On my previous post about Roomba I said that it uses to get stuck at the edge of my stairs, because it doesn’t detect the step and one of its wheels comes out on the air.
I think that the problem is that as it has several sensors to detect floor continuity (like an optic mouse) and my first floor stairs have a window in front of them, joined to the fact that it’s a wooden varnished floor (steps are wooden too) this creates an specific light environment to Roomba sensors. To detect floor, the sensors emit light (infrared or whatever) to see if it is reflected (which would mean that there is still floor under it) but I think that the light coming in through the window is reflected by the varnish and gets to the sensor when there’s no floor under it, but Roomba thinks that the light coming in, is the light it emitted. The result is that Rommba continues moving forward and finishes with one wheel out of the step.
The first day I cleaned this area, Roomba didn’t fall down… Probably it was because I was standing on the steps in front of the window watching how it vacuumed and the light was not reflected on the floor… That’s why the first time I saw Roomba stuck with one wheel on the air (it was on it’s own), I thought that was broken or faulty.
¿How did I solve it?
Well… I put it to clean the stairs area when the sun has set, so it is dark and no light comes in through the window. It never got stuck again
I recently bought a Roomba-SE (I would have liked to get the latest model, but SE is the latest model we have in Europe) The first I have to say is that it is as marvelous as everybody says it is. The most annoying thing to me when vacuuming, was to vacuum under the bed. Our bed is in the middle of the room, with just one wall on the head side. It’s a little bit wider than a Queen size (63″) and although it has got plenty of room under it to vacuum comfortably, I didn’t like crouching to vacuum  everywhere under the bed (not to say that under the bed is where most of dust gets accumulated)
Now, with my new Roomba this is a task I dont mind doing anymore. I switch it on, put it under the bed (as centered as I can), press the “clean” button and wait for it to start vacuuming in spiral When it finishes under the bed, it continues vacuuming all the room and that’s a good point too.
One inconvenient is that the rotating brush that it has to sweep dust from corners, creates a slight current like a ventilator, and some particles of dust end up in the air. The rotating brush also doesn’t reach the floor very well. It is a little bit elevated and as it is made of a very soft material, when it rotates, it goes up a little bit more. I think that the nylon hairs of the brush were supposed to point down, but probably they bent or squashed to another direction in the package (they are squashed horizontally and I think they should be vertically) I tried to squash them to the right direction with a small clamp, leaving it for some hours and I got some results.  Probably I’ll be doing the same again sometime.
Another problem I have found is that although Roomba is supposed to detect stairs to avoid falling down, it falls down my first floor stairs. Well it really doesn’t fall down because when it reaches the edge, one of the wheels comes out, the Roomba stops and starts beeping (see how I workarounded it) . This problem doesn’t happen on the stairs of the lower floor and neither on the second floor, because there are no windows in front of the steps.
When using Roomba, you have to remove any small obstacle that it could find on its way during the vacuum process. For example, sleepers, cables, furry mats and anything where it could get stuck. If you have anything that blocks it to get anywhere, it would be recommendable to remove it too (I usually put things on top of tables or beds) otherwise it wouldn’t be able to vacuum behind or under the obstacle. Once, I left it vacuuming the living room and I went somewhere else. When I entered in the living room, I found it making circles, stuck with a TV cable. This helped me to finish the installation of the TV cable, and find some alternatives for other cables I had in the middle of the living room and my wife was always telling me to remove, so Rommba also helps you to be more organized
My wife was very skeptic about Roomba and I think she still is, but she told me that she likes a lot how Roomba sweeps carpets. Our carpets are not furry at all. Otherwise Roomba would have got stuck on them, as happened with one we have at our bedroom.
Next thing to buy should be Scooba, but I am not sure about it right now. I will wait for a while before buying it because main shops and malls don’t sell it and are the ones that give you satisfaction guarantee or replacement services (other shops have also those services, but I don’t know if they would be as serious as main shops)
