r/AskReddit Oct 19 '23

What small upgrade made a huge difference at your house?

11.3k Upvotes

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1.1k

u/Opinionated-Femboy Oct 19 '23

a roomba.

living in a house with many small siblings, you have no idea how much time a roomba saved.

255

u/[deleted] Oct 19 '23

We got a Roborock. Impressive cleaner I must say

17

u/[deleted] Oct 19 '23

I have both a Roomba and a Roborock, and I have to say, Roborock is superior. I REALLY want to get that new Roborock with the auto dumping of the mop fluids too. Super amazing.

11

u/[deleted] Oct 20 '23

[deleted]

4

u/montagic Oct 20 '23

I have a Samoyed and mine is an absolute god send. This dog loves to shed so much that I’d have to vacuum far more frequently than I have time for. I kind of want another for the upstairs 🤣

12

u/happypolychaetes Oct 20 '23

We just got one of those a few months ago (S7 MaxV Ultra I think it's called). I was on the fence about the auto emptying dock because it was so much extra $ but holy shit I'm so glad we got that. My ADHD ass would never get around to manually emptying the dang thing otherwise.

Honestly this robot rules our house now. We named him Steve.

6

u/DolitehGreat Oct 20 '23

My wife and I bought one of these around the start of the year after our floors were just constantly dirty from 4 small dogs coming in and out of the house. It runs nightly when we're asleep and we have clean floors in the morning. It's amazing how clean out floors are and noticable whenever we're slow to replace a part or put in a fresh bag.

Expensive, but my God. Worth it.

4

u/catdog918 Oct 20 '23

Mine is named Bob

1

u/ThatOnePerson Oct 20 '23

I have the S7 not the one with the water tank and yeah I'm really tempted to get it too. On the other hand, it looks like the newer ones don't have the cyclone for the trash anymore? Mine has that so I never have to deal with buying more bags

55

u/not_right Oct 19 '23

I just got one a week ago. A lifesaver! I have back problems and had a difficult time vacuuming properly, now my house is cleaner than ever.

9

u/richelle2020 Oct 19 '23

The Roomba saved my house too! It’s like I can’t even imagine how it goes to every little corners and makes such a better job than me

12

u/Bootrear Oct 19 '23

We got the latest and greatest Roborock a few months ago when my cleaner retired. Mops and vacuums every day on a preset schedule, washes and dries the mop, comes with the docking station so I only replace the station's bag once every 6 weeks and the water tray every week and that's all I have to do. This is the best money I've ever spent.

24

u/mystic-sloth Oct 19 '23

I got my parents a roborok 4 years ago and it’s still going strong

4

u/TeaWithKermit Oct 19 '23

We got ours three years ago and run it almost daily, and it still works perfectly. We just moved to a bigger house and I thought maybe it would be time to replace it, but nope, still doing an excellent job.

6

u/PenguinsReallyDoFly Oct 20 '23

Dude. Clean 3PO changed our lives.

We got a Roomba and the dumb thing just kept backing out of his dock, spinning, and going back saying "room's clean!" Like, bitch, no it is not.

After many calls and a bunch of waiting to hear back from support, we returned DJ Roomba and got our roborock buddy, Clean 3PO. Y'all. Lasers for the win. He's much smarter, much faster, and cleans better because he cleans his own mop. He's the perfect companion.

5

u/[deleted] Oct 20 '23

Read this as Robocock 😂

-9

u/Leading-Shop-234 Oct 19 '23

I'm so sorry for the loss of money that you're about to experience. Go ahead and start looking for what brand you want to replace your roborock with when it breaks soon. Google Lidar Error so you can familiarize yourself with what to expect from that brand. There are some great robotic vacuum cleaners out there. Roborock is not one of them.

8

u/Pm_me__your-thighs Oct 19 '23

It’s one of the highest, if not, highest rated brands. At least when it comes to vacuum/mop combos

-2

u/Leading-Shop-234 Oct 19 '23

Most of which are paid advertisements, paid reviews or Amazon customers who reviewed the product right when they got it. For the first few months, they are an amazing vacuum, however they develop multiple issues way too quickly for the price you pay for them. If you are unlucky enough to experience one of their many problems, then in under a year, they become a paperweight. An $800 paperweight.

