So recently I got a robot vacuum off of Wish.com (his name is Peanut, if you don't follow my videos over at 
At first, I admit I was frustrated because the "instructions" weren't really great. They didn't tell you what to do to get started. So here's a tip: there are parts you have to take off before it will work, lol. This black cap was over the turning wheel that directs where it goes, and that was easy enough to figure out I needed to take off, but also inside the dust bin there is this little clear plastic held in place by the little black plastic that covers up the hole where the dust is actually sucked in to the dust bin. To be honest I wasn't sure if I needed to take it off or if it was supposed to stay there as like, a flap that would allow the dust in but keep it from falling back out? You do need to remove it.
Also, there is s humidifier function, which is cool, except they PRE-LOADED IT, so my vacuum was a little bit wet where it had leaked out during shipping. Plus, I don't know where that water has been, or what germs it might be aerosolizing into the air during a pandemic. Why the fuck they would pre-load it with water, I have no idea. Anyway, pressing the start button once runs the sweep/vacuum without the humidifier; pressing it twice does both; pressing it three times stops the sweeping but the humidifier keeps going. So my plan is I'm going to set Peanut out on the balcony to run out the pre-loaded water with just the humidifier running, and then refill it myself with water from my filter.
Peanut charging
Once I got that all figured out, he works well! He runs for an hour or so per charge, and every time there is a bunch of hair (both mine and Yuan's, lol) and a little litter and whatnot. I had just swept and mopped a couple of days before he arrived in the mail, so it shows how quickly that accumulates!
He doesn't handle the shaggy carpet in my bedroom - it's too much of an obstacle so he can't roll around. But since the rest of the apartment is smooth floors, that's okay with me. I was having to vacuum the bedroom by itself before anyway. So if you have a lot of shaggy carpet, this may not be the robot for you. But if you mostly have laminate, hardwood, or tile, he does a great job!
A warning to fellow long-haired people: I have had to detangle my hair from his brushes a couple of times already. So there is s little maintenance on that score.
There is a sanitizing light on the bottom (that's the purple you can see underneath), which is nice, and my one remaining confusion is that there is a mopping function too? There is a little cloth mop head that you can attach, but I'm not sure how that works unless you are supposed to run the humidifier and it will dampen the floor? It didn't seem to be doing so when it went off before. As I said, the instructions were less than helpful so I haven't figured that part out yet. Maybe you're just supposed to wet the mop head and attach it. If I figure it out, I'll update. I mostly just wanted the sweep/vacuum function anyway!
He also came with a little bottle to refill the water tank, and a cleaning brush to clean out anything that might get stuck or dirty in the vacuum.
He does not run on an automatic schedule, which is a plus to me as I've seen that horror story from some person who posted that they set their Roomba to go off every early morning and one day she woke up to the vacuum having smeared dog poop all over the house because her dog had had an accident overnight. This way he's not going to go off by himself and I can check around before I turn him on, to make sure there's not cat poop or barf or something that I don't want him to encounter!
So my verdict is, totally worth getting this one (unless maybe you have all shaggy carpet. I don't know how he would do on short carpet)! I am loving how he helps me stay on top of all the dust, hair, and litter that builds up so quickly. He's easily turned around so I haven't had any incidents where he tried to suck up a cat toy or anything. The suction isn't super strong anyway; I think heavier things like litter have to get hit by his brushes at the right angle to make it into the dust bin. There's always litter in there and by the end you'll see less of it on the floor, but if you watch him work you'll see him run over pieces that don't get taken up right away. It's not the strong suction of an upright vacuum that you plug into the wall. Which, again, is fine by me because then there aren't any accidents when I'm not looking of him trying to eat a blanket or cat toy that are on the floor.
Oh! And also a bonus: I'm pretty sure he hasn't got any cameras nor is he mapping the house like a Roomba does. So no spying and data security concerns. If you haven't read the stories about how iRobot sells the data it collects about the inside of your house, and now Amazon is buying them so they'll have Alexas and cameras on your vacuum and Ring security cameras ALL COLLECTING YOUR DATA ABOUT THE INSIDE OF YOUR HOUSE ... that's some scary stuff, y'all. Peanut is just bumper car-ing his way through the world. :)
Thanks for reading, and have a great day!
