Mmm Bop, Got My Robot

I ordered a refurbished Roomba from www.woot.com a couple of weeks ago, it shipped, and I tried it out. I must say I was pretty impressed. This thing will not replace vacuuming on a regular basis, but will help keep things a little less cruddy in between. With three cats, and all hard surfaced floors (wood and tile), there was always constant tumbleweeds of cat hair drifting about the place (minus the western whistle theme from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly). Problem solved.

I haven't scheduled my Roomba to run at a certain time. For the time being, I just turn it on and let it do it's thing. It did everything the Husband said it wouldn't (I love being right, hehe). It can go from wood to tile and back again, so it makes it up and down thresholds. It can go from hard surface onto area rugs. It also stops itself from going down the steps. It gets itself unstuck from obstacles. It even goes back to the charging dock when it's done. Oh, and it's got a remote, so you can drive it like one of those remote control cars if you want. Now how cool is that?

I need to work this thing a little bit more, testing its limitations and maybe trying out scheduled runs. The cats seem to like it. They all stay on the edge of the room, watching the thing go. If it gets too close, Nico and Sasha run away, but they always come back. Tayshaun wasn't paying attention one time, had his back to the Roomba (his first mistake, I guess), and got his tail run over a bit. That was pretty funny. So the Roomba provides a cleaning service AND entertainment. Who knew?

So far my review of the Roomba is that it's great. It exceeded all of the Husband's expectations and definitely met mine. Not a bad little investment.