Impressed by Scooba

thermidorthelobster · Joined: 01 Jan 2007 Posts: 24 Location: UK

Now I've had a chance to set my Scooba 350 going around all the rooms in the house, I have to say I'm very impressed with it.

The quality of the cleaning is superb. By which I mean, it does a far better job than me with a mop; it does as good a job as me on my hands and knees with a scouring pad. And it's a lot less effort. Rather like my old Roomba Discovery does just a good a job at hoovering as me with a Dyson.

The new robot's programming is quite odd to watch. Its patterns are a lot different to the Discovery. Oddly enough, I'm not convinced it doesn't occasionally miss bits, but it's too early to tell.

The design of the new robot also shows a lot of progress. It's a very neat bit of kit and it looks like iRobot have gone to a lot of effort to keep the wet bits away from the electrical bits; I'm optimistic it will give good service. I'm wondering what a new Roomba looks like inside, compared to my few-years-old Discovery - does it come from the same design school as the Scooba? The Discovery is pretty complex inside and is also designed so that the dust it sucks up makes its way everywhere.

In the back of my mind is a nagging feeling that maybe I should have gone for a 380, and had a docking station plus a faster robot. I was advised that the slower 350 does a more thorough job of cleaning. I'd be interested to know if this is true.

Either way, I'm rather chuffed with my purchase and will certainly be adding to my robot collection as soon as I can find a reason to... Well done iRobot.

debugger · Joined: 20 Jan 2007 Posts: 730 Location: UK - Glasgow

thermidorthelobster wrote: In the back of my mind is a nagging feeling that maybe I should have gone for a 380, and had a docking station plus a faster robot. I was advised that the slower 350 does a more thorough job of cleaning. I'd be interested to know if this is true.

Just in case of confusion, I don't believe that there are any Scoobas with a docking station.

The 380 has a "charging base" which is basically an external battery charger!