Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

WARNING: This review is LONG! But I wanted to do a good job of conveying information and there really is a lot to learn on these things. I've also been using the E35 for about 2 months now, and have gone through everything from research to contacting Customer Service. In order to not make this another dull paper to read, I've tried to put some jokes in here and there. So consider yourself warned and buckle up for a good read, or move on to the next paper thin review of 'It's shiny out of the box!', 'I got shipped the wrong thing...', or 'I broke it.' Before buying the E35, I did some pretty 'thorough' research on most of the available models of robot cleaners today (less than 24hrs cause, ya know, Prime Day; but so focused!). And what I found is, there are an overwhelming number of features out there for your new cleaning companion cube! It's an exciting time for robot kind in 2019, and no the E35 doesn't check all of the boxes, but none of them do. NONE OF THEM DO!!!!! Realize that you're going to have to make a short list of the features most important to you and you will be making a COMPROMISE in the end. And what may be important to you, may not be what's important for us. And for us, after spending a ridiculous amount of time weighing the options like only an old woman can picking out what color drapes she should get (taupe or off-taupe), the E35 was the best model for our needs in our price range ($300-$400; ~280 Prime Day). At the time of this review, we've now been using the E35 for ~2 months... So lets go through what we were looking for, what we were promised by Roborock with the E35, and how that actually stood up. First up, honorable mention to a fantastic Youtube channel on vacuum reviews, Vacuum Wars. In all of that focused research I did, no other source I came across was (in my opinion) more complete in the features it reviewed or as integral in their conclusions for robot vacuums. I can't vouch for the uprights they review, but I highly suggest you start there for robots at least. So our situation is: 1. Dogs - We have dogs. And they shed, a lot. Ability to pick up hair is a must and, please, please little robot don't get tangled like Flynn Rider in Tangled. Roborock Promise: Comes with an 'Anti-Tangle Brush'..... Riiiiiiiight, like I haven't seen a marketing gimmick before..... 2. Medium Pile Carpet AND Hard Flooring - If you're just starting out, you may not realize how important this is, but oh, it is sooooooo important... Roborock Promise: 'Carpet Sense' and '2000 Pa of Suction'... Automatic adjustment of suction power based on what the robot 'senses'. Saves battery life and allows me to whisper sweet nothings to my wife in the kitchen... And can suck, a lot. In a good way... Ok, I'm game, even though I don't really know what that means. 3. Kids - Yes, kids love robots. Until they bite. And the little black robot disk may not be all that threatening and move slow and look so cute that you JUST HAVE TO NAME IT, but you will forget about it and THAT'S when it'll strike. Roborock Promise: 'Gentle Bumping'... There are so many non-PC jokes in here, but let's keep it clean and just say that men are not honest creatures. So is a man telling me this is 'Gentle', or is it a woman? Let's find out! 4. Multiple Floor House - If your robot 'maps' a floorplan for efficiency (and most do in the price range), nothing quite challenges that like saying 'but what if the floorplan changes EVERY TIME'. Roborock Promise: Route Planning... Kk, I can deal, I just hope its better than Mapquest. Does anyone still use that service? What about Myspace? Totally dating myself I'm sure... 5. Battery Life - I need this thing to vacuum my house, not spend all day charging. And I'm not paying for multiple docks cause I'm cheap like that and that's a cop out solution. Roborock Promise - 150min of non-stop cleaning... I hope they actually mean real cleaning and not just running around on such a low power that I might as well get out a broom and try sweeping my carpet. Alright, so 1.5 months of use, AAAAAND..... If you can't tell by the headline of the review, I really like this machine. My wife also LOVES it. She runs it every day on all the three levels of our house (and no it's not a mansion, just a tri-level, so think 2k sq ft). Yes, it's not as quite as good as a real vacuum, but it gets incredibly close, cleans under furniture we'd never vacuum under with an upright, and our house actually FEELS cleaner because it's getting cleaned much, much more often. Oh, and we really can't put a price on the time we get back in our day or the amount of effort we save for more valuable things (like coming up with sweet nothings). For the most part, the promises that I bought the machine for really do hold (to my total surprise) true: 'Anti-Tangle Brush' - Really does a good job! I mean, you're still going to get hair somewhere on the brush and eventually your going to want to cut some of that out. But they do give you a nice little tool in the package to do that and for the most part it's minimal. I think even though the app has told me to clean the brush 3 times now (we've got over 4.5k min logged of actual cleaning) I've only really had maybe one or two strands to cut out. My Dyson is worse than that. 'Carpet Sense' and '2000 Pa of suction'- I have no idea how much 2000 Pa is, but the robot does a pretty good job on both fronts. Can get a little confused when really small rugs are involved, but overall turns on at appropriate times. I can definitely feel that just vacuumed clean on my carpets. And I've never had anything stick to the bottom of my feet on my hard floors. Oh, and my rugs on those hard floors feel so good on my feet now that they're getting cleaned... Not once has it pulled any of them up either. Super impressed, granted we don't have any with those frilly strands on the ends. Again, your situation might be different! 'Gentle Bumping' - Must've been a woman's gentle. Not quite like a loving caress, but more like a playful nudge. No kids being nipped here, but I have actually seen it run into table legs if they're thin. The E35 has a 'Geordi La Forge' like black visor that must have some sensors as 'eyes', and every once in a while the E35 just can't seem to see those thin objects. Not a huge biggie though since it seems to see us fat Americans just fine. 'Route Planning'- Not actually bad. Even though we've been moving it from floor to floor, the robot always seems to do a good job of mapping the room and going in an organized 'line' pattern every time. I'm sure it would be slightly more efficient if it had the same floor plan to use every time, but I'm very happy with the algorithms this uses. 'Battery Life'- Not sure if it really lasts 150min, but I've left this this on default settings with the 'Carpet Sense' on and it's managed to do the whole house (~2,000 sq ft) with still 23% remaining. And again, super happy with the way the robot cleans both hard floors and carpets with these settings. 100% happy customer. So in the end, we're very happy with our purchase and look forward to having a happier, cleaner household. Money well spent. Oh, and one more thing, I did actually need to reach out recently to the Customer Service Team as we started to get a burning smell last week. Super concerning, I know. But the CS rep reached out to us within 24hrs and gave us some things to try and troubleshoot. The instructions sounded ridiculous, cause it was like, turn the machine on it's side and 'lightly tap the device' and 'put a new filter in'. But give it an honest chance please. Once we took them seriously, it did actually solve our problem. Very impressed considering pretty much everything in this price range is pretty much not going to be made in a country where the CS is expected to be good... Anyway, thanks for sticking with me through my report. Hope you had some laughs along the way and can now frolic away into robot land better equipped to make an informed decision. Till next time!