However I also agree about not putting smart spy devices in my home - mine is a very basic cheap model with no cameras or wireless connectivity. Absolutely INSANE to have any type of connected camera inside your home. Even baby monitor cameras, such a huge vulnerability for so little utility.
Made me realize the importance of defining your use case as narrowly as possible, when buying home appliances.
It seems silly, because as the parent said, it doesn't take long to vacuum normally, but it's one chore struck off the list and becomes something you rarely have to think about anymore.
Coming home to a freshly vacuumed house is a great feeling. With a robot vac, you get to have that feeling every single day.
Robot vacuums aren't as effective at vacuuming as a human would be, but it also doesn't matter. Whatever it missed today, it'll get tomorrow.
Yes, you need to adjust somewhat your living style. If you leave a lot of clothing on the floor, or have cables just laying about, the robot vac will find them and get stuck. You should clean those up anyway - but within the robot vac-owning community it's often a joke that you have to "roomba-proof" your house.
The upsides outweigh the downsides by far.
For me at least, my robot vac stops well short of that.
But the feeling of smugness I get while I sit on the couch doomscrolling or watching Netflix, while being able to tell myself "Look at me, I'm an adult! I'm doing the chores!!!" as my extremely dumb non wifi robot randomly bumps around my lounge room is priceless. Totally worth the couple of hundred bucks I paid for it, and the minor rearranging I had to do to make my apartment suitable for it to roam around.
It'd say that's a tangible improvement to your life. Less mundane chores, more leisure time to unwind after a long day.
Permanently removing something from the "todo" list is always a significant positive.
But also, this for me is way more than just "one more thing off the todo list", it's the smugness of "That todo list item is being handled WHILE I'M SITTING ON THE COUCH STUFFING AROUND! HOW GOOD AM I???" :-)
(I acknowledge this is a fairly childish reaction, I'm sure I'll grow up and get over it one one day, I'm only 57 after all...)
Not taking away from the benefits of automation and getting a bit of extra free time (nobody is thinking how cool it is to handwash all our clothes all the time, do we), but if you would say that instead you could do 10-15 mins meditation, learn something new or have a longer run outside, now that would be an improvement. Those passive activities you mention are one of the worst one how to spend extra gained time (albeit very popular due to easy access and addictivity).
Just my take on some chores, I honestly believe making the life too easy has some negative consequences later and that's how I raise my kids, contrary to many other parents.
Run the robot daily (while you're at work or something).
What brand is it? So many these days have both cameras and wireless
If a network connection is a non-starter, your choices are way more limited. It looks like the eufy 11s doesn't have any sort of app / wi-fi support.
I think OP's issue with Roomba is simply that it was a Roomba (depending on when they tried it); I did a lot of searching before deciding on the Q Revo, and it seems like iRobot had been relying on the Roomba brand name for some time and until very recently was still playing catch-up. Not sure they have caught up when it comes to navigation and the control app.
so no smartphones for you?
Robot vacuums often pick up things I miss, because they tend to be thorougher.
> getting it unstuck from corners or wires
Yes, this is annoying. Not everyone has stuff that these vacuums will get stuck in.
> making sure all potential obstacles are picked up,
If you have small clutter on the floor, you probably need to pick it up anyway if you vacuum yourself.
Robot vacuums are for people who have a track record of not vacuuming :-) If you have the discipline to vacuum on your own, then there's no need for a robot one.
Bought a lidar one too (BotVac) so never had to worry about camera feeds and it’s smart about navigating the rooms, not even connected to the net.
Even my sister ended up buying one after I talked about it with her. She was looking for a way to make her daily nighttime kid cleanup ritual less work. Same deal with her: it takes longer for it to do its job than if she were doing it herself, but while it's vacuuming she can clean something else, and be ready for bed earlier than she'd otherwise be.
Sure, if you live in a studio, but a lot of people don't.
I run the robot when I’m outside and have it do two passes which results in very good results. I get tremendous enjoyment from knowing a machine is doing the work I absolutely hate, with quality results. Would absolutely buy again.
This isn't a problems if you use open-source replacement firmware like Valetudo (https://valetudo.cloud/).
Also, Roomba is absolute trash compared to any other brand. Replaced my Roomba with a different brand a few months ago and it's a totally different experience.