Robot Operation

I absolutely love my Roomba 540. It's easily one of the top 3 gadgets I own. (If you want to call it a gadget.) I got it for Xmas and I've used it multiple times now. It cleans my bedroom, living room, kitchen, essentially my whole apartment. And it does a damn good job at it too. (Much better than my old Dirt Devil, which barely sucked up dirt.)

I've read about people growing attached to their Roomba and I can see why. It's so damn cool. It's a robot for crying out loud! And lately I've even caught myself anthropomorphisizing my Roomba. Not to the extent where I'm dressing it up in French maid outfits, but to extent where I find myself worrying about it like I would worry about, oh, I don't know, my two dogs. I make sure it's well fed (connected to its dock), clean, and that it gets exercise at least once every other day ("exercise" means cleaning my apt). Like I said, it's just so awesome. And then it happened. The biggest scare ever. Roomba started showing signs of sickness.

It all started this afternoon while I was having lunch. I set my Roomba loose and within minutes I noticed Roomba was making "uh-oh" noises. (It only makes those noises when something is wrong.) So I'd restart it hoping it was nothing, but seconds later, same thing. I gave it a quick clean thinking that would solve things, but it didn't. That's when panic start to set in. Could something serious be wrong with Roomba? It hasn't even been a year!!

I quickly looked up the symptoms on the iRobot website and lo and behold I found the solution. I did exactly as the video instructed and after a 5-minute robot operation Roomba was up and running. (How's that for customer service!) Now Roomba is happily cleaning my apartment.

I'm debating getting my Roomba a partner. The floor-mopping Roomba. My apartment isn't that big, so it'd feel a little silly, but I'm sure Roomba wouldn't mind the extra company.