Bob is here! Or DJ Bob, as Avery likes to call him. She watches too much Park and Rec. Here is DJ Rhooma, basically Tom puts an iPod on top of the vacuum and it plays music while it cleans (which is awesome).
Bob has been here less than 24 hours and has already given us so much joy! It's funny I just said that, but when you have dogs that shed constantly, a big house and lots of hard floors, to have a robot do a job like vacuuming for you, it's simply heavenly.
Here is Bob in real life.
I had so many people ask me about a review so here it is......
Here is Bob in real life.
I have never seen or used another robot vacuum so my review is based completely on this one. I bought Bob on Groupon for $179.99. It was more than the regular one that was $159.99 because we opted for the Pet Hair 4-1 sweeper and mop combo. Bob arrived with an adorable adoption card with his name, birthday, weight and height, which I thought was weird because you oddly do start to talk about him like he's another family member. (This is when my dad would jokingly add, it's because he's going to rise up and gain self awareness and take over us all!)
Bob comes with a charging station, an extra rotating brush, two sweeper arms, two mop cloths and a remote control. He came charged enough to use him last night and we had a laugh watching him roam around the house! We purposely didn't sweep for a few days before his arrival because we wanted to see him in action.
Bob comes with a charging station, an extra rotating brush, two sweeper arms, two mop cloths and a remote control. He came charged enough to use him last night and we had a laugh watching him roam around the house! We purposely didn't sweep for a few days before his arrival because we wanted to see him in action.
Bob has several modes: Auto, Spot and Wall Cleaning. In Auto, it would rotate between other modes. Spot cleaning will do just that, spot clean, and it basically goes in a spiral, going in circles in a room until it gets stopped by an obstacles. Wall cleaning, which I love the best because our dog hair seems to always travel to the wall, is what we have used most often. Basically, it just travels along whatever wall it finds. You can set it on quick clean, which is 15 minutes, longer clean at 30 minutes or it can just go until it runs down on battery and then it will dock on the charging station. You can set it to the day and time you want it to vacuum or you can set it to run until it needs charging, then as soon as it fully charges, it will go out again, so basically, continuous vacuuming. We figured this out because last night, around 1 am, Bob charged completely and started vacuuming, scaring us nearly to death. We realized we had it set on this setting and it made us laugh out loud, after we figured out it wasn't trying to kill us in our sleep. On the remote, you actually have controls so you can switch between modes or control using arrows, kind of like a remote control car. Fully charged, it did my entire house, and that's saying a lot because my house is around 4,000 square feet and I now only have one room with carpet, so it can go for a very long time and clean a very large area. Usually, I don't vacuum every day, so when I do, I fill an entire vacuum chamber up more than once, so I was worried about how much hair it could gather, but then I realized that if it gets done every day or even twice a day, it won't need to hold so much hair. That said, with all of the dogs and their size and how much they shed, we seem to fill it up with one sweep around the house each day. And yuck.
Onto the cleaning - once you figure out how to make him work best for your house, he cleans very well. At first, when you watch him, he will clean the same around over and over again but then you realize he's trying to learn his boundaries so you just kind of let him do his thing. We just followed him around last night, but then this morning, while we were eating breakfast, he was just back vacuuming while we were eating and for some reason, it made the meal so much more flavorful. Lol! It got every corner and even under chairs and beds, so it did a better job that I would have. I haven't used the mop feature yet, but I am going to say it's going to work more like a Swiffer, in that it will vacuum and dust the floor, not really mop it. You can wet the pad, and I'm sure it will get up more dirt that way, but I'm still going to have to steam clean my floors for really grit and dirt cleaning. I'm OK with that, if I only have to do that sporadically and Bob does the more frequent jobs, he's making my life easier.
Bob will bump into things occasionally - most of the time he sees an obstacle and stops, but sometimes, he just straight runs into it. He does come with bumper pads in case you have valuable furniture that doesn't need knicking, but it's not like he weighs a ton or is going at high speeds, so even when he bumps, it's not that hard. But I did like that he comes with pads in case you wanted to protect your pieces.
Bob did go on our carpet and rugs and I'm not sure he's really meant for that, but he did vacuum. It's not the strength a regular vacuum would use, so I think Bob is more of a sweeper of hard floors than a vacuum of carpet. If you have a lot of carpet in your house, this product might not be for you, there might be another robotic vacuum that works better.
Watching him find the docking station is my kids' highest joy, as when it's time, he shuts himself into charging mode and tries to find his home. It's all based on waves similar to that of your remote and TV so it has to make a connection before he'll find it, so he'll just search until he sees them, then load himself right up and start charging.
So- I recommend this product for people who have hard woods and who keep their house relatively tidy. If your house is full of small toys or stuff everywhere, he won't be able to do much good. Now, you can set him to vacuum as often as you'd like, so if you know he'll vacuum every other day, you just need to have all obstacles out of his way to do so. Cords, dog beds, toys, clothes - all of that needs to be gone for him to do a good job. We have him set every morning at 10 am, which will help us each day make sure the kids rooms are clean and stuff is off the floor. He also can't get in between certain tight spaces, so there will still be vacuuming you have to do, say, if your furniture is closer together in spots.
All in all - this is so worth the money I spent. Aside from a housekeeper, this product is going to save me several hours of work a month and the anxiety of seeing puffs of hair all over my floor. I highly recommend!!
Here is a couple videos of Bob in action and switching between his modes. Enjoy!
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