{"id":33015,"date":"2025-11-12T12:49:27","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T12:49:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=33015"},"modified":"2025-11-12T12:49:27","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T12:49:27","slug":"is-a-robot-vacuum-worth-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=33015","title":{"rendered":"Is a Robot Vacuum Worth It?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n<\/p>\n

Every single day\u2014weekend,<\/span> weekday, rain or shine\u2014whichever robot vacuum I\u2019m currently testing starts running at 9 am. It\u2019s always a good sign. I heave a sigh of relief and continue with whatever else I was doing, content that at least that<\/em> f*cking chore in my house is getting done.<\/p>\n

When I first started testing robot vacuums eight years ago, it sometimes seemed like more trouble than it was worth. I cleaned up the floor. I meticulously maintained the different sensors. Now I just don\u2019t care. (I mean, yes, I do care, robot vacuum manufacturers, I just care slightly less.) Even if it gets tripped up on my daughter\u2019s latest knitting project, or it can\u2019t mop the kitchen because I haven\u2019t emptied the water tank. Just go, little soldier, go.<\/p>\n

Robot vacuums are so<\/em> much smarter now. They can navigate through many more surprising minefields of Lego bricks, stuffed animals, or piles of shoes than you might have expected even two or three years ago. As a working parent with two elementary-school-aged kids and a dog, I need all the help I can get. Maybe it will clean the whole house; maybe it will only clean up 50 or 65 percent of it. But as someone who is constantly fighting chaos, consistency is what counts.<\/p>\n

It’s a Miss<\/h2>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Photograph: Amazon<\/p>\n

It took a while for me to reach this Zen state (and also to collect enough robot vacuums to have an army running in every room and floor of my house). Based on my years of talking to many families (and trying to foist used robot vacuums on them), these are a few reasons why a robot vacuum might not<\/em> be worth it for you.<\/p>\n

    \n
  • You live in a small space.<\/strong> If it only takes you an hour or so to vacuum, why bother?<\/li>\n
  • Your home has a complicated layout.<\/strong> A lot of 1970s homes have strange, complicated designs\u2014a sunken living room, a playroom that\u2019s up a few stairs, bedrooms upstairs. Although stair-climbing vacuums are on the way, for now, it\u2019s not worth carrying a vacuum from room to room.<\/li>\n
  • You have rugs with weird tassels.<\/strong> The 1970s were bad for robot vacuums. Shag carpeting is also bad, as is a lot of low furniture.<\/li>\n
  • You hate maintenance.<\/strong> You really can\u2019t stand emptying the fussy little dust bag or refilling the water container. I\u2019m going to say here that you probably have other problems that need addressing before getting a robot vacuum.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Even I don\u2019t rely solely on a robot vacuum to keep my house clean. I also have a Dyson stick vacuum, a carpet cleaner, and a regular broom and mop in a closet. If my kid spills a bunch of flour under the counter while she\u2019s making pancakes, I\u2019m not going to pull out my phone, open the app, and watch a robot vacuum slowly trundle over to spot-clean it.<\/p>\n

    It\u2019s also not great for deep-cleaning. No matter how much a company hypes up a robot\u2019s suction power, it will just never be as thorough as even the smallest hand vacuum. It\u2019s just physics. A robot vacuum\u2019s motor and battery are smaller.<\/p>\n

    Even the best navigation system cannot accommodate everything that happens in a crazy, dynamic environment with a bunch of gremlins and animals running around. If I have people coming over, I still have to walk around and do things like put away cushion forts and pick up the shreds of a log that my dog decided to pluck off the woodpile and bring into the house to gnaw in the warmth and comfort of the living room.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Every single day\u2014weekend, weekday, rain or shine\u2014whichever robot vacuum I\u2019m currently testing starts running at 9 am. It\u2019s always a good sign. I heave a sigh of relief and continue with whatever else I was doing, content that at least that f*cking chore in my house is getting done. When I first started testing robot<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33016,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[5464,11983,4714],"class_list":{"0":"post-33015","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-robot","9":"tag-vacuum","10":"tag-worth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}