Ode to Robbie

I’ve never been very good at dusting. My place has been quite tidy for as far back as I can remember. Dusting, though, is something I struggled to get myself to do.

I still did not get the hype around cleaning robots. That is, until my family bought me one for my birthday.

After the first run, its container was full of dust. Well, that was kind of to be expected. I gave it a second run. Full of dust. After five consecutive runs I got the idea and gave it a break. Clearly there was much, much more dust in my flat than I was aware of.

I have since moved to a two storey flat. So of course I had to get another one for the second floor. My downstairs one is scheduled to clean at 8am. That means it usually finishes cleaning before I go downstairs. The one upstairs is scheduled to run at noon, right on time for my lunch break. Both run every other day. Our house is dusted all year round, and we don’t have to lift a finger!

Now, I won’t lie. It’s not all perfect. It does shut doors. On occasion, it moves furniture around. If I was bad and left a sock on the floor, it would choke on it. But all in all – what a massive improvement.

The robot my family chose for me was a Neato. What a clever choice! It really is one of the best out there. I now have two models, both of which we nicknamed Robbie. The first is the older Botvac DC02, which is still my favorite. It always gets the job done without a fuss, and its interface is very clear. The other is the Neato D7. While it looks neater, I find it fails me more often. For example, it often only vacuums half a room and then goes back to its base, reporting success. Not great.

I will leave you with a few final notes on why I’d recommend Neato specifically. First, it integrates with Google Home and Alexa. It also sends you notifications when it’s stuck or finished. It maps your house and shares that map with you. Thanks to its shape, it vacuums corners really well. Round robot cleaners struggle with corners.

Save yourself time. Get a cleaner house. Whether it’s a Neato or an iRobot Roomba, get a cleaning robot.

_{I may get commissions for purchases made through links in this post.}