Yes, you read that right. I wanted to save my dear wife some time so she didn’t have so much to do everyday, and the thought came to me to look for one of those fan-dangled robot vacuums. Well I have heard some good things about them and some not so good things and so I decided to do some research. I looked at a bunch of reviews and read up on what laid behind the technology. This I read at CNet, it’s review was unbiased and full of ups and downs.

Long exposure photo showing path taken by a Roomba as it cleans.

I was thrilled when I heard about iRobot’s new robotic vacuum cleaner, the Roomba Discovery. I’d just returned from a two-week vacation, during which my cats had apparently entered some kind of preternatural fur-shedding state and done their best to transform my apartment into a small-scale replica of the Bronx Zoo. A robot that could handle the results was exactly what I wanted. The Roomba Discovery and slightly larger Discovery SE are iRobot’s second generation of robotic vacuum cleaners. The attractively designed discs, each roughly 1 foot in diameter, rise only about 3 inches off the floor so that they can slip easily under furniture and other objects that you’d have to move if you were using a regular vacuum cleaner. They each come with a docking station that attaches to a 3-hour charger, as well as a wall mount, a remote control, a supply of replacement filters, and the tools needed to clean the vacuum brushes. Also included are two Virtual Wall units, which you can set up in doorways to restrict the Discovery’s activity to a particular room. Here’s how my mother taught me to vacuum a room: Push the vacuum back and forth in slightly overlapping rows until you’ve covered the whole floor, then put an attachment on it and vacuum the furniture and any tight spots on the floor. This straightforward approach has always worked pretty well for me, but it turns out to be much too rudimentary for the artificial intelligence whizzes over at iRobot. Long before the iRobot engineers were in the vacuum cleaner business, they were making minesweepers, which explains why they equipped the Roomba line with algorithms designed for clearing battlefields.

I also read about fifty reviews and found the product received a good 3.5 out of 5 rating from the editors and a 3 out of 5 rating from consumers. After using it for two days, I must say it exceeds anything I thought about it.

I suggest if you detest vacuuming as most of us do, then check this out. I bought ours off of Craig’s List for next to nothing, and it has made our day watching this robot work and then when it’s done, it goes back to its little home and charges itself. Unbelievable!