...tell me about them. Yes, no? Do they really work that well or are they more hype than real performance?

Just got rid of all the carpet in the house and went with wood floors. Looking for something that will help maintain during the day (we have dogs, damned things shed. We have kids, damned things leave a trail of destruction behind them everywhere). Not expecting it to replace actual cleaning, but looking for something that will help maintain and keep the hair and normal traffic debris down during the week.

Costco has the 805 model, looks to be solid. Amazon has a great price on the 650 model and the 880 seems to be the same as the 805, more or less for about the same price as what Costco has them for.

Any real world pros, cons, do's, don'ts?

They are good for "maintenance" cleaning between real cleaning.

I think all the newer models that are $$$ have more bells and whistles than improved performance. I have some old 500 series I got refurbished from woot for ~$200 and they fit the purpose.

They are good for hardwood (non-carpet) floor. They don't do crap for carpet and dog hair. You'll still want to sweep the hardwoods every now and then but it helps.

We have a Neato D85 and run it every night down stairs which is 90% wood and tile flooring.

Doesn't replace a good cleaning, but gets most dog hair and random cheerios left by the kids.

Have a neato that runs every few days on Tile, thick carpet, and Wood Floors. I'm always really impressed with the amount it picks up.

I've gone through 2 Roombas and a Neato. Programmed them to run during the day while we are at work. With dogs and kids, my biggest complaint was the bin capacity. The bin would fill up every day, mostly with dog hair. I finally gave up on them after my last one died because it was too much trouble having to pick up toys, backpacks, shoes, papers, etc. everyday so that they wouldn't get in the way.

i had one, it worked well for maintenance cleaning so as long as you don't expect it to get everything it's worth it.

also, if you have dogs and they roam the house if one ever has a house accident.... your roomba will make it worse

We bought the 805 from Costco and ended up returning it. Went with the 880 from Bed Bath and Beyond (based on suggestions from this board) and are much happier.

The 805 uses "random chaos" to vacuum a room. The 880 will map the room / go in a logical pattern to clean the room.

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thick carpet

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I thought mine did good on carpet. It would always fill up with dog hair. Then I vacuumed my carpet and saw how much it was missing.

Have a Neato D3 connected. Hard to beat it for the price.

Have had one for over a year now and it's great. House is all tile/wood except bedrooms and 3 dogs that shed. I run every other night in main areas (tile/wood floors) while dogs are in kennel. I then alternate every other day between master and the other bedrooms to hit carpet areas. I just pick it up and put it in the area and close door, we have a way to close off bedrooms 2-3 so it does both at same time.

It does great on tile and wood. It DOES NOT do a deep clean on carpet but it gets a significant amount of dog hair. I typically use a regular vacuum every other week.

What I don't like - It constantly banging into things. I put some strips of felt in several spots on the roomba to prevent it from scuffing chair/table legs, baseboards and other pieces of furniture. Once I did that things were good. It still bangs into things but doesn't scuff up stuff.

We have a Samsung. It's not as flat as the Roomba so doesn't fit under the sofa but the receptacle is huge and on top of the machine so it's easy to empty. Bought it to help keep up with the pet hair (does a great job). We don't have young kids so their clutter is not a problem.

sawemoffshort07 said:

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They are good for "maintenance" cleaning between real cleaning.

I think all the newer models that are $$$ have more bells and whistles than improved performance. I have some old 500 series I got refurbished from woot for ~$200 and they fit the purpose.

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This is exactly my experience, including the woot purchase. We love it. Would buy another if this one dies. We have all hardwood floors and tile.

Was thinking about getting one as well, but the house we recently moved into has those tile floors that look like wood. They are 5"x24" with pretty pronounced grout lines. Wouldnt be all the time, but if it's going perpendicular to the grain that's a lot of tile joints.

Would a Roomba or the like do okay on a tile floor with grout lines every 5in?

The Wirecutter named the Eufy the best robo-vacuum on the market. Just bought one from Amazon.

Ours has no problems with the pronounced grout lines we have everywhere. It's a lifesaver with pets and kids. It does get annoying having to make sure everything is off the floor and it loves sucking up my phone jacks but that's mostly my fault for being in a rush and not checking.

sawemoffshort07 said:

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They are good for "maintenance" cleaning between real cleaning.

I think all the newer models that are $$$ have more bells and whistles than improved performance. I have some old 500 series I got refurbished from woot for ~$200 and they fit the purpose.

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Same experience here. Mostly laminate and tile downstairs. Roomba runs when we're not here.

We used to use our rechargeable one more often when pets & kids were more frequent.
Agreed they are maintenance more than deep cleaning for formal or monthly cleans.
They don't make much noise, a cute way to let machines do for us something boring.
YOUR job is to charge it up (dock it) after cleaning out the filthy dust port ,,, best if every time it runs out of juice and let it run out of juice - finds more places for it go to make it all worthwhile.
It's kinda like having a pet that cleans up scraps falling to floor.
The value of it to me was about $100 or more ... now it's more trouble to pick up the floor where it might eat something making it burn up, than to pull it out for action.

Best vacs are at Sew & Vac City now in So. C.S. North of Rock Prairie Kroger gas.
We loved our powerful Riccar and now our Miele and dumping bags seems only twice/year.

We have a Neato that was a wedding gift, good for maintenance cleaning but sometines gets stuck under this one recliner we have so I have to prop it up which can be a PITA, other than that its decent.