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The age of robots has finally arrived, and we would not have it any other way. From robots that manage your entertainment to those that can clean your entire house, life has never been easier.
Among the vacuum cleaning robots, Irobot's Roomba is the king. Here we share some tips on how to make Roomba work for you. It is packed with a whole lot of features that you can utilize to get the vacuuming out of your mind.
Video Explainer
When the Roomba Is Not Cleaning All Rooms
Ideally, Roomba should be able to clean every last foot of your house. However, there are a few things that might prevent this. We’ll consider each in turn:
1. Stairs
The Roomba is not designed to move up and down the stairs, and neither are any of the robovacs as at the time of posting. It can only climb up obstacles with a maximum height of 0.8in.
If your house is multi-level, then that is the reason why Roomba is unable to clean every room.
2. Obstacles in the room
Physical obstacles that lie in the path of Roomba could be the reason why it is not able to reach certain rooms. That includes low lying furniture. Roomba can go under furniture that clears the floor by at least 3.6in, but not lower.
That also applies to raised sections, like a bathroom or dining area that is at a different level than the rest of the house.
3. Virtual Walls
A virtual wall is a device that can set near a doorway to keep the Roomba out of it. This could be, for example, to keep it from going into a kid’s room or a bathroom. They do this by maintaining an invisible laser wall across doorways. Removing them will let Roomba clean that room too.
4. Navigation
The first generation Roombas have the iAdapt 1.0TM navigation system. The system is a bit simplified and has no concept of rooms as such. Once powered on, it just creates a temporary virtual plan of the room it is in and cleans just as you would.
This means that you might have to physically carry it from room to room.
More recent Roombas have the iAdapt 3.0TM or later. This includes the Roomba i7 and i7+, which allows then to map out the house in rooms and even lets you specify rooms on the iRobot app.
5. Dark Rooms
Some Roomba models including the Roomba 960 and 980 need light to operate effectively. This is because the camera uses light to scan and create the virtual maps of the room.
If you prefer to do your cleaning in the night, or if your house has some particularly some rooms or sections, it could keep Roomba from accessing them.
6. Maintenance issues
This could mean a lot of things, but the most common are:
- A full bin. Not all Roombas have a full bin indicator or self-emptying capacity. When it is full, it will stop cleaning due to lack of space.
- Battery. Most Roomba models have 120-150 minutes of juice in their batteries. Normally the Roomba will return automatically to the docking port when the battery levels are low, but if the battery is faulty or if the docking port is obstructed, you might find it dead and silent in the middle of nowhere … of your house.
- Worn brushes - Just like any other piece of equipment, the Roomba needs a little attention now and then. Every few weeks, take out the brushes and clean
them, while giving it a once over to make sure that it's working properly.
7. Dark carpeting
Roombas have problems cleaning over black carpeting. They see them as ‘cliffs' and avoid them altogether because the dark color absorbs the infrared signals from its blasters instead of reflecting it.
Roomba Cleaning Tips
To get the most out of your Roomba, here a few tips that you can take.
1. Edge cleaning
Roombas have a nifty little feature that allows you to clean up to the very edge of walls, doors, and stairs. This means that no part of your house will be left untouched. Turn it on on the iRobot app, on the preferences section.
2. Clean Black Carpets
You can turn off the cliff sensors on your Roomba so that it can clean over a black carpet. Only do this if you have no stairs or sunken areas that are within reach. You could, however, use the virtual walls to cordon off such places.
3. Lighthouses
These are devices that act as Roomba automatic doors. They are placed over doorways and keep your Roomba in that particular room until it completes cleaning it.
4. Keep your Roomba in tip-top condition
Once a week, take out your Roomba’s brushes and use the soft brush provided to clean out any entangled fur. This could be slowing down your Roomba’s cleaning capabilities.
Once a month, give your Roomba a deep clean. Use a screwdriver to open up the spiral brushes and bearings, and clean up any debris stuck in there.
You should also replace brushes and filters at least every three months.
5. Consider some furniture rearrangement
To give your Roomba easier access, consider rearranging a few bits of furniture like sofas and stools. This is especially true if it has very low clearance. A good tip is to make sure there is some space for the Roomba to get around, or to push it flush to the walls.
6. Fix up cable mess
Cables can clutter your home and make it hard for your Roomba to access all areas, as well as keep it captive if it becomes entangled.
A good tip is to use cable ties and tie all cables to the same together. Then you can use trunking to keep the cables off the floor.
House Cleaning Robots
There are a lot of house cleaning robots on the market. House cleaning robots are usually categorized under ‘care and cleaning' robots. They are divided into:
- Robot Vacuums - Called robovacs for short, includes all robots that function like vacuum cleaners only.
- Sweepers - These will just sweep out a house or porch and collect the dirt in a specific place.
- Moppers - Also called robomops. These are different in that they use water and a cloth to give your house a thorough clean.
Other types of robots exist for practically every task like gutter cleaners, litter robots, pool robots among others, but they are far from our scope for now.
Moving Roomba From Room To Room
We have explored a few reasons on why Roomba may not clean every room in your house. By default, Roomba will clean every room in your house that it can access. Some of the latest models have the iAdapt 3.0 which features room recognition. But even the older ones should be able to clean different rooms through their mapping system.
If this fails, you can carry the Roomba physically into a different room. Just make sure to the same with the charging dock so it doesn’t run out of juice.
For Roombas with systematic navigation, putting it in a different room will confuse its navigation system and will cause it to stop cleaning. You will need to reset it to default by pressing the power button until the lights go out.
The same thing applies when moving your Roomba to a different floor. An older version has no stored memory and will scan and clean as usual, while for newer ones you might have to reset.
The fanciest models have a pre-scan of your house in memory and allow you to send it to different rooms via the iRobot app, something like ‘Roomba, go clean the kitchen.’ Isn’t that great?
Robots That Clean Your Room
Many types of robots exist that will clean your room for you without you having to lift a finger. Most can operate autonomously or by simple directions from a smartphone or remote.
These robots work by sweeping and sucking up debris and dirt from your floor and carpet just like a vacuum cleaner, only that you do not have to do anything.
Many models of robovacs, as they are called, exist. They vary depending on navigation systems, mode of operation, among other features. The best ones can map out your floor by rooms, make scheduled cleaning of all or specific rooms, empty full bins themselves or notify you when you have to, and do all this without whining.
Yes, that is a thing. Some robovacs can make a lot of noise when cleaning.
Irobot Cleaning
Irobot is one of the few premium robovac manufacturers that have robots that will suit just about any home cleaning needs. They are the manufacturers of the RoombaTM models, one of the leading brands on the market.
Irobot has been leading cutting edge innovation since it was founded in 1990 by three MIT graduates. Initially, iRobot even received government contracts to build space exploration robots.
This is the kind of technology that goes into Roomba and Braava, the top leading floor vacuuming and mopping robots.
Conclusion
When it comes to high-end technology like robotics, it always pays to invest in the best. Irobot's Roombas have proven themselves over and over again in their field.
While Roombas are not perfect, there are many tips that you can take note of to get the most out of the Roomba experience.
We know that your life will be made easier and more enjoyable by these tips and hacks for the Irobot Roomba. Happy cleaning!