Robot vacuums… worth it?

I’m getting tired of sweeping the black tiles in our kitchen/diner TBH!
I’ts a big floor area – all hard floor.
However, the rest of the house is up a set of stairs…

So, how good are robot vacuums at sweeping/dusting hard floors?
The Eufy g30 edge is on sale at the moment for £200… looks like a reasonable non-lidar option.

Furthermore… can i carry the vacuum up a flight of stairs and set it off in the rest of the house? or does it need the base to be on teh same level each time?

Cheers

DrP

So, how good are robot vacuums at sweeping/dusting hard floors?

That’s exactly what they’re best at.

can i carry the vacuum up a flight of stairs and set it off in the rest of the house?

Yes. It’ll eventually stop and beep when it can’t find its home.

I’ve got one and I’m fairly happy with it, but it’s not a panacea. It needs emptying every week, and you need to make sure you don’t have any electric leads, blind cords, etc lying around or it’ll get trapped. Nothing major, but it’s not quite as fit n’ forget as I’d like.

TL;DR: Yes.

Bought a Xiaomi s5 about three years ago now and it’s been awesome for keeping the general dust and dog hair to a minimum on a daily basis. Yes, you still need to do a manual vacuum once in a while, but it is much reduced.

Also, you get to give it a name and, in our case, attach a mustache and googly eyes.

So, how good are robot vacuums at sweeping/dusting hard floors?

Sorry, realised I didn’t really answer this question! We’ve got black tiles in our entrance and kitchen, and the robot does a pretty decent job of cleaning them. We still mop at least once a week, but it defintitely keeps the dust down and the whole place looks pretty clean.

I like ours, big hard floor spaces are what they’re great for. Did have a basic dumb one, that just bounces off things until the battery runs out then it trundled back to base, which was OK but got a eufy X8 a while ago that maps out the rooms and it’s so much better. Can set no-go zones, and I split the space into rooms so I can have it start on the kitchen when I’m still picking up kids stuff. Takes a fraction of the time and doesn’t miss bits. No problem having multiple maps for different floors etc, it works out where it is and switches.

Only thing is you still need a manual vacuum for stairs etc. Generally I like it for forcing the better habit of keeping the floor clear so it can do its thing.

We have a Neato and no carpets. Works really well. Not cheap, but very good.

My wife would still go and hoover over the same spot a minimum of 5 times! 🙂

I’m a bit of a gadget/home-automation nut but the robot vac is genuinely the best purchase I’ve ever made in that department (even the mrs agrees!) Absolutely tailer-made for the scenario in the OP, you can set it going manually or schedule it to come out & clean once or even 2/3 times a day if you want!

I wouldn’t compromise with a non-LIDAR one – that was the game-changing technology that made the later ones so much better than the first generations! Plus you get a computer generated map of your house, so cool from a gadget-y perspective 😎 😂

I’ve got a Robobrock S5 Max V – which at the time was probably the best, & I’d definitely recommend, although it’s got a mop function which is not particularly great – but for just vacuuming/sweeping hard floors & carpet it’s excellent. The latest Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra has an oscillating mop which is supposed to be really good, plus an AI-powered camera for detecting things like leads, kids toys, dog poo etc and avoiding them rather than getting tangled up or – as one poor bloke I saw on a forum, having dog poo smeared all around his ground floor 😂 It is £1k though 😳 (probably cheaper than having a cleaner come round mind!)

There are a lot of other good options that have appeared in the last couple of years though which I’m a bit out of the loop with.

Romeo cleaners, surely?

When they are able to clean the stairs and go up and down them on their own safely then I would be interested.

Mop>vac. If the mop broke it would be replaced. Vac no

replace stairs with carpeted ramp, job jobbed 😃

I just carry our little guy up & down the stairs as required, we only have 1 bedroom upstairs though so only needs doing once a week, although I’ll definitely get another dedicated vac when funds allow! Fully automated solution for the stairs themselves would be good, at the moment though just keep a cordless Dyson in a dock at the foot of the stairs which is about as minimal bother as can be.

we have one of them hand held dyson hoover things much easier than sweeping and more versitle than a robot.

my bro bought a robot one and its now in a cupboard somewhere.

Don’t know the answer to any of the above, but I did notice our local Aldi had them discounted. Think they were about £50.

