Roomba for dog hair

Yes. Get a robot vacuum. I am always amazed at how much mine picks up and we run it 3-4x a week. I have two dogs and three boys but the dirt hasn't increased with the kids, it's mostly dogs. Prepare to be grossed out at how nasty your carpets/rugs actually are.

Don't buy a Roomba because of name recognition. Do some research because they lost their market dominance about 10 years ago. I have a Neato (actually 2, but only use 1 most of the time). Don't expect it to be a shop-vac, it will only pick up dust and small pieces of dirt. Get an extended warranty, or buy on a credit card that extends the warranty to three years (Amex is the best in my experience, save the receipt). Be prepared to buy batteries every year, Amazon has some knockoffs that are just as good as brand name batteries.

 

We keep the dogs on hardwood floors and tile mostly and the Roomba 675 has been great. The Bobi worked good as well.

I've liked the Roomba more than the Bobi as it is faster (though quite a bit louder), and has been better at finding the charger after doing the entire house minus wife's office and 3rd bedroom which doors stay closed to keep dogs out. For the Bobi, it seemed to work best when we divided up the house into 2-3 sections.

We have it scheduled to run every day in the morning as we get ready. I empty it (every 2-4 days) when I am feeding the dogs as we have charger a few feet away. The sound annoys my wife so she will turn it off if at home. If it gets stuck, and a few days go by without one of us fishing it out from under a bed or couch, I'll run it once, let it charge for 4 hours in one day, and run it again before emptying. It seems to work best (i.e., I don't have to do anything except empty dust bin every 2-4 days) when it runs every day as hair/dust doesn't build up and it has more juice to find charger when done cleaning. We use google home in our living room so it is very easy for us to run it when we are cleaning by voice command.

We haven't hit the one year mark just yet for the "annual" battery change on the Roomba so I am not sure how easy it is (instructions look easy) or if it will last longer. The Bobi was pretty simple, but almost every year.

 

Bobi worked great for being in one or two large rooms with charger. Mine lasted for about 4.5 years and was a 1st generation Bobi. It needed a battery change when we got the Roomba, but would have still been fine for only a couple of large rooms per charge with a new battery. Once the Roomba was doing the entire house, there was never a reason to replace battery in the Bobi.

 

We have a Neato D4 connected. The thing is a life savor. Dog hair / dust, it does a fantastic job. (it has Lidar tech). I'v had mine since Fall 2018. Occasionally you see great sales for these at bestbuy etc. I think I bought this one through google shoping for an additional discount from bestbuy online, and got it for like $170-$240

 

I feel for you, man. My yellow lab sheds hair like crazy and is always doing head/body shakes where hair just flies off. Grooming her feels like a waste of time and doesn’t stop the hair. I have to dust mop the laminate floors and vacuum the tile pretty much daily. And, then when the dog sleeps on the bed, it’s just hair all over the bed spreads and furniture. But, she’s precious so it’s all good.

 

We have a 75 pound blond Labradoodle. She has long, slightly wavy hair that breaks off in long strands. The central AC blows it into little piles here and there. My last Labradoodle, which I saved from the pound in the early 1970's (when the "Labradoodle" name had yet to be invented), didn't shed. Not so lucky with this one, which has every good trait except not shedding.

We bought a previous model Roomba, the 880, about 5 years back and use it all the time. Our daughter, who doesn't drive, asked us to pick one up for her at Bed, Bath and Beyond, which was having a big sale, plus a coupon for another $100 off. Got it for about $350, $250 less than the regular price. Planned to deliver it to the kid the next day, so what the hell? Opened the box and discovered that it had at least half a charge in it and tried it out. We were shocked at how good it was, and while not quiet, it was a heck of a lot quieter than our vacuum. I went back the next day and talked BB&B into giving me the same deal.

Does a terrific job on dog hair. We have hardwood floors with large carpets here and there and the Roomba handles them all like a champ. Goes on and off the carpets without a problem. It's fantastic for vacuuming under beds, assuming it fits, and furniture, again if it fits. We bought little lifts for a couch that needed to be raised about an inch more to let the Roomba get underneath. Came with two "virtual walls" that really work and I wish it had at least one more, but I've never gotten around to buying another. They aren't cheap!

