Robot Vacuum - Do you use one? Which One

I have stairs. I'm the robot vacuum.

Cleaning my home is a meditative joy that I would rather not give up.

Well, all vaccumes avoid the stairs, they all have "drop" sensors. For my garage, that I need only clean occasionally, I just walk the robot down three steps and let it loose. I think robots are great at cleaning garages and basements, they root around like little-piggies finding dirt, dust and dried out bug husks.

If I'm walking the robot down the stairs, I might as well do the job myself.

I've had an older Neato Botvac (2016 model I think) for a couple of years now which I bought used from a relative. It often gets stuck on my couch legs and underneath my TV stand. Sometimes I come home to find it beeping in the middle of the room with a "I'm stuck" message and with no obvious obstructions anywhere around.

Even with all the bugs and quirks it's been pretty great and has kept my apartment nice and tidy. When I was still working from an office I'd set it up to run every day. Now I only run it about twice a week and on top of that I just need to lightly de-dust counter-tops and shelves maybe once a week and manually vacuum the few nooks the robot can't quite reach every now and then.

EDIT: Oh, also the battery on the Neato seems to be faltering at this point. The battery life is down to around 40 minutes now and it doesn't always complete cleaning the whole apartment by that point. Luckily the vacuum is able to go back to the charging dock when the battery is running low and resume cleaning from where it left off once fully charged. I've looked online and replacing the battery seems pretty cheap and easy.

Only a very small part of my current house is carpeted, and we just replaced our old nasty vacuum with a (hopefully) decent one. That was expensive enough, and including room learning that the home company can use to build a picture of my livingroom will add £££ to a cost that I just don't see the benefit of.

@isomeri: I was lucky in taht most of my furnature was high enough for my vaccums to roll under, and just my sofa was too low but enough to block it. In my new apartment ther are cut out below teh radiost that 30% of the time catches a wheel. I will shim that up.

It is a bit socking how much dirt, hair, and cumbs a robot will pick up. I bought my mom an inexpsive Eufy model; I wish she would use it more or at least let the schedule cleaning happen.

Cleaning my home is a meditative joy that I would rather not give up.

Just purchased a new RoboRock S7+. It has a self-emptying dock which I like because the first floor of the house I live in (I don't own it, it’s a co-living arrangement with two roommates) is huge. I live on the first floor which has the kitchen, common living room, office, guest toilet, coat/utility room, and my bedroom w/ ensuite. So, the robot vacuums and mops most of that floor each day of the week. That takes between 110 to 124 minutes and covers 101 sq. meters. Weekend it as smaller cleaning area and the coat/utility room which I skip on weekdays.

I like the mopping action, it keeps the floors highly polished looking, and its sense carpet to lift the mop - so it vacuums and mops hard floors and only vacuums carpets. All I have to do is cleaning the counter tops, my own kitchen appliances, and dishes each day; not having to sweep-up or mop is so nice. At $950, the roborock S7+ Robot with the Self-Empty Dock, is pricey for sure. However, it keep my part of the house spotless even with my cat.

If I could not afford this one, I have I would have opted a roborock that just vacuums. A Swiffer wet mop can do the same job as the robot, just with my own effort. Doing my whole floor with a Swiffer would take three pads and 12 minutes, so I'm glad I would this model. The S7+ mopping every day where I just have to fill the tank and 'freshen it up' the mop pad is 1000x easier.

If I had money to burn I would have bought the $1,400 model that cleans and refills the mop on the dock....truly no touch for 30 days. In addition, that $450 makes the roborock a robot attendant, to remote view in your house and talk through the robot. It charges faster and vacuums with more power too. Those are very nice features but I don't need them.