I bought a robot vacuum about a year ago, and while it seemed like a great solution to save time on cleaning, I didn’t realize how much maintenance it would actually require. Initially, I thought it would be a one-time purchase, and I could just let it do its job every day without having to worry about anything. However, here I am, regularly cleaning its brushes, emptying the dustbin, and now even dealing with a replacement battery.
At first, the vacuum worked fine, but over time, I started noticing that the battery life decreased, and the vacuum wasn’t picking up as well as before. It also has this annoying habit of getting stuck under furniture, forcing me to intervene and move things around. So, what started as a $400 investment has already required additional costs for parts, batteries, and time spent maintaining it.
Has anyone here really sat down and calculated the total cost of ownership of a robot vacuum over two years? I didn’t realize how much upkeep was involved, and I’m starting to wonder if I could’ve just stuck with my old vacuum cleaner for much less. If you've had a similar experience, how much have you spent maintaining your robot vacuum? Is it really saving money or just creating more work in the long run?
I thought robot vacuums would save me money… but now I’m spending more than expected on maintenance!
byu/HoneysHarma97 inFrugal
Posted by HoneysHarma97
27 Comments
I have one that self-evacuates his dustbin, I just take out the bag. The maintenance replacing parts is costly, but that’s investment into saving time and energy.
He vacuums 52m2 of space. It would take me an hour to do it myself with like 8 changings of cable for vacuum. He does it in 2 hours.
And changing parts is a fun thing to do with kids.
We love him. His name is Emanuel.
Robot vacuums need clear paths and are not worth the effort. Ours just sit idly because it gets stuck more often than it cleans.
You are now the vaccum cleaner
We got one that was around $800. It empties itself and we have replaced the brushes once a year. Over the past 4 years it has served us well and I can’t imagine going back to pushing a vacuum. My home is 5500 square feet so it takes several runs to complete but my floors are always clean. I have 2 non shedding dogs that track in grass or dirt.
I bought a $100 robot vac 3 years ago. Never done any maintenance on it yet. Just empty the collection tray. I just make sure I pick up everything off the ground before I run it.
I don’t understand why your initial thought was that it would save you money. Time yes but money no.
Robot vacs are a luxury item, a convenience. They help with everyday tidying but they absolutely do not replace vacuuming and they aren’t great on synthetic carpet fibers. Mine cleans the hardwood in the kitchen every night, the hardwood powder room weekly, and that’s about it. My Miele does the real vacuuming.
My Roomba has rubber brushes so no hair caught in bristles. Do you have that option?
I wouldn’t get one because I am prone to dump stuff on the ground. Also I live in a really tiny flat (44 sqm) and have no pets. Swiffering and quickly mopping my floors takes me half an hour once or twice a week. The floor space of a robot vaccuums base station is more valuable than my time with a nice audiobook
I didn’t buy our robot vacuum/mop to save money, I did it to reduce dust buildup, and for that purpose it has worked great.
I also haven’t had any problems with the battery, and I would not expect it either.
We have made our living space robot-friendly. Wires and loose knick-knacks floating around on the floor have been reduced to a minimum. Incompatible furniture has been replaced or modified.
I take out the dust filter and vacuum it with our regular vacuum at least one or two times before I replace it altogether. The mops can be washed, and are. Other replaceable parts can be cleaned and used past the recommended time.
Keeping a robot vacuum/mop hasn’t been free, but I won’t say that I spend a lot on it. Maybe buying a quality vacuum to begin with did pay off over time.
One of the reasons I have hardwood floors (well, the not-really-hardwood stuff that I can’t recall its name) is that i can use a dust mop and do the single floor house in about 15 minutes.
All vacuums cost money and time to maintain. If anyone in your house has hair like longer than an inch, you’re going to have to clean it out of all the spinning and rolling parts of a vacuum.
With a robot vacuum, you’re almost certainly using it more than a manual vacuum and so it might feel like there is more maintenance. The time savings comes from the daily vacuuming part.
My roborock s7 has 1293hrs and has cleaned 655k ft(2). Not a single issue other than maintence parts (new rollers, bags, etc).
I got one of the cheapo knock offs. Zoozie. Shes ok, but honestly a lot of the same issues. Always getting stuck (like I gotta save her from under the couches at least 2-3 times a clean), needs to be emptied often. Gets lost or doesnt charge right if not perfectly on the charger. I went back to sweeping instead. Its more convenient to me vs dealing with everything else.
What kind of home do you have lol. We’ve never done maintenance other than replacing the filter or rollers and even that im not sure we’ve done more than once a year.
Luckily i bought mine from Costco and am going to return it. I bought it more than a hear ago and have used it a dozen times. It’s always sick or lost or clogged or stuck. I hate it. Its loud and slow.
My robot vaccum cost me like $170 and I haven’t had to put a single dime into it since i bought it 3 years ago. Yes, I need to empty it after every use and yes I need to remove the hair that gets wrapped around the brush but that’s nothing. That thing is a life saver.
Oh man, we have owned two, both Eufy, and have never done any maintenance. Both still work like champs and we run one of them at least every other day (dog hair).
We’re on year 6 with the first one. End of the first year with the second. Each were just about $200.
Which vacuum did you get?
My son got me the Wyze robot for close to 200.00 and it works great. I have it for 5 years and then moved into a multilevel house and bought one more. No complaints. I have had to replace the brush once, ten dollars or so. Oh, I also named my first one Missy and the second one Mister.
Had one for 8 years and other than a $25 battery it’s been cheap to maintain. It certainly cuts down on the time we spend manually vacuuming which is what we wanted.
So I picked up a few Sharks on Amazon (refurbished) for like $100, and they’ve been great. You have to Roomba-proof the room (like bundle cords and get the furniture to the right height), which is a pain.
But they also force people to pick up after themselves — like, no matter what, all your shit’s gotta be off the floor when the vacuums start at 8 AM. When you’ve got kids, that shit is priceless.
During Covid I got a small robotic vacuum for about $100. It was regularly $300 or so they said. I used it to vacuum up as much as dirt as it could from the common areas as possible on its own so later in the day I could mop. 9/10 it did this without a problem. Once in a while it had a problem of one sort or another but they became more and more predictable to the point I could set it to automatically start on its own once a week and do its thing and I would finish up in the afternoon. It did its job and I didn’t really have to worry too much about cleaning its brushes and emptying its bin was very easy. In the end we moved and now just have someone else do it so we retired the little guy.
>However, here I am, regularly cleaning its brushes, emptying the dustbin, and now even dealing with a replacement battery.
These are all things any regular cordless vacuum would require. Same with corded vacuums, minus the battery replacement.
I don’t think our shark is very good. Doesn’t leave the rugs looking as nice as our old stand-up with the roller agitator. We have 3 big dogs, everything eventually gets clogged quickly with fur.
Mine has been perfect and I have 2 large shedding dogs. Maybe you bought the wrong vacuum?
Like any appliance, they need routine maintenance to function appropriately for extended periods. We won’t try to get into the whole planned obsolescence thing that we have to fight with too.
We’ve never had problems with our Roborock. We have had problems with Roomba’s (not major though).
Brand has a lot to do with performance. I’d hands-down recommend Roborock (when they go on clearance or on Black Friday – their ‘refurbished’ items on eBay are often brand new/never used).
I picked up a used Roborock S5 (discontinued model) from an online marketplace, and it’s been working great for years. The only thing I have to do is clean the brushes, sensors, and empty the bin (pretty much the manual labor on my part). Other than that, it just runs around and does its thing. The new model can pick up socks, self clean, detect dirt, and empty its trash. I’d consider it if it could walk a dog, but I can’t afford it.