that major and graphic of a difference, or is maintenance time of both the 4xxx family and 5xx family overblown?