Move over and Make Room for Roomba
iRobot's Roomba vacuum is a great gift for pet owners, busy moms, and anyone tired of cleaning up messes
My dream gift, for myself, is the Roomba. After a busy day of getting the kids to and from school, working, food shopping, doing laundry, and making meals, the very last thing I want to do is clean the floor. I keep hoping somebody will discover a way for me to clone myself. But until that day, the folks at iRobot (makers of Roomba) have done the next best thing by creating what is, essentially, a robot that vacuums.
Remember Rosie from the Jetsons?
The Roomba isn't quite up to Rosie, but it's the closest thing available on the commercial market today. At the literal touch of a button, the Roomba cleans both carpets and hard floors, self-adjusting automatically. It senses stairs and drop-offs, and changes direction so it doesn't fall. Likewise, it senses walls and furniture, lightly touching them and then turning to go another way.
Its side brushes clean baseboards and corners--the places that many of us mere mortal cleaners often miss or can't be bothered with. I especially love the Spot Clean feature that gives more attention to spills and areas with more dirt than usual. Roomba increases its vacuuming intensity and its cleaning pattern to ensure all of the dirt is picked up. I can imagine Rosie doing that!
Roomba automatically returns to its Home Base docking/charging station when its battery is running low or between cleaning cycles. Most of the Roomba models need a mere three hours to charge. An onboard scheduling function lets you program the Roomba to start cleaning at up to seven preset times--imagine waking up or coming home to a house that's just been cleaned!
The Roomba is available at many different price levels, ranging from the base Roomba 400 model, through the 500 series and special Pet versions, to the 600 Professional series. They all share the main features that make Roomba great, and then include additional accessories like a high capacity sweeper bin and wireless command center.
Some of the models come with what iRobot calls Virtual Wall Lighthouses. These little sentries stand at the entrance to a room and use infrared beams to either keep Roomba in the room until it is completely clean, or block Roomba from entering an off-limits room. You'd probably want to put a Lighthouse outside your teenager's room since piles of dirty clothes are too large even for the high capacity sweeper bin!
Come to think of it, you probably want one of these handy Lighthouses to just keep your teenager in their room until THEY clean it. Yes, the Roomba is definitely one nifty gift idea.