iRobot Roomba 895 Vacuum Cleaner [Energy Class B]

This machine will change the way you vacuum your home – and mostly for the better.For the areas that it is able to cover (which don’t include stairs or any surface that is not down on the floor) it is very effective as a vacuum cleaner – on bare floors and reasonably secure mats and rugs as well as carpets. And it goes around chair legs and under sofas and beds more diligently than we ourselves often would when vacuuming by hand.It can be set to work at specified times, including when you are out or asleep. For that it has to be programmed by way of a mobile ‘phone app. For myself and for general family use, I would rather have a machine that is completely stand-alone, but I realise I’m out of step with many people on that.Instead of moving furniture as you go, pushing toys, etc. out of the way with the vacuum cleaner itself – as you would if vacuuming by hand – you will get into the habit of clearing floors as much as you can before the machine starts, even putting chairs on tables (seat-down) as some of us of a certain age once did at school. And you will move small items of furniture such as coffee tables so that the bit of carpet that was not vacuumed yesterday gets done today.But you won’t be able to get rid of your conventional vacuum cleaner, especially if you have stairs.One of the features of this machine is that you can plonk it down in the middle of a mess and it will work its way outwards. (You stop it when it has completed the area of spillage.) But the old vacuum cleaner is much quicker for spot treatments, and – unlike the irobot – you can see when all that needs to be vacuumed-up has gone.The irobot isn’t bad around the edges of rooms, but its a good idea to sometimes also run the nozzle of a conventional vacuum around the skirting boards.And a conventional cleaner is great for cleaning the irobot’s filter after emptying the dust box – also for clearing any blockage of carpet fluff.The filter is effective – the machine doesn’t put any noticeable dust or smell into the atmosphere, but the shiny black upper surface of the machine does itself get dusty. A quick wipe with a duster fixes that.A really good feature is the ‘Dual Mode Virtual Wall Barrier’. Battery operated, it emits a beam that the iroomba will not cross. So you can set up an invisible wall (or closed door) or set it to defend a circle around the dog/cat bowls!Not so good is that the machine is not methodical in the way in which it covers a floor, so much of the floor is vacuumed over and over (for a whole hour until the battery runs low), whilst other parts still get missed! Also, it is a bit hit and miss about finding spaces – such as an en-suite bathroom – that open out of the main space.Also on the not so good side is that getting the dust box to part company from the main body is far from easy – even after you have lifted the whole thing up to table or work-top height. And the monitor that is supposed to tell you when the dust box is full is effectively useless, because the ‘empty dust box’ light comes on as soon as the sensors get a bit of dust on them. Fortunately, the machine itself ignores the light and carries on working.It comes with just one spare filter. Beyond that, it looks as if replacement filters (3), side brushes (3) and a pair of extractor rollers will cost £15 to £20 a year.

iRobot Roomba 895 Robotic Vacuum Cleaner, 12 Litre, 65 W [Energy Class B]After unboxing and as advised finding a clear area of a room to position the charging and docking station the cleaner is almost ready to go.The circular flat design has a top carrying handle.Initially there is no need to set up the iRobot App to get it to work just press the large circular button marked "Clean"If it has sufficient charge it will get under way and I hope amaze you.At just over a foot diameter, very stylish in appearance and flat it will get into most spaces but you will soon realise that the built in iAdept Navigation software prefers a large empty room to explore and then seems set up a logical cleaning pattern of long runs.In our fairly cluttered rooms it buzzes away but lightly contacts furniture and obstacles seemingly turning left or right or reversing at random.It manages easily to hop up from wooden floor to carpeting but when it encounters a wooden floor corner with a carpet edge a foot away it gets stuck and announces an error number.Once you know the problem areas in your house you can position the small battery operated plastic " Lighthouse" which emits either a circular keep out area or a straight beam across a doorway to fence it into a room.It does have numerous sensors so will not fall down stairs and I tried this on a worktop in the kitchen being ready to catch it if it went over the edge but it worked perfectly.Beneath the " Clean" button is a " Home" button.If you press this the iRobot will flash the icon and eventually return to the docking station but may pass the docking station a number of times before eventually lining itself up and edging slowly into the dock.If at anytime the battery is low it will also return to the docking station.You will find that the light most often to appear is the red dustbin " full" warning. You press a button to withdraw this from the rear. This triggered fairly often in my case probably due to the volume of pet hair but was no where near fullIt was very good on picking up pet hair and a rotating brush gets into corners.Once the iRobot finds an accumulation of debris the cleaning pattern will change and it will then do an expanding circle until clear.At first it is very interesting to watch what it is doing but equally frustrating and amusing as it will closely miss an obvious area that needs doing.Eventually if left long enough it will complete the whole room where accessible.I am trying to have less Wi Fi things in the house but this one is useful.The iRobot App can remotely start or stop a cleaning cycle and is a source of help to identify error numbers with notifications to your device.The Roomba 895 can be programmed and scheduled to be used each day at the time that’s most convenient to you.The intention of the designers was to let it clean the rooms you were not occupying as it is fairly noisy but it is hard to resist having a look to see what it is doing or pressing the Home button to see if it can find its way back to the docking station.

What a time to be alive. At the same time with Twitter and J K Rowling and the Roomba 895!This is our first ever automatic vacuum cleaner and we unpacked it with a sense of excitement and a real pinch of salt. We were really curious to see what it is capable of. And, gosh, it is well equipped, if I may say so.The fact that it is so small does not impact on its performance. The cleaner moves effortlessly over the surface of the floor - be it naked wood or carpet, capably and effortlessly, sucking all the excess and leaving a very satisfying result indeed.It detects and avoids any obstacles and - although we thought it might bump into various pieces of furniture, it didn't once.It doesn't do stairs, obviously, so this might be a problem for those living in houses. We live in a small flat, so it's perfect.