iRobot Roomba 780 Vacuum Cleaning Robot for Pets and Allergies
Glen Chesnut • 11 years ago
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iRobot Roomba 780
The iRobot Roomba 780 vacuum cleaning robot removes up to 98% of dirt, dust and pet hair – on its own – at the touch of a button. Using iAdapt™ Responsive Cleaning Technology, the robot thoroughly vacuums the entire floor, including hard-to-reach spots under furniture.
Roomba 780 is loaded with the latest technology and features. Roomba’s Dual HEPA air filters stop fine dust from circulating in your home, leaving behind fresh air. The robot’s Dirt Detect™ Series 2 technology finds the dirtiest areas and performs concentrated cleaning in them to ensure the whole floor is thoroughly clean. Room-to-room navigation is possible with the included Virtual Wall® Lighthouses™, which confine Roomba to methodically clean one room at a time, allowing the robot to move to the next room when finished. And there’s never any guesswork; Roomba lets you know when the dust bin is full and needs to be emptied. Plus, with Roomba’s on-board scheduling, the robot cleans when it’s most convenient for you, even when you’re not home. The state-of-the-art touchpad gives you control of the robot at the touch of your fingertips, making it fast and easy use.
This model includes a 12 month limited warranty for the robot and a 6 month limited warranty for the included battery.
Product Features
- It uses a new advanced cleaning head which provides superior performance for picking up pet hair, dirt, dust and more
- Dual HEPA filters trap dust, allergens and tiny particulates leaving behind fresh, clean air
- The included infrared remote allows you to control Roomba without getting up
- The robot can be scheduled to perform up to seven cleaning sessions per week, even when you are not home
- It uses sophisticated power management software that results in 50% longer battery life than previous Roomba generations
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Top of the line from Roomba The 780 is the top of the line Roomba robotic vacuum and comes with all the bells the whistles. Questions that might be asked are:1)Is a Roomba right for me?2)Should I go for the 780 over the 760 or 770?Let me address question (1) first: Is the Roomba right for me? My thoughts on the Roomba are this. It is a great little automatic vacuum/duster but it isn’t perfect. Here are the pros and cons as I see them:Pros:* It’s an automated vacuum. Seriously, how awesome is that? Who wants to spend a morning vacuuming when they can just let loose the tiny ‘bot and go do other things? Not me.* Adaptive logic. The brain behind how it gets every space covered.* Programmable. iRobot encourages tech-heads to program their Roombas to get the most out of it though I haven’t and I don’t think it is essential.* Date and time functions. You can program when you want the little bot to run it’s cleaning cycle.Cons:* Small dust bin. The dust bin was reading full after vacuuming one small carpeted room before even completing its cleaning cycle.* Not really truly set and forget – just like regular vacuuming, you need to prepare the room. Think of the things you normally move around when vacuuming so you can get behind furniture or other objects. You need to pre-move everything. Do doors stay open so the Roomba can go from room to room or do you close them to get behind them and set the Roomba in each room individually?* Lots of maintenance – it says you need to de-hairs the sweeper rollers after every 3 – THREE – uses. Is that something you normally do for your big vac?* Small replaceable filters – no bag means the filters will get dirtier faster and will need to be replaced more often.* Deep cleaning – I guess I just don’t see the little vac giving that “deep” clean that a full size unit can deliver.Best uses:For me, I use my Roomba as a excellent little automated duster for our hard floors. It really helps in keeping those pesky dust bunnies in check though I still need to get the swiffer out to get underneath dressers and such.Model Selection:The 780 is truly gorgeous. With the touch controls and finish it looks as good as any Apple product IMHO, a beautiful complement to any modern deco home.780 vs 770 vs. 760.All have HEPA filters and the same cleaning mechanism. The 770 and 780 have improved dust detection through added sensors and the 780 inlcudes 2 light towers to help with room to room navigation and touch controls versus buttons. Additionally my 780 came with cleaning tools for the spin brush and rollers as well as an extra set of rollers/spin brush and hepa filters.Summary:The Roomba is a great added tool to keeping my house clean but I am not sure I could rely on it alone to get the job done.Edit: 7/24/12Usage update: I’ve found that if I leave the Roomba unused for an extended period of time, say 2 weeks, then I run the risk of having to reset the unit. This is just weird and possibly a software glitch which I’m not sure of how to update.Secondly, and neat way to prolong the life of those mini-filters? I vacuum them with my big vac and bang, they’re back looking fresh.
