It goes by all sorts of names, Roomba being the best known but not the only one to describe the concept of a robotic vacuum. The premise is pretty simple but basically it’s a vacuum that can work its way around the room and pick up dirt, lint and the like using not so much a sensor as pre-programmed moves to cover the area of a living room, kitchen, etc.
This item lists for about $99, and here’s the link to buy it online, but its selling point isn’t so much how much money it will save you as how much time it will save. Let’s face it, if you didn’t have to vacuum and sweep, you could save a couple of hours a week and perhaps that time could be used with more important things. Things that might impact your family’s bottom line.
We headed to the North Hills and to the home of Vicki and Jason Hewitt. These are people who don’t have a whole lot of time to clean. They both at home and they have three very small children: Hunter, Krysha and Amelie.
We used the vacuum on the tile in the bathroom, the hardwood floors of their home and on the family room carpet. What we found was that it did a decent job picking up lint and dust and dirt, but it did not do a good job in the corners and that’s where all the real dirt accumulates. It also was not very impressive on the carpeting. There was a piece of thread right in the middle of the room and it went over it several times … and failed to pick it up.
The V-Bot Robotic Vacuum is fine if you just want to give a room a cursory cleaning, but to really “clean” your home, you are better off with a vacuum cleaner and that means a couple of hours of your time. So much for saving hours and putting that toward something more important.
FYI — it’s also available at KMart online as well and it’s a little cheaper at $80.