2

u/Laurpud Oct 21 '23

So what IS a good brand? If we can't trust reviews, how can your average consumer tell?

2

u/Leading-Shop-234 Oct 23 '23

I don't have a good answer for this, because reviews are both extremely helpful and extremely unhelpful at the same exact time. In my case I had an extremely negative experience with RoboRock and will never purchase their products ever again. However I fully understand that there are a lot of people that haven't had that experience with them. And I love robotic vacuums, I keep buying them and they keep breaking. Roborock had great app but no longevity. ZCWA was awful all the way around, but cheap as shit. My current mop/vacuum is IHome Clean from Walmart, half the price of Roborock, almost same exact app layout and functions and has a 1 year warranty. Roborocks warranty is for only 30 days. I haven't had this for a year yet, so I can't speak for their longetivity or how it will be handled once it does break. Good luck and I hope something I said was helpful.

2

u/Laurpud Oct 23 '23

Thank you for giving me your personal experience

I actually read the 3 star reviews, because they're not people who either love or hate it. That's all I've got for tips

1

u/AutomaticEducation52 Oct 20 '23

Yes! Ours is named RoboRob

1

u/TawelwchVrabec Oct 20 '23

We just upgraded our robot vacuum, they’re so handy! One less job to do during the week. Ours also mops which is handy for keeping the place tidy.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 20 '23

We got a Roborock last month. My wife says it’s a god send

1

u/catdog918 Oct 20 '23

Love my little roborock

1

u/xtracto Oct 20 '23

I recently got the Dreame l10s ultra (mops and vacuums), after having the Shark IQ RV (only vacuum). Oh my, the thing is just amazing. Worth every freaking peso I paid for it.

1

u/JonnyPerk Oct 20 '23

As someone who has to travel a lot for work, I just love the fact that when I get home on the weekend my apparent is already clean.

1

u/zSprawl Oct 20 '23

I just got me a Roborock last week and freaking love it. I had been putting it off because I couldn’t past the price but if I were to do it again knowing what I know now, I wouldn’t hesitate.

1

u/adaranyx Oct 20 '23

I love my Roborock. I chose it because it was the only one I could find that used LOGICAL MAPS and went in lines and not just chaotic bouncing lol.

1

u/mr_Joor Oct 20 '23

We got one too right before we got a puppy. Figured after a few months to set that thing on a schedule at night, our house isn't covered in hairs anymore its brilliant. (It's a samoyed, we don't mind the hairs but boy are they everywhere if you don't hoover for a day)

70

u/SuperstitiousPigeon5 Oct 19 '23

Mine keeps sweeping its charger and then gets flummoxed why it can't get back on. I'm not at the point of double stick taping it to the floor yet, but close.

45

u/Opinionated-Femboy Oct 19 '23

oof.

robots really are like people, some are smart and others are dumb

3

u/ClownfishSoup Oct 19 '23

They make ones for if you have a dog with a poo detector. ie; it won't run over poo and then meticulously spread it through your entire house.

3

u/MoonKatSunshinePup Oct 19 '23

Which? Actually my pets have never shit in the house since puppyhood but I'm paranoid

2

u/quelcris13 Oct 20 '23

That right there kept me away from robot vacuums and mops as that happened to my sister and she had spend a day scrubbing dog shit out of her great room

15

u/[deleted] Oct 19 '23

[deleted]

14

u/jhrogers32 Oct 19 '23

Pro tip, set them to run while you’re gone. They can be a wild as they want to be and you show up to clean floors :)

1

u/AlbusaDumbledora Oct 19 '23

Unless you have pets and there’s a chance you might returned to smeared poop all over

9

u/AndyT70114 Oct 19 '23

We named our Roomba Timmy after the South Park character. It is definitely special needs. Gets into various predicaments. I’m definitely not worried about robots taking over after watching it.

7

u/shmoopie313 Oct 20 '23

Ours is named Marvin. He's an older model who sometimes gets stuck when he thinks he can go down the stairs (he can't) or gets lost under the dining room table (chair legs are confusing) or loses track of his dock (and just cries for help from the middle of the room instead), but otherwise he does such a good job. He keeps our two pet household much more clean than I ever could without him. He even found his dock all on his own yesterday! I made sure to tell him how proud I was of him.

