iRobot Roomba 960
As a parent of three kitties, I find cat hair quite a bit. I was struggling keeping up with cat hair tumbleweeds that would be under the furniture, ready to roll out just when I think the house looks good again. Recently I invested into an iRobot Roomba 960… Now, owned one of the original Roomba robots and while I did like it a lot, it left a bit to be desired. I’ve ready on the improvements made to the more current models and decided that it was time for me to get help collecting the hair I’d miss with regular cleaning.
The iRobot Roomba 960 arrived in a white and green box and was very easy to get setup with the included charger. The book that comes with the unit recommends that you charge at least three hours. I figured it was a good test for the unit if I pre-cleaned the floor before letting it loose – this way I would be able to see exactly what i was missing. While the iRobot Roomba 960 charged away, I got to cleaning the first floor, I got it to what I thought was a good, clean condition and kicked off the robot to go do what it was made for…
This model comes equipped with some mapping ability (not as advanced as the i7 or the s9, but still good). Setup was easy and done completely though the user friendly iRobot app. One of the concerns I had was that my first floor consists of a Kitchen, Entrance Area, Living Room, Dining Room, Breakfast area and a Bathroom. This floor is mostly hard woods with some rugs and totals about 1200-1300sqf. and the rooms are separated by fairly high (1/2″ or so) seam binders. I was wondering if the iRobot Roomba 960 would be able to handle the seam binder height or if I would have to carry it from room to room OR if I would have to change my floor binders to something shorter. There was no problems in this regard – the Roomba 960 rolled right over the high seam binders with no problems.
The first floor that the iRobot Roomba 960 was attacking is ‘O’ shaped – as in if you go from room to room to room, you will make a circle. When all was said and done, the Roomba 960 was back on the charger getting ready for the next use – the bin, despite the fact that I cleaned all the places I normally do, was completely full of cat hair. Unlike my original model however, the brush collecting the hair was completely clean. This means that this brush is excellent in collecting stuff into the bin, without getting itself to be a giant mess 🙂
The iRobot Roomba 960 integrates well with Alexa, so I can easily kick it off as I am leaving the house. If the robot needs anything, it will alert me via the app. I like that the Roomba 960 design allows it to balance well the time it can go without recharges with the power. I am very impressed with how well this unit cleans up my first floor. I find that because Roomba 960 cleans the floor when I am not around, it feels like there’s never any pet hair on the first floor of my house. I plan to expand my robot collection in near future to other floors that are heavier on the carpet use than my first floor.
The i7 and s9 are model I would recommend for carpets that needs a little extra power. However, the i7 and the s9 do have shorter running times – despite having a larger battery. However, the i7 and s9 have optional bins that will automatically empty the i7/s9 into a sealed bag (these bags are something you’ll need to buy from iRobot, but do store up to 30 days worth of vacuum collected trash.