Roomba is a great way to clean your home in a smart way. The first of its kind in the household robots, it is a pretty cool device to have in your home. Imagine your house being cleaned on its own, while you go about your routine without the stress of having to do everything on your own.
This small computerized machine brushes and vacuums the floors, rugs and carpets in your house and is considered to do a pretty good job. What more could one want?
How does Roomba work?
On the face of it, the way a Roomba works is pretty simple. All you need to do is to press the clean button and off it goes cleaning. Once it is done with the cleaning work, it automatically docks itself in the recharging station so that the batteries can be charged for the next time use.
When the charging process is going on, the clean button will continue to flash an orange color and once the charging process is complete the light will turn green. In case you want the Roomba to clean when you are away while you are away for the day or even a week, you can simply program it to do so according to your cleaning schedule.
The latest versions of the Roomba have inbuilt Wi-Fi technology which means that you can program them with a simple app on your phone or tablet to work. Internally the Roomba is built according to a series of programming instructions and combined with its inbuilt intelligence capability; the Roomba can perform the tasks efficiently.
The modes and patterns
If you see a Roomba at work, you would think that the Roomba is following a random pattern. However it works according to combination of two patterns, i.e. following the wall and random bounce. This means that the Roomba moves along the walls of the rooms in the house and cleans the corners of the rooms with its side mounted brush. The random bounce means that it tends to clean in one direction till it hits an obstacle and moves to another random direction. The inbuilt sensors allow it to detect walls and obstacles.
The Roomba is also programmed to clean according to different requirements. For instance, its different modes allow it to sweep across a large area or spiral outward to clean out the large spaces. Similarly if one area is particularly dirty, the Dirt Detect technology enables it to identify the dirt and it will focus on that area and work harder by retracing its steps in that area to clean it till it is dirt free.
Why the Roomba misses rooms and what you can do?
Sometimes the Roomba may not be cleaning all the rooms in your house. If that is happening, there could be a few underlying reasons. Let’s discuss what they are and how you can fix them
Roomba Navigation and Mapping
The infrared camera on the Roomba allows it to take snapshots of the room. As they work, they built up on that information to complete the picture. This helps them to do the work more efficiently as they use the information to determine which area they have cleaned and which area needs to be cleaned.
The latest Roomba, the i7 carries out mapping of the house and remembers the layout of the rooms so as to apply the information on the next cleaning session. However for the other versions like the 980 and 960 do make a map but once the cleaning is done, the memory is erased and this could be the reason why a certain room has been missed.
The battery
If the battery of the Roomba gets weaker during the cleaning session, it stops cleaning and gets to the charging station to recharge the batteries. For the versions, 980 and 960, once it is charged, it resumes cleaning from where it left off earlier.
If the battery is the issue, then make sure that the Roomba is back in the docking station to get recharged. For instance the has charged out right in the middle of the room before being able to get to the docking station due to some obstacle or a faulty battery, you may have to figure out what the problem is.
If the battery is dead, you may very well need to replace it. However before you replace the battery, try resetting the home base to see if that is the issue. You can also clean out the battery contacts on the device to check if those are causing the dead battery. Additionally, you can also try performing a reset to see of the Roomba is back to working mode.
The docking station
Discussing more about the home base station, it may happen that the Roomba’s battery has discharged and needs to get to the docking station to recharge but is unable to do so and stops in the middle of a certain room. This may be because of the location of the home base or some obstacle in its path that hinders it from getting across. Make sure that the base is in an open space that is clutter free and the area on its side and front is free.
The dynamics of the room
If there is a certain room in the house that the Roomba is missing, there might be a few reasons for it-
- The room might not have enough light. The Roomba particularly the 980 and 960 need light to function. If the room is dark, it might not be able to clean that room
- There might be some obstacle in front of around the room that does not allow the Roomba to get through to the room. Make sure that the space is clutter free so that the Roomba does not get stuck.
- If the room is upstairs, the Roomba will have to be taken up for cleaning manually. No robot has been programmed to climb stairs on its own.
- The sensors on the Roomba might find it hard to navigate through dark colored floors or rugs. See if that is the issue.
The virtual wall and infrared beams
Sometimes you may need to turn the infrared sensors on the Roomba and then turn them on again to get them in to working condition. It may happen that they are restricting the Roomba to one room and hindering the cleaning process.
Check your app for the edge cleaning function
If the edge cleaning function on the Roomba is turned off, it will stay away from the walls and will not cleaning may parts of the house. You can just go to the app and turn this function off to see if the problem is resolved.
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