Tony Brewer

I have two Roomba robotic vacuum cleaners – you know, the kind that is supposed to just go around the house and vacuum your floors and carpets for you. One of them is the original basic red one that cost me under $200. (I’ve owned three of these, explanation below.) The other is a “newer, improved” version that cost me around $300.00. I can’t find the model number on this one, but it is a sophisticated machine that you can program. I used to have a Roomba “Discovery” model that originally cost me right around $240. That one died right after the warranty period and the company replaced for me for $100 out of the goodness of their hearts. The replacement lasted about a year, and then it died too. I decided not to contact the company for another replacement, but to simply buy a new one, which is how I ended up with this newer sophisticated one.

The original Red version came with a charger and one little virtual wall thing to keep Roomba from going where you don’t want it to go. The Discovery model came with a docking station and a virtual wall as well. The “newer” version came with a docking station and two virtual walls that the company calls “lighthouses.” Interestingly enough the Red Roomba ignores the new “lighthouse” virtual walls and the new Roomba ignores the original virtual walls. Also interesting is that the Red Roomba recognizes and uses the docking station for the Discovery model.

The original Red Roomba did NOT come equipped with a cliff sensor. So my first Roomba broke when someone accidentally forgot to close the door to the basement steps and it fell down the steps. My second Roomba was given to me by a friend, claiming it was only used a few times and was “perfectly new.” Well, it was broken. So I’ve kept those three broken Roombas (2 reds and 1 Discovery) for parts.

Well, enough background information. The whole point I want to make is that my favorite one was the Discovery, which I can’t seem to be able to find in stores anymore. It did a good job cleaning and has built in cliff sensors so that it won’t fall down stairs (supposedly, but that is what happened to my Discovery models, the cliff sensor stopped working on both of them and they fell down the stairs!)

The Red Roomba is a real workhorse. It does a good job cleaning; my big complaint is that it does not have the cliff sensors. Oh, and it gets hung up on floor heating registers (of which I have many!) This new sophisticated model that cost me so much money is a dud. Although it has cliff sensors I now make sure that the door to the stairway is closed so the Red one doesn’t fall down the stairs, and it does not seem to get hung up on the floor sensors the way the Red one does.  It does OK on floors, but does a terrible job on carpets. The little spinning side brush that is supposed to sweep the dirt from the corners and along the sides of the walls barely moves while on carpets, so that part is totally useless. Another feature that I do not like is that the battery is not easily accessible, so if the battery needs to be replaced I don’t know if it is possible or not. On the Red Roomba you can snap the battery out and put in a new one if you need to do that.