iRobot Roomba Automatic Vacuum Cleaner - Clean Your Home Automatically
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2015-05-07
·
1,983 words · ~9 min read
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so this isn't exactly The Cutting Edge latest technology I mean the first
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Roomba was introduced in 2002 and it's
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now 2015 meaning I'm about 13 years late
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to the party but I'm not convinced that everyone who is interested in a Roomba
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already has one so this video is for people like me who put off trying one
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for years because they saw the price of
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what on the surface frankly looks like a silly Gadget compared to similar priced
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Central Vac or portable vacuum cleaning systems from known Brands like Hoover
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and Electrolux and just didn't have the stomach for it until now welcome to my
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thoughts on owning the iroot Roomba 595 pet Edition now that I've had it for a
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few months and if cleaning supplies aren't interesting to you don't worry I
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think we've got something that is who makes the best PC stock cooler Intel or
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AMD we'll find out but first this
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so you can save on Intel 730 series ssds with instant rebates during president's
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week February 22nd to March 1st 2015 click on my face to learn more now most
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roombas have pretty similar features give or take some Advanced doodads here
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or there so while the actual model that I got was a fairly obscure Costco
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exclusive one here in Canada anyway most of what I'm saying will apply to all
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modern fourth generation roombas in general except with like some extra bits
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here and there so in the Box you get the Roomba itself a base station with an AC
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power cord two virtual wallo dads um
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this little red cleaning tool thing for the brushes and another one a couple
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extras each of the side brushes filters bristle brushes and beater brushes the
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last one just in case you can't find a broom in the big quidditch match is
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coming up next Saturday anyway bad jokes aside the accessory package is actually
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overall outstanding and even though Roomba is definitely going to bleed you
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dry on overpriced Replacements through their store in the long run at least
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they have the decency to keep you up and running for a reasonable period of time
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before that becomes necessary and they offer some pretty tangible upgrade
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options as well if you're looking to get a bit more performance or battery life
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out of your device and of course third party options are out there if you want
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to save a few bucks all right so let's do a quick tour of the device itself
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these have come a long way since even the demos that I saw in my first year
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attending CES back in the late 2000s on
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the top is all the controls that you'll need buttons to set up scheduling that's
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a cool feature of this particular pet friendly Model A spot button for when
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you don't need to clean a whole room but you just want to do a deep clean in a
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particular isolated spot a dock button to tell it to go dock itself to its
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charging station a clean button which should be pretty self-explanatory it
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sprays water out the top of the unit Beday style and you kind of squat over
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it to no that's not what happens it starts a cleaning cycle for the Roomba
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to go around the I mean did you really believe that man I should come up with some other nonsense to tell you how
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about this one the dirt detect light illuminates to tell you the Roomba
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detected dirt wait that that's actually what that does it cleans a little
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heavier when it detects dirt or something hitting some kind of sensor
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cool also on the top is the big red button to access the replace filter and
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to dump out the dirt canister there are speaker holes for the tones that the
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Roomba uses along with the error code display to tell you stuff like hey I'm
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done hey I'm getting started hey charge the bloom and Battery you fart lad uh
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much more politely than that of course at the front we find the infrared sensor
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for the virtual wall units that sends out beams telling the Ruma not to cross
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them though frankly my wife found it was less work to close doors or find some
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random boxes to put in its way than to use these as as well as a physical
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bumper that tells the Roomba when it's hit a wall or other solid object then if
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we flip it over there are four infrared sensors for Edge detection to keep your
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fancy Gadget from flinging itself over a cliff like the rest of the Lemmings and
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while we're down here there are the charging contacts a Caster wheel the
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little brush that is needed to grab debris away from the edges around walls
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and Corners thanks to the roomba's round shape a couple super grippy Drive wheels
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and the beater and brush spinning pieces that are actually responsible for
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removing hair and dirt from the floor to be sucked up but that's all fine and
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good in theory how well does the darn thing work great question in some
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respects really well in spite of all the drop offs in my house the Roomba has
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never fallen down for me and it does anywhere from an 80 to 90% job of
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cleaning most of the hallways and rooms in my house it's actually a very
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impressive little piece of technology but there are some drawbacks to the
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experience as well the preparation for rooming is a bit more involved than just
