I've had a Roomba for a long time, and it's fair to ask why. A robot vacuum cleaner seems expensive and fragile and gimmicky, but in my case Roomba is an incredible money-and-space saver.
I live in a small apartment with a pet. I have very little storage space, and I certainly have no room for a traditional bulky vacuum cleaner. So instead I have a Roomba vacuum cleaner.
Roomba as my only vacuum cleaner? Hardly.
You might now be thinking that a Roomba is not an all-purpose vacuum, and you're right. A Roomba cannot vacuum everything, as it is restricted to the floor. It can't clean stairs or under some furniture or the tops of the baseboard or under the oven. So for those jobs, I have a higher-end handheld lithium-powered Dustbuster.
Yes, I vacuum my place exclusively with a Roomba and a Dustbuster, and I've been doing this for many years.
And now you're thinking I'm very nuts. HOLD ON.
Life with "Roombie and Dusty"
My Roomba (a 500-series model), which I've had for about 10 years, cleans the floors very well. I run the Roomba in different rooms on different days, likely having it run every other day on average.
Roomba lives and charges under my sofa, so it requires no real storage space. I do have to maintain Roomba - I've replaced the brushes and the battery twice over these years, I've upgraded the cleaner head, and I replaced the original power jack that broke. The fantastic thing about the Roomba is that parts are very inexpensive and easy to come by. I'm very happy with Roomba, but admittedly it does take a little work to keep my 10 year old robot in top performance.
But Roomba can't clean under some furniture, or handle "strategic" cleaning. That's where Dustbuster comes in.
My Dustbuter is about 5 years old, and with a pet in the house I use it daily. I originally bought a "NiCad" model, which died under warranty, and B+D was nice enough to replace it with the much better lithium battery model. The lithium model is awesome.
I use "Dusty" to clean where Roombie cannot. Baseboards, tight spots, pet debris, whatever. The lithium battery lasts long enough for any of my uses (maybe 20 minutes).
Like Roomba, I've had to repair my heavily-used Dustbuster. The original power switch wore out, and I ruined the motor by sucking in water. Happily, I was able to use the spare parts from my defunct Dustbuster to keep it going.
The Bad
One thing I really miss are filter bags. I know people hate buying filter bags, but bags are a wonderful way to dispose of waste. It's a pain to remove the waste that Roombie and Dusty collect in their bins. I'd much rather that they use replaceable filter bags, which just seem so much cleaner. But the burden isn't really all that bothersome.
I also miss an exhaust filter on all of these vacs, to further clean the particulates out of the exhaust.