Shiny Review: Roomba robot vacuum

We sent the Roomba from iRobot away to live with our editor, Katie Lee, for a few months. Here's how the two of them got on.

The Roomba, or "Roombie" as I now affectionately call it, but not in a crazy cat lady way. Well, OK, Sort of in a crazy cat lady way. But I'm seeking help. Anyway, the Roomba is a robot that cleans your floor for you. Now, this may not be the sexiest raison d'etre a robot's ever been handed, but the fact is, only insane people sincerely enjoy doing the housework, and this little fella's more than happy to do it for you. Built, as all vacuuming robots are, to faintly resemble a scarab beetle, the Roomba is smaller than you think. It's also nippier than I imagined, whipping round the room with a sense of purpose that I could never muster.

As far as I'm aware, it's the cheapest robot vacuum on the market, coming in at just over £200. Because of this, the Roomba isn't as advanced as some of its counterparts, relying on a more random movement about your floors. Sad to say, I've sat and watched this thing trundling about the place for more time than I'm willing to admit (it is faintly hypnotic to observe) and it does do a really thorough job - certainly more thorough than the job I was (rarely) doing. It does have a bit of trouble with the more oddly shaped corners, but apart from that it does an admirable job of navigating rooms and it's also surprisingly quiet. For best results you'll need to move things like chairs, bins, shoes etc out the way. Roombie's not averse to pushing lightweight objects about or walking off with the cables for your iPod so you'll need to clear clutter before unleashing it.

Once you've cleared the way, you can pretty much leave the Roomba to get on with it. It will play a little sad tune if it gets stuck for any reason and is usually good at getting itself out of scrapes. You can do "Spot" cleaning of specific areas if you spill something, and the remote control means you can sit on the sofa and drive it around the place at your behest.

Before the Roomba came into my life I was reliant on a (to be fair, rather knackered) Dyson. It was cylinder, rather than upright (so not as powerful as the flagship models) and the Roomba has kicked its see-through plastic backside. Dyson is being put out to pasture. No wonder it never got given a cute nickname. The only thing Roombie's struggled to pick up are big bits of paper and larger detritus, but it turns out you're supposed to pick that sort of rubbish up yourself anyway. Who knew?

When it comes to cleaning it, the Roomba doesn't have a large amount of space to store grot, so you'll need to empty it out regularly. This is quite a messy job, but it's also pretty quick and easy. I do seem to spend a lot of time cutting off the hair that's wound itself round the brushes, but that's the price you pay for having long hair - and at least the Roomba actually picks it up, unlike the Dyson.

There's no way I'd go back to life without the Roomba. It does a supreme job of keeping my flat clean. (Flat being the operative word, however - house dwellers might be less impressed with a cleaner that doesn't like doing the stairs). Extremely zealous types might like to keep hold of a normal vac for times when Roombie struggles with the hard to reach areas just in case, but there really isn't a huge need. From now on, it's just me and Roombie.

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