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kind of grabbing a hose and then like going to town going under things and all
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that kind of stuff you got to set up your barricades position it then come
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back to it when it's ready for the next task that and the roomba's approach to
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room cleaning especially if your rooms contain a lot of furniture and other
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obstacles feels a touch on the random side and even though it actually
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eventually seems to get pretty good coverage it takes a really long time
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much longer than it would take you to do it yourself manually but lonus I think
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you're missing the point you don't have to be actively vacuuming so that's where
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the time savings comes in and yeah it is but there are some other things that
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weigh into it for me I mean for one thing the noise of the room it makes is kind of annoying not as bad as a as a
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standalone vacuum cleaner but having it running for extended periods of time
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does bother especially my cats and for another the darn thing gets stuck on or
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fails to clean enough things in my house like this black bordered rug that it
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refuses to go onto but won't stay inside
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if I start on top of it that I have to check on the Roomba periodically and so
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while I can do other things while it's cleaning I can't go too far away or
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it'll often end up sitting there doing nothing it also requires some things
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that my central vacuum system doesn't more upkeep as far as replacement parts
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is concerned very frequent emptying of the Dust chamber about once per room
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charging so it can be used only for about one or two rooms per charge before
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you either have to pick up your base station and put it in the roomat
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cleaning so that it can dock to it when it's done something that's a bit of a pain since the cord for it is so bulky
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and actually kind of gets in the way of cleaning near the station or pick the
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Roomba up and take it back to the base station but I guess the bottom line is
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this am I going to keep it I paid for it am I going to keep it and continue to
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use it or not and the answer is that while the price tag for what is
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effectively a cleaning accessory that does not replace a normal vacuum is um
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pretty high and I'm not actually the ideal customer for the Roomba folks with
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smaller single story dwellings with fewer obstacles or this Baby's
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wheelhouse since it can't clean things like uh a sunken living room or stairs
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um and it's just kind of set and forget um I still plan to continue to use it
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and I do plan to keep it I mean if the whole house needs to be cleaned it is
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still more efficient to just grab a vacuum and do it properly uh it'll be
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more thorough and you know it that needs to be done periodically anyway just to
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get under things like tables that the Roomba can't access but the thing about
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the Roomba is that if you make it part of your daily habit it definitely does a
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great job of dramatically decreasing the
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required frequency of proper cleanings as long as you're willing to accept a
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few plant casualties along the way
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speaking of plant casualties xplit that live streaming software that we use for
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our weekly video podcast the W show has
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nothing to do with plant casualties they recently released xplit V2 which has
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even more powerful production tools and actually I mean honestly xplit is just
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kind of awesome whether you're a professional streamer a firsttime streamer or even just someone who wants
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to broadcast gaml and to show their friends a few tips and tricks I mean
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honestly we actually even use it just for for screen recording like I set it
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up for my neighbor I totally used my uh I totally used my code which you can
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find in the video description by the way totally used my code downloaded xplit
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for my neighbor because he was watching these he he's taking this online course
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and he had no way to go back and reference the material and I was like oh
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well you can just use this thing and you can record your screen or record webcams
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record whatever you want all at the same time the interface is extremely
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intuitive he's like 60 and he can do it
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so there's that and and it allows all
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kinds of great features you can easily manage guests through Skype you can hook
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it up directly to your games via Game Source if you're a game streamer which
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ensures High Fidelity capture with a minimum performance hit and it even lets
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you easily stream and record your gaming moments with gamecaster which has an
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easy to ous in-game Overlay to manage all of your streaming or recording
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settings so head over to xplit dcom Linus to start streaming and recording
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in HD for free guys like this video if
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you liked it dislike it if you disliked it leave a comment if you're feeling are a little bit more complicated than this
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as always we have links in the video description where you can give us a
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monthly contribution if you love our content you want us to keep making it
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to one with our affiliate code so we get a small Kickback whenever you buy roomzz
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or whatever it is you buy on Amazon and I think that's pretty much it thanks for
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watching and as always don't forget to subscribe
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he