My dining room table has a pedestal base, most of which is off the floor. Roomba rolls right underneath, missing only a three inch or so space beneath the center of the table. It also slips in between the legs of the chairs and leaves the floor spotless.

My living room has a rocking chair and a round wooden table with a floor-length skirt. Roomba goes under the table skirt and around the rockers of the chair, picking up more dirt and cat fur than my upright vacuum usually manages to collect. Roomba is far more persistent than I generally am while vacuuming, and it keeps returning to the area until it's sure the floor is clean.

Roomba also does a wonderful job under my piano and under the island in the kitchen. It has yet to become stuck under any furniture; if it can't fit underneath, it realizes this and backs up before anything untoward can occur. Essentially, Roomba will slip itself into any space that's more than three inches high and sixteen inches wide, and it won't give up until the area is clean.

Day to day operations
Roomba is by no means silent, but it's much quieter than a regular vacuum. It's actually cleaning the floor in my office as I write this. I have a CD playing in my computer at about three-quarters of maximum volume, and I can hear the music clearly. I find that Roomba is even less noisy when running on carpet; on hardwood floors the sound of the brushes is much more pronounced.

When Roomba first arrived, the cats were most definitely unimpressed. One tended to chase Roomba, and the other tried the "deer in the headlights" approach. Within a few days though, they were both used to Roomba and haven't been concerned about it since. Figure D shows my cat, Ninja, sound asleep in his bed as Roomba rolls past.

FIGURE D


My cat sleeps soundly as Roomba goes by. Roll over picture for a larger image.

I'm watching Roomba right now cleaning up a pile of clean cat litter that one of the cats flung out of the box. Roomba used its front spinning brush to flip the litter over about a two foot square section of the floor. Then it turned back in the direction of the newly spread out litter, and zigzagged back and forth across the floor. A few passes later, all of the spread out litter was gone, and most of the original pile too. As I continued to watch, Roomba went back over the area several times. About ten minutes later, the pile of litter is completely gone and there are just a few pieces left on the floor. Considering this was probably a quarter cup of cat litter, all in one place, I am quite pleased with Roomba's efforts.

Using Roomba is somewhat different from vacuuming the floors yourself. When you use a regular vacuum, you're able to avoid obstacles such as a stray book or cat toy. Roomba will run over (or attempt to run over) anything in its path. As a result, I do a quick house pickup before sending Roomba out; my house has never looked better!

Roomba often goes over the same section of the floor repeatedly. There is a remote control included, which allows you to "drive" Roomba to wherever you most need its efforts, but I find that it does a good job on its own, even though it often seems to be drawn back to the same area over and over.