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A few weeks ago Garret linked to an article that talked about the latest model of the iRobot “Roomba” floor-sweeping robot. I read the article with great interest and after I was done, a light bulb went off in my brain.

Let’s rewind a few years: soon after we moved into our first home in Santa Fe, one of the first generation Roombas arrived at the new home. It was a neat little gadget that actually did what it was supposed to do, but it had a number of flaws that made it less ideal. The unit would get tangled in a rug’s tassels and it would also find places where it can get stuck in general. Almost every time we used it, I had to crawl under a bed in order to retrieve the unit while it was trying to do it’s job. The dust-container was also very small and after having completed half-a-room it would just sit there and complain that it wants the container to be emptied. The rechargeable battery was also way behind today’s standards: for every 30 mins of operation, the unit would have to be charged for a few hours.

Now fast forward to the present: while I was reading the article linked above I realized that I had (almost) the ideal home for a Roomba. Concrete floors, no stairs, very few rugs (and all of them without tassels), very few places where the unit could get stuck and, most importantly, two dogs who manage to drag in half of the New Mexico desert whenever they return from the kennel. On top of that a nice amount of pet hair that I have to deal manually with every other day.

I ordered one of the 580 models and was pleasantly surprised that I got a $150-off coupon for the purchase.

A few days later the new unit arrived and I had to live through the painful overnight-charge-cycle. iRobot recommends that the unit be charged overnight the first time to condition the battery. I wish they would do it at the factory so that one can start operating the robot immediately.

It looks like iRobot worked on all the kinks and issues that I saw in the first generation product: large dust container, longer battery life, shorter recharge cycle, doesn’t get tangled any longer and (in my opinion the best feature) the unit returns to the charging station all by itself. I found a good spot for the new Roomba under a huge cabinet in the living room. The charging station is tucked away there and when the Roomba is being recharged it’s barely visible from the room. Once a day it will wake up and go about it’s business. When it is done (or when the battery is low) it will find it’s home again and will rest there.

The unit ships with a number of virtual walls or lighthouses. In a “wall” configuration you put the device for example in a door frame and the unit will not cross that “virtual wall”. As a “lighthouse” the unit recognizes the device as the boundary between two rooms. It will concentrate on the first room and when it thinks it’s finished it will cross the lighthouse-boundary and continue in the other room. Very, very cool.

I still have to move some furniture (for example the bar stools at the kitchen island) to make sure that the unit sweeps all over the place, but it’s ten times better than taking the vacuum cleaner myself. There is a noticeable difference all over the house. The sand that grinds under your slippers, the little fur-balls of dog hair and the dust accumulations have all disappeared.

If I gave ratings on this site, I would give the new Roomba a “highly recommended“.