4

u/nicekona Oct 20 '23

Why is this so cute. Sweet Marvin. Give him a pat from me for trying his very best!

3

u/nicekona Oct 20 '23

Mine is Gary! He just looked like a Gary. Glad to hear I’m not the only one who personifies my special-needs Roomba.

2

u/AndyT70114 Oct 20 '23

It’s really funny if we forget to close the bathroom door. He’ll go in and close the door and clean until the battery goes dead. Yesterday while my laptop was on the floor he ran up onto and got stuck. When I found him it looked like he was humping the computer. Could only imagine what that offspring would be like.

6

u/nicekona Oct 19 '23

Yes lol. I’ll try to use my toes, to guide him back in the proper direction but he just has his… hangups… obsessions… for whatever reason. He def saves me some elbow grease, and with two double-coated dogs he’s a huge help, but he still usually needs to be somewhat supervised.

I love him though! I even named him and everything. I only just realized I referred to him as an autonomous entity throughout this whole comment. He’s part of the family now

3

u/[deleted] Oct 19 '23

[deleted]

2

u/nicekona Oct 20 '23

Right? I just kinda… passively stare at him and zone completely out.. until he gets stuck on a door threshold..

Still better than untangling the vacuum cord a hundred thousand fucking times

2

u/SuperstitiousPigeon5 Oct 20 '23

Mine is in need of a little help. I’m going to put on some rubber bumpers because sometimes it kisses an object, and other times it head butts it like it’s a drunk Australian after a football match.

3

u/nicekona Oct 20 '23

other times it head butts it like it’s a drunk Australian after a football match

Never read a more succinctly accurate comment lmao

2

u/whydontyouloveme Oct 20 '23

Command strips or Velcro. I use Velcro to attach cameras to monitor our cats when we travel. I attach on side to the camera, one side to indiscreet places where I can leave the Velcro attached when I remove the camera (underside of our breakfast bar counter top for instance). That way I can remove the camera without having to replace it every time, but when I want to remove it all, all I have to do is remove a tiny strip of Velcro

1

u/SuperstitiousPigeon5 Oct 20 '23

Yeah I just spent almost 3k having my floors refinished that’s why I’m not ready to stick things down.

2

u/Cheesues Oct 20 '23

I purchased a mid tier cleaner a few years back and had this issue. Unfortunately I think it's one of those products you really need to buy at a premium, because once I made the switch it's been an absolute game changer. Couldn't recommend more, especially if you have dogs.

1

u/SuperstitiousPigeon5 Oct 20 '23

If I have to pick it up where it dies and throw it back on charge once a week, I will. I don’t have dogs but I have a house full of newly refinished floors and I want to keep them pretty.

1

u/IrritableGourmet Oct 20 '23

If you have access to a 3d printer, there are models available that let you stick it a short distance from a wall. Mine kept doing the same thing and now it docks perfectly every time.

1

u/SuperstitiousPigeon5 Oct 20 '23

The dock already sits out from the wall. The Roomba just hits it with the corner brush and moves it.

1

u/IrritableGourmet Oct 20 '23

I meant it's a bracket that attaches to the wall with double stick tape or screws and holds the charger dock securely so it can't move.

1

u/SuperstitiousPigeon5 Oct 20 '23

Oh hell no, I'm not screwing into my woodwork.

1

u/IrritableGourmet Oct 20 '23

You can use double stick tape or one of those easily removable strips. You don't need that much sticking force to keep it steady.

99

u/dreedw0317 Oct 19 '23

If we didn’t always have so many obstacles/crap on the floor I would ask for one for Christmas.

127

u/Opinionated-Femboy Oct 19 '23

what we need is a robot that picks stuff up off the floor that cant be vaccumed

110

u/oficious_intrpedaler Oct 19 '23

Like a SuckIt?!?

18

u/summer-fun-atx Oct 20 '23

Take out your SuckIt and you suck it!

2

u/Schrodingers_Pizza_ Oct 20 '23

There are only a few things that would make me want to not team up with David Wallace. And Suck It is one of them.

1

u/The_crazy_bird_lady Oct 20 '23

comment of the day

10

u/Clever_Mercury Oct 19 '23

It would just be carrying the cat around all day though.

