Furious four, New bot

by Duf Anything and Everything

Last night I opened up my new floor vacuuming robot.  If you know me, you know I have had a robotic vacuum for a long, long time, dating back to the original Roomba which was probably around 15 years ago.  My current stable of robots included a Neato XV, a Samsung Powerbot, and a Deebot.  The Neato XV is my oldest robot and ironically probably still does the best all around job on the floors.  However it’s battery is going bad and it’s brush motor started making a noise that I could not easily identify.

I got a Sam’s catalog a couple weeks ago that identified a sweet deal on the base model Roomba, knocking 40% off it’s normal $299 price.  It was an online only deal that only was good last weekend.  I made a special reminder to buy it, which I did.  Since I am a pro at robo-vacuums, set up of the Roomba took only 5-10 minutes.  I let it fully charge and then let it loose on the house.

Unlike my other three vacuums which have a “vision” system which allows them to clean in a very methodical manner, the Roomba still utilizes it’s random bounce around behavior.  It does not see the room, it just keeps bouncing around in a manner which hopefully covers everything.  They did add a proximity sensor at least so if it is about to hit a wall or an object the sensor detects it so the bot just does a soft kiss instead of a harsh collision. I let the Roomba do a full run.  It’s dust bin was stuffed afterward, despite me running the other bots a couple times a week.  I originally thought I would recycle the Neato but the brush motor noise went away so I guess I will be a four robot home for at least the time being.

I am on the cusp of what will be a full four day weekend.  My plan is to get the worst task done first, which is always my preference when given a choice.  I will be pressure washing the inside and outside of the pool cage, the deck, and anything else I have energy reserves left over for.  The other three days will have smaller, less pain invoking things on the agenda.  I do want to see Shang Chi this weekend since it comes out on Disney Plus Friday.  The chickens were very happy when I told them they could sleep in the next four days.