iRobot Roomba 692 Robot Vacuum-Wi-Fi Connectivity, Personalized Cleaning Recommendations, Works with Alexa, Good for Pet Hair, Carpets, Hard Floors, Self-Charging, Roomba 692

My girlfriend has one of these from a different brand and I saw how good a job it does keeping her floors clean, so I decided to pick one up for myself. Roomba was really easy to set up and get cleaning—it paired with my phone without any trouble (unlike some smarthome devices Ive used) and connected to Alexa easily too. When I first ran it it had some trouble because it sucked up some Christmas ornament hangers, but it was very easy to remove the roller and clear the jam; since then its worked great. I think mine does a better job with obstacles than my girlfriends does, since it only seems to get stuck on the stands for my guitars and the heating vents in the floor. This one doesnt have any fancy floor-mapping, so I cant really complain about its routing, but it seems to cover the whole apartment without any trouble on one charge (about 90 minutes). At first it had difficulty getting back home but for whatever reason its gotten better at that lately—maybe there is some kind of mapping or homing function? In any case its doing a great job keeping my floors clear of dust and dirt, even in high-traffic areas like the kitchen. I bought mine at a substantial discount—these things go on sale all the time, I presume to clear out overstock since they release new ones at a good clip—and it was definitely worth the $180 I paid for it.

I was replacing a much older one with a battery that finally gave out. I’m very excited about this new Roomba, I love it being connected to Wi-Fi. You just start it from the app wherever you might be instead of having to remember to reach down and hit the button to physically turn it on before you leave the house. This one has a lower profile, is much lighter and doesn’t slam into everything like my old one did. It did a great job cleaning my wood and tile floors as well as the low pile rugs. So far it hasn’t gotten caught on a few obstacles my old one would routinely get stuck on. Definitely an upgrade. I did have a bit of a headache getting it connected to the wifi using the app. After trying several attempts where it just kept searching for the Roomba but never found it I eventually did a factory reset holding the spot and home buttons which corrected the issue and then it connected without a problem. Be sure you are connecting to the 2.4 GHz band instead of the five with your phone doing the “easy” set up since you probably automatically connect to five on your phone. If you have a pet, a robot vacuum is a must, it makes it so easy to keep clean. The dustbin isn’t huge but that’s just the nature of the beast, be sure to dump it since you can’t do that remotely. Love my Roomba.

But I don’t recommend for pet owners. Get a different roller brush if you have lots of hair.

I am new to Roomba but I am forever a fan. It has made my household chores a breeze. I love that it is able to sweep and vacuum under my bed. I love the scheduling feature and it’s capabilities to connect to my Echo. It is by far one of my best purchases.

Great gift

This product has been great for getting dust under our furniture! It picks up dropped hamster bedding well. It worked well on small amounts of fine sand from the beach and grit carried in from the garage. The amount of dust removed from beneath our king size bed was impressive. Once you get wires off the ground the product can safely be run without much supervision. I run it downstairs for around an hour then I can pick it up and run it upstairs. I just pick it up and carry it back downstairs and then press the return button on my phone. The station is kept on the main floor. The phone app is nice but Ive also just run it without the app. It has a sensor so that it won’t fall down the stairs. I have been careful to keep the bottom brushes free of hair. I perform maintenance by pulling out long hairs from the unit every other cleaning to prolong the life of the brushes. Very pleased with this product, however the next one I might splurge on a more efficient mapped system.

It picks up a lot, It sometimes fails to return to the charger, or pushes the charger around instead of hooking up to it. It gets stuck on our Ikea chairs and on power cords, so I cant just let it do its thing. I wish I could program it to avoid the chairs. It seems to move about randomly instead of in a grid or in some logical order. This means that it repeats the same areas instead of covering more areas, so it doesnt always get every spot. It has become a game where we stand in its way to get it to turn away from the chairs. Picks up pine needles, pet hair and leaves well.

I tried 5 different rooms and countless furniture configurations. The only conclusion I can come to is the vacuum is now obsessed with figuring out how to get stuck. It seems once it learns how to get stuck it will go to that location over and over. I’ll watch it pound over and over to wedge itself under a chair. It will bump into obstacle, turn to wide open floor, stop, and turn back to the obstacle then proceed to bang at it for several minutes. Do you have table and chairs? Thats it’s favorite place to get stuck. It will move chairs to lock itself in. Quite impressive. My last hope was a room that has a 2 step drop to another room. The first time it handled “the Cliff” really well, couple of quick tests and moved on. Second time, directly to the cliff, stuck, third same, 4th same. I’m done. Waste of money.

Here are a few tips if youre thinking about getting a Roomba (which you should!) 1. Wait until Prime Day or an equivalent sale. I bought this model for $220 (tax included). If you live in the Seattle area, watch out for the Amazon deals - Amazon vans will park random places for one day only to offload products at a steep discount. The Roomba is a regular for that rotation - Ive seen this model sold for $140. 2. Do not buy cheap knockoff versions for replacement parts on Amazon. Buy only iRobot products (from them directly if possible). There are a lot of versions of fake products from Chinese companies sold on Amazon. These parts are crappy and could impact the performance / lifetime of your Roomba. One example of that is the replacement air filters. The cheaper versions do not seal correctly, so dust gets into the small cracks and other mechanisms within the machine. Replacing your vaccum will cost a lot more than a $10 air filter. 3. Clean your air filter with a toothbrush after each use to reduce the clog of dust. Replace the filter every 3 months. 4. Do a deep cleaning of your Roomba every 6 months. Use a mini flathead and a small phillips to take off the front cover (youll need to take off the small, yellow spinning brush first using the small flathead). Be careful because the threads of the tiny screw are mounted in plastic casing. Very easy to strip. Clean out all the hair around the small screw that attaches the spinning brush (after 6 months, this can cause the brush to stop spinning - 90% of the time, its just hair - side note - this motor is also replacable for only $15 on the iRobot website). Ive noticed a fair amount of negative reviews discussing the shelf life of Roombas. People are making comments like My cats killed our Roomba etc. Id like to set the record straight for this awesome company. Basically, in life, you cant get things for free. You cant expect your car, for instance, to function well over time without regular maintainence. Most people hate car maintanance, so it has become widely accepted for most people to pay someone to fix / clean their car. And, for most people this makes a lot of sense. Wed rather spend our time doing other things besides changing the oil, checking the tires, checking the radiator, maintaining the engine and so on. For vaccums, the mechanics are much less complex than a car. However, they still incur a ton of wear and tear like dirt, cat hair, female hair, dust, and eveything else that lands on the floor. Over time, even the best vaccum will break or need repairs if it is not well maintained. In the old days, we had vaccum repair shops because people hated working on their vaccums. Then, everything possible became automated and outsourced. We could have Roomba repair shops that cost $30 to do a tune up of your Roomba. People would probably pay it. But, rest assured, the same people complaining about paying for that would be the same people who complained about the amazing Roomba - the vaccum that does its job with very little work from the human. The only thing is doesnt do well is clean itself. What we need is a cat Roomba. My closing thought is this one. Spend one hour every three months maintaining your Roomba, and you will save yourself 50+ hours a year (a whole work week) of vaccuming. Thats very simple math, but it will require some effort on the part of the human. I purchased mine on Prime Day 8 months ago. I did my first deep clean (along with the regular air filter cleaning with each use) and she is gently purring like the first day I discovered her :-). I do not own securities in iRobot or work for them. This review is completely of my own writing.

Like the quietness and schedule function. Bernard Rooba has helped me get rid of some clutter before operating because I don’t want him to get hung up. Still learning to use. Wish I had gotten the one that mops also.