Bought a dumb Eufy about 4 years ago. Works fairly well, but we hardly ever use it because of the effort in picking everything up off the floor first, so if you dont have kids, great, if you do and your house is generally a bit of a mess, dont.

Works well when floors are clear and for poking under the beds etc.

In the words of the missus ” if Lola (robots pet name) ever breaks, there’s no delay in getting a new one..

They are awesome…got 2 actually..

Mate you’ve got too much money. Give £200 to a homeless charity and vacuum your massive house yourself.

valid points i guess!

DrP

valid points i guess!

not really, you could use the same argument about literally any purchase/use of money that is even slightly non-essential!

Brilliant things, wouldn’t be without now. 3 spaniels in the house, mucho dog hair tumbleweed, all hard floors downstairs, main living/kitchen/hobby room of ~70sqm plus hall and utility room. We’re on our third Ecovacs Deebot now.

First was a really basic N79 (i think). Side brushes and suction only. At the time the house was still a renovation project, so she had a hard time with bare concrete floors in some areas. Suction motor reached end of life after a couple of years and suction port silicon rubber wall was worn away; picked up dog hair but not much else.

Second was bought used ebay, ex-Japanese market M80 Pro. Improved performance with a roller brush, but still dumb bounce around randomly model. These don’t do a thorough job really, and get stuck, bouncing around under the dining table trapped by chair legs, or would be in the little utility room bouncing around for ages, finally find the way out, then do a 180 and back in for another 10 mins. Roller brush bearings clogged with dog hair needing much attention every week. Battery died in the end, and wouldn’t charge.

Third is an N8, bought direct from Ecovacs for bargain £208. Laser mapping model and way way better in every measure. It took 5 or 6 attempts to get a reliabale, stable map of the rooms, but now does each area in an organised fashion, round the perimeter, then regular stripe pattern. Finish, moves on to next area. Copes very well with obstructions, for example the dining table & chairs (24 legs to avoid), she gets in where she can, cleans, moves on. Far better cleaning. Even goes back to bits where there was an obstruction to see if can get in there now. The brush roller design is much better, dog hair doesn’t clog up the bearings. Can remember 2 room maps, so can be taken to another floor and will recognise it and crack on.

They all had names. Anna, named after the Downton Abbey maid, Yui, Japanese name, and now Lunar, as shes round and white. All female, cos, you know….

Ive used an Ecovacs something or other. Not sure if LiDAR or not I’m afraid. It vacs and mops (drags a wet pad around). As said by others very handy but you do need to prep the cleaning space first.

Mine has the auto empty docking station. I thought this would mean very little intervention but have had mixed results- if the bin on the unit becomes very full then it struggles to empty as it thinks it’s blocked when nothing comes out and then stops trying to empty the robot and has a very low tolerance for this which is quite annoying. This only really happens when used on carpet though as it fills up with carpet fluff. On hard floors seems fine. If you want to use it on more than one floor the main issue I’ve found is if it runs out of battery mid clean on the floor without the charger dock, it may or may not be able to remember where it left off once it has been charged. Mine doesn’t seem to but not a massive issue particularly since it doesn’t tend to run out of battery very often- depends how big your house is and how much suction you use plus if you do upstairs and downstairs one after the other or charge in between.

It can also be sent to do a spot clean of an area if needed which can be quite handy too when you spill a packet of something/get a muddy set of boots etc. I’d say Doing so is more faff than a little cordless vac (I don’t have one) but less than getting out a plug in vac.

Ours is called “Robbie” – we have a  mixture of carpet, tiles and hardwood floors.  It copes well  needs emptying about weekly and only gets stuck occasionally.  Connected to phone, so tells you if anything wrong or needs fixing. It’s a Roomba i9000 something…

Thumbs up from me. Had a dumb Eufy for years which is still going.  Recently replaced the brush motor in it with a replacement from China. Now does the first floor.

Got a newer Eufy that does mapping. That’s downstairs. More powerful,  does a good job of keeping floors clear of dog hair and crumbs.

Have a little iRobot mop for kitchen floors too. Needs it’s water tank topping up but does a good job.

Apparently loved by cats.

I like hoovering…. i am the Mrs Doyle of hoovering…. there will be no robots.

My wife would still go and hoover over the same spot a minimum of 5 times! 🙂

Is there some sort of hoovering occurrence trading mechanism, if you can get my SWMBO to hoover at least ******** once id be ecstatic.