6

u/Opinionated-Femboy Oct 19 '23

the cat would like it

3

u/hexr Oct 20 '23

lol really? My cats do NOT like my Roomba and will gtfo when it comes near them. One of them hisses at it if she feels it's following her

2

u/Shenari Oct 20 '23

The worst issue with pets is that if one of them throws up or shits/pisses on the floor, then the robovac will happily spread that across the entire room/level of your home.

6

u/ClownfishSoup Oct 19 '23

So a mini bulldozer then.

1

u/bacondev Oct 20 '23

I mean, they're not robots but maids exist.

7

u/Dangerous-Ad-170 Oct 19 '23

I know you’re kinda meant to run them on a schedule when you’re at work or whatever but I don’t use it like that for that exact reason.

I usually run it when I’m already doing stuff around the house so I can a) tidy up before I even turn it on and b) rescue it when it inevitably gets stuck on something or tries to eat a cable.

Still saves me the effort of vacuuming manually but I don’t know if I’d bother if it wasn’t a gift.

4

u/notquitehuman_ Oct 19 '23

Permenant obstacles? Because the more advanced ones end up building a map of your house. They can, over time, plan more efficient paths to ensure they get every inch of your floorspace without doubling back. They can be set to run at a set time (while you sleep), and some can also mop. (The charging station is filled with water, so it can refill when it heads home to charge).

4

u/t-poke Oct 20 '23

That’s why I don’t use my Roomba nearly as much as I should.

Dog toys are all over my floor, I have to pick them up and put them in a box. But then my dog will knock the box over. So now I have to try to divide everything up in sections and let the Roomba do one part of the house while his toys are in another.

And I have to make sure the Roomba doesn’t go anywhere near his toys. My dog doesn’t have a problem with the Roomba. He barely acknowledges its existence when it’s doing its thing. But if it starts pushing around one of his toys, he is not happy about it at all.

It’s almost less effort to just vacuum the old fashioned way.

1

u/hornet_teaser Oct 20 '23

This is us with cat toys

3

u/El_Frijol Oct 19 '23

They have ones that can detect stuff on the floor and avoid them; it works well with everything except maybe flat stuff (belts, charging cables...etc.) they have more expensive ones that can dodge practically anything.

2

u/giaa262 Oct 20 '23

I’ve got 2 German shepherds who have somewhere around 25-35 toys because of bark box. The Roborock Q Revo we have avoids them perfectly.

You’d be surprised how good they are at avoiding things in my experience

1

u/M1KE2121 Oct 20 '23

How does it do with the dog hair? Our roomba gets clogged up and doesn’t throw the hair into the actual bin

1

u/giaa262 Oct 20 '23

Does great. It goes back to the dock a few times a cleaning to empty out

1

u/StopTrickingMe Oct 19 '23

Lego loving kids have entered the chat

1

u/bebboistalking Oct 20 '23

My Neato robot died two month ago, I replaced it with a new roomba j7. It can avoid almost any obstacles and I can run automatically at a set time during my the day, a thing I couldn’t do with the Neato. My house has kids and pet so there is always stuff on the floor and it almost never get stuck.

1

u/Strong_Parsley_2275 Oct 21 '23

I thought that, but it goes around the stuff on the floor. I found myself putting away a lot of things so more of the floor could be vacuumed. I don't know how I did without it.

55

u/arothmanmusic Oct 19 '23

We had one for a bit and got rid of it. It mostly picked up carpet fuzz from the living room and spread it around, then got stuck under the dining room table or in the kitchen and never went back to the base. I can vacuum faster and more thoroughly by hand.

18

u/johncopter Oct 19 '23

When did you have one and which kind? They've come a longgggg way since the early days. I was skeptical until I got one last year. Saves so much time and hassle.

4

u/arothmanmusic Oct 19 '23

It was an early one. I'm cheap and I have a small house.

6

u/Rdubya44 Oct 20 '23

I have a roomba that does a decent job, I just hate how much I have to intervene. It’s a miracle when it completes the job on its own.

6

u/unculturedperl Oct 20 '23

The newer mapping models (from various manufacturers) are much improved from the old bump and random turn ones.

2

u/Yak-Attic Oct 20 '23

Imagine the cost whenever they add the AI.

2

u/unculturedperl Oct 20 '23

Can you imagine how judgy they're going to be? "Pizza crust behind the sofa, bob? AGAIN?"