An effective vacum cleaner but has room to improve I have Roomba 780 and Mint 5200. I have used both for more than half year. Here are my experiences:Roomba 780 is very easy to use. Push start button, it goes. It can vacuum a room without using virtual wall or lighthouse. But if you want to run it in a specific area, virtual wall works like a closed door or wall. Roomba will not pass virtual wall. If you want to vacuum multiple rooms at once, placing lighthouse at different area will virtually divide the area into subareas. Roomba will first finish the 1st area, then move onto the next one.Pro’s:- It is great that you can program the date/time you want it to run.- It starts by itself at the programed date/time and goes back to the charging dock automatically after cleaning.- It vacuums the room effectively. Hair, bread crumbs all get sucked into the vacuum. Recently, I had my windows installed. After the installers vacuumed the room w/ their professional vacuum and I using my Miele, I ran Roomba for another round of vacuuming. I was very pleased to see that Roomba got a lot of debris out of the shag carpet.- Good battery power to vacuum a large area.Con’s:- Noisy. I find it painful to run it while I am home.- Navigation is not as sophisticated and effective as Mint 5200. It repeatedly gets stuck at some tight corners or passages, and needs to be removed. This is a problem if you are not home. Worse, when you come home, you have no idea how much it has cleaned before it got stuck.- The bin is small and is full after each daily run in my townhouse (I’ve no pets, but have a few rugs). It is a bit of work (about 5 minutes) to empty the bin, remove hair from the brush and beater brush, wheel, and remove dust from hepa filters. (Hepa filters are very small and need to be replaced frequently, minimum every 2-3 months)- Roomba takes very long time to vacuum an area by repeatedly going over it: 25 min for my kitchen 15ft x 8ft, about 1 hr for my living rm 22×22. The upside is that the area is well vacuumed, the downside is the number of hours of noise I have to endure and the wear and tear to the surface.- Light house is a good concept to vacuum multiple areas automatically. However, the light house allocates 25 min. to each area regardless of the area size. So both my kitchen and living room get 25 min. This does not sound smart. I no longer use light house anymore. So, if you don’t intend to use lighthouse function, Roomba 760 is a better value ($150 cheaper). It comes with 2 virtual walls (no lighthouse option). Everything else is pretty much the same.- The biggest downside for me is that it is pretty rough to the surface although its brush is very soft. Here is how it shows: 1) a short pile wool rug in the living rm: a lot of fine wool fiber in the bin after the vacuum; 2) shag carpeted bedroom: each time, a few threads were pulled out; 3) a woven wool rug in the office: wool threads were pulled out from the fringe, now the rug needs repair: 4) a GelPro mat in the kitchen: the edge has shown some wear and tear.Because of its noise and roughness on rug/carpet, I don’t use Roomba frequently. Mint 5200 is my preference for weekly floor cleaning. However, I am happy to have Roomba when I need to do some heavy duty vacuuming.Some tips:- More on light house: as said, the light house will allocate 20-25 min. to one area, then Roomba will move onto the next area and take whatever time needed to finish the 2nd area. As I wanted to limit the time Roomba spend on a relatively small room, I decided to use light house AND close the door (as I don’t want Roomba to vacuum the next area), thinking that Roomba would spend 20 min. to finish the room. Wrong! Because if Roomba has nowhere to go after finishing 1st area due to the closed door, Roomba will continue vacuum the 1st area until its battery is drained. I couldn’t understand it until I talked to the customer service.- Hepa filter: I confirmed with the customer service that it is ok to rinse the Hepa to keep it clean. One just need to make sure that it is dried out before putting it back into the bin.