Roomba 2: The Sequel

I am surrounded by failure. Firstly, neither of our cats can speak English despite 8 years of personal, one-on-one lessons. Secondly, their arch-nemesis, the Roomba, broke down numerous times over the last week. And when I look at my computer I see nothing but failure. (It was a one in a trillion chance, but both my regular hard drive AND my backup hard drive failed at the exact same time. I lost everything.)

Yes, everywhere I look there is failure. Even the Useless Men, with two new posts in the last 30 some-odd days, are performing particularly uselessly.

But let's get back to Roomba, its failure and iRobot's silly customer support. It all started when Roomba stopped beeping.

The Roomba beeps to tell you various things. The cute & cuddly beeps are charming like a Speak 'n Spell, or sad and scary like a pissed off R2-D2. Roomba says "DO-DO! LA-LA-LAAA!" when it is happy, and "Uh-oh!" when there is trouble. The beeps are the window to Roomba's feelings and innermost thoughts. When something bad has happened to Roomba, he tells you. With beeps!

But how can Roomba tell you his speaker is broken when he can't beep at you? On top of that, Roomba wasn't working - and because of the failed speaker, couldn't tell me why.

Enter iRobot Customer Support. After explaining via email that my Roomba no longer beeps, and I therefore couldn't figure out what made him sick, I received a reply. A ridiculous reply that went something like this:

"If Roomba beeps 'uh-oh' 2 times, it means...
If Roomba beeps 'uh-oh' 3 times, it means...
If Roomba beeps 'uh-oh' 4 times, it means..."
etc.

You get the idea. Customer Support was useless, and in my curt reply I let them know it. But upon receiving a nice package at my door today, I wish I had been a little nicer in my email.

After the inital email, I received a second one from iRobot. The Customer Support agent apologized for the previous email, then told me that with a failed speaker, Roomba was in need of being replaced. That's right, a full replacement because of the failure of a part worth a little less than a gallon of gasoline. (And don't even get me started on the amount of fuel it took for them to ship it to me from Pennsylvania!)

While I waited for my new Roomba to arrive, I disassembled my Roomba to try and find the problem. Inside there were bundles of tiny wires. The wires lead to various sensors and motors. I found the speaker and it was intact. The speaker wire was also intact. I took apart the motor to the side-spinning brush. I re-greased the gears with nuts and gum and put everything back together.

After all my toiling, Roomba still didn't work. It would start, but jerk to a halt a few seconds later. Frustrated, and knowing a logo-less replacement was on its way, I vented my anger in the form of a powerful punch. Roomba came back to life instantly.

It seems a good flogging now and then is good for delicate electronics, and helps the Chinese workforce stay motivated to churn out the cheap Roombas destined for jerks like me who can't afford the Trilobite.

And if anybody's looking for me, I'll be hiding in Florida till Sept. 2nd. Au revoir!

Cat-lateral Damage

I don't know how people do it. I don't know how crazy old cat ladies can have dozens of insanity-inducing cats, except maybe for the fact that they're, well, insane.

To have multiple cats is expensive and exhausting. We learned this with our recent experience with three quarters of a half dozen cats. That's four cats for the mathmatically challenged. (That's "4" for the alphabetically challenged.) Our two girls, plus my parents two boys.

Every few days our house began to smell. The smell was like cats. Their food, their pee, their crap, their little pink buttholes, their litter. So every few days we had to clean out two litter boxes; one for the upstairs cats, and one for the downstairs cats.

The winter seemed to fly by as we spent every spare minute cleaning. If it weren't for Roomba, our house would be condemned right now due to inhabitable conditions as a result of an unacceptable build-up of unsanitary elements that would pose a health risk to anyone walking within 30 feet of our home.

But even Roomba couldn't fully compete with our kitties. Their fur wasn't the problem. It was the litter that got out of hand. Digging-litterbox action fired the tiny clumping granules all over the floor. And despite our best efforts, we couldn't stop it from getting underfoot.

Kitty litter plus hardwood - and gravitational forces pulling body weight down onto said litter/hardwood combination - do not go well together.

The damage is done. The granulated bentonite clay particles, which are normally used for absorbing our cats' excrement, have devalued our home by 0.1% as they've scraped our hardwood floors with their crunchy, sand-flavoured edges. Dang. Maybe I should've titled this post 'Collitteral Damage.'

Roomba Review

I still haven't gotten over my excitement of 'winning' an iRobot Roomba last week and I'm totally pumped to review this sweet robot vacuum.

The instructions, which men are not supposed to read, indicated that the Roomba needed to charge, initially, for 16 hours. This long, slow charge is supposed to prolong and ensure the life of the battery. Unfortunately, mine didn't.

On the iRobot website, there is a forum where you can search for problems even if you're not registered. I mean, they'll allow anybody to use the forum. Even the technology-shunning Amish.

I found the procedure for resetting my Roomba (1. remove battery, 2. hold down Power button for 10 seconds, 3. reinsert battery, 4. plug in to charge) but the battery still wouldn't charge for 16 hours.