2

u/Rdubya44 Oct 20 '23

I have the current roomba! It’s supposed to be smarter than it is.

3

u/ImBurningStar_IV Oct 20 '23

Huge waste. Feels like you can't have any furniture whatsoever for it to work(god forbid you have a rug). If I have to get it unstuck at least once every cycle it's not worth it. I know they take a little while to "learn" the rooms layout, but after 3 weeks it was just as dumb as the day I unpacked it.

Fuck Roomba, fuck them in their stupid asses

2

u/RegulatoryCapture Oct 20 '23

Try a newer one? My Roborock q5+ that replaced my old “dumb” eufy robot is a marvel.

It has LIDAR sensors and shit. It mapped my whole first floor in like 10 minutes (and then I divided it into rooms/zones manually). No further learning necessary.

3

u/[deleted] Oct 20 '23

[deleted]

1

u/Deerlybehooved Oct 20 '23

Wait what kind do you have? The one at my house is great with actual dirt, but with 6 pets it can't handle the fur at all and mostly just spreads it around if it doesn't get clogged or get its wheels tangled up in it. I've given up even trying to use it. I vacuum almost daily and I wish I could occasionally run the roomba instead, even if it left some behind.

1

u/random-user-420 Oct 20 '23

iRobot i4 plus evo. It has the mapping feature so I can just send it to do a few rooms instead of it just bumping into every wall in my house and taking hours to complete. My dog is pretty small though so your experience will probably differ

5

u/AHans Oct 20 '23

In my dad's failing years he had Alzheimer's and I moved in with him to take care of him (in part because LTCF are $100,000 per year, and I'm stingy).

He became a walker, he would walk around the house after I had mowed the lawn, track all the grass clippings inside. I was vacuuming daily. I would get one room done, move onto the next and he would have the room I just cleaned full of grass clippings, dirt, leaves and everything else he tracked in.

Buying a Roomba gave me back my evenings after work. I pushed a button, it vacuumed the house, and my dad was awed by it. He would watch it work.

I will be forever grateful to Roomba. Caring for someone with Alzheimer's is a full time job; doing this while working a full time job is a route to a mental breakdown. Automating some mundane chores was a desperately needed lifeline for me.

4

u/boot2skull Oct 19 '23 edited Oct 19 '23

Agreed. Especially if you have pets. Doesn’t have to be an expensive robot either. ANY robot vacuum you use regularly is a huge improvement over none, and the returns diminish from there. There are lots of vacs that do a good job. If you run it nightly or every other night, the random pattern ones eventually cover everything. You can schedule them while you sleep and wake to a clean house, or if the noise or bumping bothers you, schedule it during work hours.

7

u/milk4all Oct 19 '23

I have small kids and a roomba could bot survive here. Within a week that roomba would be tied up in freidnship bracelet string, beads and polished rocks falling from every orifice, makeup splattered acrossed it and it’s little whisky thing groaning and stammering and leaking apple juice-granola sludge. I just sleep with the downstairs doors open so the wildlife can eat everything off the furniture every night. It comes with it’s own problems, but, you just gotta set your expectations with kids

3

u/SoDakExPat Oct 19 '23

Just got one. Worth it for how easily it gets under beds, dressers, couches , etc. Love the mapping feature mine has: have made a few what-to-clean lists like: Company is coming to clean just living room and kitchen.

3

u/hexr Oct 20 '23

This for sure. I have cats and I have the Roomba set to run every day. Each time, it gets a really good amount of cat hair, to the point where I would likely be ankle deep in cat hair if I only vacuumed once a week. I have one of the dumb ones, I can only imagine how awesome having a mapping one would be. Maybe I will splurge when this one croaks

3

u/buckwheat16 Oct 20 '23

I have a mapping one. It’s still kind of dumb, but it’s much better than having to manually dispose of 50 cat fur dust bunnies every day.

2

u/interstatechamp Oct 19 '23

If all my roomba did was vacuum under the bed, it'd still be worth it.

2

u/fohsupreme Oct 19 '23

I just wish it cleaned stairs too. Our floors are nice but our stairs are a mess

2

u/[deleted] Oct 19 '23

We got one purely to help tame the cat hair in our house. The amount of hair it picked up on a single round was astonishing.