We've had to replace the battery, which was less expensive than I anticipated, and purchase replacement filters, of course. Also need to replace a spinning thingy that wears out, but like the filters, they're cheap. I haven't purchased an aftermarket battery yet, which I might try next time, but the aftermarket filters and spinning things work great. I bought the highest rated ones on Amazon and had no problem with them. Everything is very easy to replace or clean.

The Roomba won't get into corners, of course. If you have carpet, you'll have to use a "real" vacuum from time to time, at least in our experience, but the Roomba cuts down how often we do that immensely. My nephew bought another brand (can't recall the name), which was cheaper, but he wishes he had gotten a Roomba. They have a lot of features these days that our model doesn't have. My daughter is thinking of getting a new one so she can reprogram it. She's a lead software developer and views it as a little robot. Go figure. Runs in the family!

Thought of a tip. A can of compressed air with the tube attached does a fine job of cleaning a filter after you've knocked the larger stuff off into your kitchen garbage can.

 

All I've heard about robot vacuums are they're neat gadgets, but for real vacuuming, use a real vacuum. I don't own one, so I dunno.

 

Wife picked up a Roomba about 6 months ago. I was highly skeptical as damn we have an $800 dyson that works remarkably well and she is always counting her steps, which vacuuming equals more steps. I thought it loud, but the more I watched it perform the more I liked it. The cats think of it as a toy to follow and attack as it goes thru the rooms. Which gives some entertainment value while working from home. Will definitely be purchasing a second once we move into the new house for the upstairs.

Its not a total replacement for a vacuum, but good 3-4 days a week and after the wife bought the battery powered Dyson V8 Animal the Dyson with a cord is locked away in a closet. It works great for quick pick up and spots the Roomba misses.

I would recommend one, if it was a little less noisy and emptied itself it would be the vacuum to have.

 

Early on, when I stared at our bedroom and figured out that it fit under our large, heavy bed, I picked up whatever was lying around on the floor (a pair of shoes) and dragged a chair that doesn't weigh a lot out of the room. Put the Roomba on the floor, turned the sucker on and closed the door.

Hung out in the living room with the sound system cranked up and about an hour later, put Bowie on pause and realized the Roomba was silent. Walked in and the Roomba was sitting there with an amber symbol of a trash can on, meaning "empty me!" Another amber symbol comes on if it needs to be charged, but that was still green. Took it to the kitchen and it was STUFFED with dust, some dog hair, but not a lot, and tiny bits of things. Allergy Central! Cleaned it, took it back in the room and turned it on.

I knew the floor wasn't that dirty, so it had to be from under the bed. Ended up running it 3 times, the last time it had a dim amber charge light, which means it can still run, but you might want to think about charging it. So I charged it, but cleaned it first. That 3rd time, there wasn't that much in it. That bed hadn't been moved in a few years, and like I said, it's a large heavy one, so the middle had never really been cleaned very well. Now it was just about there. Definitely helped the allergies. Those Roomba filters are HEPA filters. Used regularly, they will help with allergies.

The algorithms are a trip.

They have a model now that comes with a tall gadget that empties the damn thing. Roomba goes there and it sucks everything out of the filter, then the Roomba goes back to doing what it does. When the battery is low, it goes back again, gets cleaned, and parks itself for a charge. Pretty sure that's how it works. Expensive for that model, but sounds very cool. I think my daughter will buy that one when she moves into a larger place. She can afford it.

 

We tried one when they first were becoming a thing. Scared the hell out of my dog.

I'm sure they've come a long way since then, but if I had hardwood or tile I would just go with a broom.

 

So, Roomba can't figure out how to vacuum corners because it's round? That's pretty funny. Seems like someone would have solved it by now. Yo...my room is clean...except for the corners. It needs like a little square buddy that it can launch to get into those corners and then return to Daddy Roomba. Better yet...maybe they can work in tandem with each other.

 

I shear my dogs and make luxurious fur coats to sell on Etsy.

 

My daughter has two cats and she has the Eufy robotic vacuum. She bought the model below the one that "learns" your room layout but she has a small one-bedroom apartment and it seems to do a really good job picking up all the cat hair.