Roomba's first voyage
Bright and early the next day, I picked Roomba up off its charger and placed it in the center of the living room area. You can launch Roomba directly from its Home Base, but I wanted to watch it go from the middle of the room. My condo is fairly open, so it had a lot of choices as to where to go from its starting place.

When the "Clean" button was pressed, Roomba played a little song and off it went. The first few minutes of a cleaning cycle involve Roomba moving in a circle. Apparently it's scanning the room to find out what's where and how big the space is. After this part of the cycle is complete, Roomba shoots off in a straight line.

When people vacuum, they tend to start at one end of the room and then move back and forth until the entire room is finished. Roomba does it rather differently. There is no discernible pattern to its movements most of the time, but it does seem to get the job done. Eventually.

Does it really work?
In short, yes. I have now been using Roomba for going on two months, and the regular vacuum hasn't been hauled out of the closet for at least the last month. I have two indoor cats, so my Roomba has had many opportunities to demonstrate its skills with cat fur and cat litter. It's excellent at both. My cats shed constantly and Roomba always manages to collect quite a solid fur ball by the end of a session.

My condo is almost entirely hardwood and tile, with carpeting only in the bedroom. Roomba does an outstanding job on the hardwood, and in fact leaves it looking polished because of the design of its front spinning brush (more details below). The tile and carpet are also left looking clean and litter-free.

How does it work?
It's obvious that iRobot put a great deal of thought and planning into Roomba's design. All of the Roombas are low to the ground, approximately three inches in height and sixteen inches in diameter. There are two rotating brushes underneath that resemble the brushes on a standard vacuum cleaner. Up front, Roomba has a small brush, like an artist's paintbrush but with bristles at both ends, that spins. This brush allows Roomba to move things underneath it, so that it can suck them up, and also allows it to spread dirt around so that it can pick it up on the next pass. Figure B shows Roomba's undercarriage, with the three brushes and the actual vacuum part with its blue rubber flaps.

FIGURE B


Roomba's small brush (circled in red), larger brushes (circled in purple), and vacuum (circled in blue) all work together. Roll over picture for a larger image.

The front section of Roomba is essentially a bumper, and Roomba will bounce off walls, doors, or the beam from its virtual wall, and head off in a different direction. The first time my Roomba hit a wall my heart skipped a beat, but Roomba is designed to handle this sort of repeated impact.

The back section is the dirt bin. Everything that Roomba collects ends up in this bin. Cleaning Roomba is a very simple task: the back section pulls off, and you dump out the dirt. You then take out the filter, shake off any excess hair or fur, and put Roomba back together. It's about a two-minute process. Figure C shows the contents of Roomba's bin after a cleaning session, primarily cat fur and litter.

FIGURE C


Apparently I had very dirty floors. Roll over picture for a larger image.

Given that I run Roomba at least every other day, it's rather scary how much it picks up.