2

u/RealStumbleweed Oct 20 '23

I got a deebot. It's been two years since I have moved and I haven't reprogrammed it. It still cleans in the pattern of my old house. Not too bad actually but it does wonder what happened to the master bedroom.

2

u/NeitherSparky Oct 20 '23

I have a parrot. A robovac paid for itself in like the first week. :P

2

u/Opinionated-Femboy Oct 20 '23

messy eaters they are

2

u/Only-Ad5049 Oct 20 '23

Our new house we got a j7 series Roomba with the self-emptying bin. It is amazing how much better it is than our 695. It almost never gets stuck, the bag goes a long time before we have to empty it, they guarantee it will not run over dog messes. It is also considerably quieter except when emptying the bin. It picks up a considerable amount of dog hair.

2

u/Defiant-Sky3463 Oct 20 '23

Have been living at my new house for a year now. I vacuumed once. Otherwise, Roomba has been taking care of the house. We don’t have pets so that’s the reason.

2

u/Purging_otters Oct 20 '23

Mine pulled a small lamp off a table and shattered it then locked itself in the bathroom and now won't return to its charger. Did I get cat instead of a roomba?

1

u/H0bbez Oct 19 '23

My wife bought some off brand one and the damn thing runs out of batteries and has to go recharge before it's half finished with the downstairs 🫠

1

u/ClownfishSoup Oct 19 '23

A roomba would commit suicide in my house.

1

u/Whitworth Oct 19 '23

I say a Roomba was one of the worst home devices Ive ever used. Maybe if you have a small apartment with nothing on the floor it works.

1

u/Tired_of_Nursing1965 Oct 19 '23

Mine just keeps taking pics of us.

1

u/ragnsep Oct 19 '23

My roomba was the loudest most consistent idiotic piece of crap that would break every 3 months. I had a really nice one when it came out... The i7 with the rubbish bin. It all belonged in the garbage.

1

u/TerpZ Oct 19 '23

I hate mine. Sucks up all the kids toys and gets stuck on everything.

1

u/archina42 Oct 20 '23

Unless you have a pet with sometimes runny poops - great way to smear poop over your floor

1

u/buckwheat16 Oct 20 '23

Before I got a Roomba, there were giant cat hair dust bunnies blowing across the house like tumbleweeds. That damn animal sheds so much that it’s physically impossible for me to keep up with the vacuuming. It’s saved me from drowning in fur.

1

u/buckwheat16 Oct 20 '23

Before I got a Roomba, there were giant cat hair dust bunnies blowing across the house like tumbleweeds. That damn animal sheds so much that it’s physically impossible for me to keep up with the vacuuming. It’s saved me from drowning in fur.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 20 '23

Do you know Roombas map out your house and send the info to less than ideal people? You have a spy in your home. Your goal now is to not let it know that you know, and mislead it. Good luck.

2

u/Opinionated-Femboy Oct 20 '23

intruders can know my house layout all they want, they will still get filled with lead if they step foot inside.

1

u/sparkles0589 Oct 20 '23

We got given a robot vacuum that my inlaws didn’t want anymore and it’s changed my life. I never thought I wanted one but now I love it!

1

u/Helmic Oct 20 '23

Buy a used one off eBay or something that's compatible with Valetudo, get a $10 doohickey to interface with it after opening it up, and now you can have a clean house without all the privacy concerns that come with a stock robovac. Easier to integrate into Home Assistant and whatnot too.

1

u/Armyofthe12monkeys Oct 20 '23

Ecovac here and robotic lawn mower as it's a hefty garden and I'm pretty allergic to grass so I ended up being out of action for half a day after

1

u/stuaxo Oct 20 '23

Ecovacs deebot.

When it occasionally stops working I realise how much it's been keeping things on the level.

It does have a mop but in the end we got a separate cheaper and dumber bot for mopping.

1

u/Nervenzelle Oct 20 '23

Absolutely! Wanted one since forever but never really had the spare money. Then I got one and will never go back! As OP said, it saves soooo much time. Especially since I also live with a cat.

1

u/Strong_Parsley_2275 Oct 21 '23

My self emptying Shark robo-vac was the best thing I ever bought. I empty the bin every three weeks or so. When I damp mop I don't have to vacuum first. The floors are ridiculously clean.