Frustrated, I phoned customer service. The sickeningly friendly rep told me, "if the green light is solid, you're good to go." So, with a fully charged battery, I sent Dennis on his first mission. And I was astonished. Astonished like a hillbilly watching his toothless cousin get abducted by aliens.

The Roomba was so unnaturally powerful that it picked up everything within a ten mile radius. It sucked up every ounce of fur and dust, then proceeded to inhale the hardwood planks and every piece of furniture we owned. Its appetite is insatiable.

I realize the small size of the Roomba creates the illusion that it can't possibly clean well. Let me assure you, it cleans better than every vacuum we've ever had. Our 12 amp Kenmore upright is great for sucking crumbs, quarters and anything about the size of a hamster out of the couch, but it doesn't really compare to Roomba.

The Roomba was able to completely inhale two cat-vomit stains in our carpet, stains the Kenmore couldn't lift. And what about a Swiffer? Roomba's 14.7x awesomer. Our cats leave trails of litter all over our hardwood, forcing us to clean every day. When we step on it, it grinds into the hardwood leaving marks. The Swiffer is no help as it drags the litter across the floor, scratching it. But with Roomba running, the floors are perfect.

Some people say the Roomba gets stuck. However, I have yet to see this happen. When it wedges itself under our kitchen cupboards, it actually raises its back end, forcing the nose down, then backs out.

Occasionally it gets wedged tighter than an 80s spandex bodysuit up a buttcrack. When this happens, it powers down, turns back on, then uses a blast of Nitrous to back out of the situation, knocking down old ladies and WWF wrestlers without prejudice.

However, it's not all cupcakes and roses. One downside is the fact that the Roomba bashes into baseboards and furniture, sometimes leaving marks. To stop this, I plan on glueing some felt to the bumper. Dead hamsters are softer, but they start to smell after a few days.

I am very particular about how things should look and how things should work. I know it shouldn't bother me, but one thing that upsets me is that Dennis no longer looks spank-my-ass-and-see-if-I-cry new any longer.

When the Roomba crawls beneath furniture, it inevitably wedges itself under something the exact same height as itself, which scratches its sexy outer green shell.

But despite the very few shortcomings, the Roomba is still better than I had expected. I'd almost go so far as to say it's phenomenal. I am an iRobot fan for life. Two Martini-thumbs up to Roomba and to iRobot customer service.

Roomba Great For Dirt & Styx

My house has been Roombafied. Remember when I won a GPS a little while ago? My coworker won the iRobot dirt sucking device that I originally hoped to win. She wanted a GPS and I wanted a Roomba, so we pulled a 'One Red Paperclip' of sorts, and traded.

Suz and I have wanted a Robotic vacuum for a long time now, but never had the cashflow to make the almighty A.I. purchase. In the last few years prices have dropped dramatically, while battery life has increased dramatically.

I was drunk with giddiness, and a little bit of rum, as I opened the box containing the retro green Roomba, model 4105 (U.S. model 416 on the iRobot website). It dominated the space, while around it, accessories glittered with the sparkle of brandnewness.

Inside the sturdy, nicely printed box there were beaucoup de stuffs. This particular robo vac did not come with the self-charging home base. However, it did come with a regular charger, two virtual walls, one additional filter and a plastic wall-hanger thinger for displaying the robot vacuum above your fireplace mantel along with the mounted, taxedermied heads of all the dust mites you've killed.

Upon box openage, I was impressed with the attention to detail the Massachusetts company gave to everything, including the packaging. If you weren't already aware, I am a big fan of wonderfully-designed packaging, and the folks at iRobot do not disappoint.

Even the styrofoam lid bore the impression of the iRobot logo. Beyond that, the actual contents further impressed. The robo vac's wheels look like those of the off-roading, mudding variety. I don't know who's got 4 inches of mud in their house, but it looks as though the Roomba can easily handle it with these sweet knobbed wheels. The dust bin clicks and unclicks deliciously and the the buttons are 2nd to none.

This particular model charges quickly - in only 3 hours, compared to 7 hours for more geriatric models. The 416 also has a dirt detect sensor and will hover over particularly dirty areas, sucking away joyfully until it can see its own robo face in the reflection.

Although the website does not state it comes with an accessory kit, mine did. And WOW am I ever lame for getting excited about it! The bonus kit came chock full of vacuumy goodness including two more virtual walls for a total of four, 6 more filters, an extra main roller brush, an extra side brush and an extra rubber thingamadoey!

What's more, Roomba's are totally hackable, and the company openly encourages users to interface with their vacuums and custom-program them for bizarre and radical things. Amazing!

As exciting as this is, my Roombafication isn't complete. I plan on purchasing the self-charging home base for $60, if it is compatible with my little Dennis.

Yep. I've named my Roomba Dennis, after Dennis DeYoung of Styx fame. How could I not name him that? You know, after the writer of my most favouritest song in the whole world, Mr. Roboto?

"Thank you very much, Mr. Roboto, for doing the jobs nobody wants to..."