Housekeeping Robots

This year the Fiancee splurged on a couple of housekeeping electronics with his bonus check. With both of our lives getting busier and more stressful at work, neither of us cares to clean after getting home from work, so we end up being bogged down with household chores over the weekend. To lighten the weekend load and prevent the birth of allergy inducing dust bunnies during the week, the Fiancee ordered a Roomba and Air Rabbit from Amazon.

The Roomba is a vacuum cleaning robot. Resembling an oversized hocky puck wielding little side sweeping bristles, the Roomba sits in its battery charging unit until the programmed time comes for it to work its magic. The Roomba moves from room to room vacuuming and dusting every inch of your home so that you don't have to. Upon completion, the Roomba parks itself back in its battery charging unit and lets out a little victory tune. The Fiancee programmed our Roomba to work at 5PM on 3 days during the week so that we'd both come home to a dust bunny-free apartment.

The Air Rabbit is a stationary air purifying system. In addition to sucking up dust particles, it also eats up germs and odors. As long as the unit is plugged in, the Air Rabbit kicks on automatically to clean up any dust, germs or odors that it detects. It also has a "turbo" mode to allow its zealous filters to clear the air in especially overwhelming situations.

Since we've had it, the Air Rabbit has done a fantastic job. We no longer see dust particles floating in the air, and both of our allergies have improved. If we were to deep fry in the kitchen, the smell of deep fried foods no longer lingers so that we have to open a window to let the freezing winter air clear out the smell. Before the Air Rabbit, we'd fry our food, bundle up in our puffy winter coats, and then open up both the front door and a window to create an air tunnel to whisk away the smell. I'd always want to hide away from the door, as passers-by probably wondered why the crazy Asian people down the hall were sitting at the dinner table with teeth chattering in their ski jackets.

On the other hand, the Roomba worked well only after a little trial and error. When we first got the robot, we were curious to see how it worked, so we charged it up and watched it go. The Roomba made diagonal lines across the room, changing directions when it bumped into something, or deciding to make a straight line to follow a wall. The robot danced around chairs or sometimes seemed a bit confused as it went around in circles over the same leg repeatedly. Eventually, it would move on to another leg and continue on its way. Sometimes, the Roomba would start out moving in larger and larger concentric circles. Regardless, in the ten minutes or so that we watched it clean, it seemed to be working fine. So, the Fiancee programmed a 5PM start time on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

On the first Monday that it ran, I came home to find the Roomba parked back in its battery charging unit. It seemed to have done its job aside from chewing up the living room rug and missing the bathroom and a few dusty spots here and there. For its Wednesday run, the Fiancee decided to roll up the rug and put all chairs up on tables (the way restaurants do) to help the Roomba do a better job. With chair legs to bump into, get confused over and waste its batteries turning around in circles, it seemed like the solution to achieve the maximum benefit would be to clear the path as much as possible. Rolling up the rug would also prevent the Roomba from mistaking the edges for dirt and trying feverishly to suck up the entire rug.

When I got home on Wednesday, the Roomba was not in its battery charging unit. Why was the door between the hall and vanity area shut? We never shut that. Now, I was getting scared. Had someone else been in the apartment? Were they still here? The Fiancee wouldn't get back for another half hour. Timidly, I reached out to the door handle and pushed it open. It was then that I could hear a worn out motor churning. Argh! All of the doors were shut. The Roomba had gone from room to room, shutting doors and had finally locked itself in the bathroom where it was sluggishly bumping around from wall to wall trying to find a way out. It never even made it to the bedroom! I picked the tired Roomba off the bathroom floor and dropped it back off to its battery charging unit where it let out a victory tune. What was it so proud of?! It had done a terrible job and gave me a little scare.

Since we didn't have any doorstops handy for its Friday run, we pushed all of the doors wide open against the walls, hoping that this would help the Roomba do its job thoroughly and return home to its battery charging unit. But on Friday, I came home to find that the Roomba had locked itself in the bedroom this time in addition to missing a few dusty spots in the living room. We didn't have time that weekend to buy a pack of doorstops, so we stuffed cardboard under all of the doors to keep them open and stop the Roomba from locking itself into either the bathroom, bedroom or vanity area.

For its Monday run, I came home to find the Roomba parked in its battery charging unit. All doors had stayed open, but the place looked like a hurricane had run through it. In the kitchen, a folding chair that we lean up against a wall was knocked flat on the floor. In the living room, we'd forgotten to roll up the rug which was now twisted and ruffled on the floor. A lamp was knocked over. Another lamp's cord was ripped out of the wall. The laptop's computer battery was pulled off of its cord and dragged across the room. But the apartment was clean, with no dusty spots missed. Damn robot was now developing an attitude!

After this, the Fiancee decided to use the guides, little electronic signalling devices, that came with the machine to block it from entering the kitchen and signal it to enter other rooms so that it wouldn't let out its aggression in one room for too long. The Fiancee also moved its "home" to under the bed rather than keep it outside in the livingroom where its base and cords made for a messy look. This time, we rolled up any lamp cords and made sure that the laptop battery was safely tucked away from the floor. When we came home on Wednesday, the Fiancee looked under the bed to see if the Roomba had gone home. It wasn't there. Nor was it locked in the bathroom or visible anywhere in the livingroom. Where was it?! Had the robot run away? Did it somehow open the front door and leave?! We'd spent over $300 on that thing. How could it just leave?! Now we couldn't even return it. After a little searching, the Fiancee found the Roomba tucked away behind a large houseplant in the bedroom. Its battery was exhausted. The Fiancee picked the Roomba up and shoved it into its battery charging unit where it let out its usual victory tune.

Over the weekend, we bought a pack of doorstops and placed them under all of the doors. The guides were all set up again, and we cleared the floors of chairs, rugs and cords. The Fiancee also moved the Roomba's home to under the vanity which is a more open, central location so that the Roomba would not have a hard time finding its home base. The next Monday, I'd forgotten to check the Roomba's whereabouts when I got home. The Fiancee and I rushed to make a light dinner while the Air Rabbit sucked up any kitchen odors. We wolfed our food down and hurriedly dumped the dishes into the dishwasher before changing into our gym clothes. After waiting about 15 minutes for our food to digest, we squeezed in a quick, but pretty intense gym workout. I was drenched after the workout when we got back to the apartment. It then dawned on us to check the Roomba.

We were both pleased to find that the robot was parked at home under the vanity. All of the doors had stayed open with its doorstops in place, nothing had been knocked over, and the floors were dust free. We'd found the perfect combination! Our Roomba was now behaving.

As the Fiancee hopped into the shower, I leaned over the kitchen counter and gulped down a glass of orange juice to quench my post-workout thirst, satisfied with the results of both of our housekeeping robots. Then out of nowhere, the Air Rabbit kicked into turbo.