Guest Review: Roomba

The Roomba revolution was a bit late in reaching India, but during the lockdown stage there has been a massive uptick in the order and sales of the little robo helper. In fact, it is currently out of stock on every Indian website that retails it.

Let’s take a closer look at the marvel that is the Roomba though the eyes of our guest reviewer- Preethi. She has been using the Roomba for a while and she absolutely loves it!

A US-based blogger, bibliophile and lover of gadgets. She is also a weekend hiker, almost-photographer and a self-professed geek. She believes that “you do not always have to spend big bucks for quality.” She’s a techie ergo the ease of access and the features score high in her book.

When Preethi moved to the US a few years back, the major shift in her routine came from having to manage home and hearth along with her full-time job. And in entered the Roomba, bringing happiness in the form of clean rooms and more leisure time.

This is what Preethi has to say about her Roomba; we’ll be starting with the pluses:

• I love how I can start/stop this from the app on my phone, the app is very responsive too. 
• Brilliant performance. I have the schedule for this to run at 5AM, and I wake up to a clean house every alternate day.
• Runs on the carpet and hardwood floors and sucks away most of the dust. Sometimes I feel that it is sucking the carpet, but it is just that good.
• Great sensors, navigates around fixed furniture effortlessly
• Sucks away hair, lint and minor dust particles too. 

But with the positives there are a few negatives too:

• Takes quite some time to run, runs for ~55 min for a 600sq ft carpet area
• App does not reflect the right status of the run, always shows as canceled
• Sometimes, the battery runs out before the run is finished.

While Preethi rides out the lockdown back in US, there are horde of people in India who would love to have the Roomba in their lives even when Unlock 2.0 is in full force and the domestic helpers are back to work. But this product remains out of the reach of many with prices starting from Rs.32,900 to Rs.69,900! But seeing the words ‘Out Of Stock‘ on Indian websites selling the Roomba makes it evident that hefty price tag or not, it’s a given that the Roomba is here to stay!