Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

OK, first a short complaint about the roombas. Several years ago, I was in love with the concept of a roomba. So I bought one. The one I bought was a mid-level unit, at the time. The apartment we were living in at the time was mostly vinyl flooring, with a little bit of (short) shag carpet. We set up and charged roomba according to instructions. Then we turned it loose to see what it would do. It seemed to do what it was supposed to for about five minutes. Then it just acted confused, going in random directions for a bit before it shut down with an error message. It wasn't "stuck" on anything, and the battery was almost fully charged still. We called roomba, and they concluded that it must be a bad battery. So they sent us a new battery. We charged the new battery, and tried again. Second try, roomba again ran for about 5 minutes, then acted crazy for a bit and shut down. Called Roomba again, they sent us an entirely new robot. The replacement robot (and 2nd replacement battery) did the same thing!!! Called Roomba again, and Roomba sent another brand new robot (full retail package). Only this time, they upgraded to the top-of-the-line model for us. Oddly enough though, this 3rd robot (with 4th brand new battery) did the exact same thing. It would run for a few minutes, then get crazy and shut itself down. My wife and I were both tired of messing with the thing by that point. So, the brand new top-of-the-line roomba used for a total of about 5 minutes...ended up in the dumpster. I don't know if there were "alternatives" to the roomba then, as I didn't bother to look. I was fed up with the idea of a robotic vacuum...that doesn't work. Several years later, I run across this Infinuvo robot vacuum with a price listed that is a fraction of the roomba I bought (the roomba which was USELESS). I read the existing reviews and they seemed (overall) pretty positive. I figured I had little to lose by trying a different brand now. First thing you need to know, is that these things are not really vacuums. They may have a weak vaccum in them, but they are basically floor sweepers. That being said, if you are expecting these things to work on carpet...they will not. They'd have to be at least 10 times as powerful (and 20 times as heavy, with a humongous battery) to do a good job of cleaning carpet. But they will certainly clean the top surface of carpet OK, to make it "look" a little cleaner. These things are actually made to clean bare floors. And for that, the Infinuvo works very well. I've got a large apartment now that is all laminate floors and tile. This little robot does a great job of cleaning all the floors in my apartment. A bonus is that the battery life is much longer than claimed. This may be because the battery is still new. But if you turn this thing loose on default (random switch of cycles) cleaning mode...it will run about 80 minutes before it shuts itself off. AT THAT POINT, if you let it rest for a few minutes, then start it up again....it will run well over an hour before it actually shuts itself down with a low battery indicator. It does a good job of getting all the corners and edges of all the rooms...as well as covering all the area in the middle. It is super easy to empty/clean out. The cleaning out is less than 30 seconds. You literally dump the canister into trash and quickly wipe clogged lint off of the filter with your fingers. Done. They even give you a little brush to use, if you don't want to touch dirt with your fingers. :) The recharge is very easy (with dual voltage charger!) and takes about 4 hours, roughly. It tells you (with light and beeps) when it is done charging. The included remote control is a gimmick, I believe. This thing is so easy to use. Just set it down, turn it on, and hit start...then step back and let it go. It has not gotten stuck on any furniture, even does a great job of cleaning beneath beds. It DOES get stuck on a large power cable (extension cord), though. I fixed this problem temporarily by using cable tie mounts to zip-tie the power cable from the wall to our TV stand. This kept the cable stretched tight and the robot was able to bounce over it, usually. But eventually, the robot snagged the cable again. And the robot had enough force to rip the cable off the wall, almost damaging the wall. Wow. Next I'm going to try to duct-tape the power cable to the floor, thinking the robot will just skip over the duct tape. :) So the one weakness this thing has is cables near the floor. :) Manage your cables well, and you won't have a problem.