Gadgetory

so this isn't exactly the cutting-edge latest technology I mean the first Rumbo was introduced in 2002 and it's now 2015 meaning i'm about 13 years late to the party but i'm not convinced that everyone who is interested in a Roomba already has one so this video is for people like me who put off trying one for years because they saw the price of what on the surface frankly looks like a silly gadget compared to similarly priced central vac or portable vacuum cleaning systems from known brands like Hoover and Electrolux and just didn't have the stomach for it until now welcome to my thoughts on owning the iRobot Roomba 595 pen Edition now that I've had it for a few months and if cleaning supplies aren't interesting to you don't worry I think we've got something that is who makes the best PC stock cooler Intel or AMD we'll find out but first this so you can save on Intel 730 series SSDs with instant rebates during president's week February 22nd to March 1st 2015 click on that base to learn more now most Roombas have pretty similar features give or take some advanced doodads here or there so while the actual model that I got was a fairly obscure Costco exclusive one here in Canada anyway most of what I'm saying will apply to all modern fourth-generation Roombas in general except with like some extra bits here and there so in the box you get the Roomba itself a base station with an AC power cord two virtual wall doodads uh this little red cleaning tool thing for the brushes and another one a couple extras each of the side brushes filters bristle brushes and beater brushes the last one just in case you can't find a broom and the big Quidditch match is coming up next Saturday anyway bad jokes aside the accessory package is actually overall outstanding and even though Roomba is definitely going to bleed you dry on overpriced replacements through their store in the long run at least they have the decency to keep you up and running for a reasonable period of time before that becomes necessary and they offer some pretty tangible upgrade options as well if you're looking to get a bit more performance or battery life out of your device and of course third-party options are out there if you want to save a few bucks alright so let's do a quick tour of the device itself these have come a long way since even the demos that I saw in my first year attending CES back in the late 2000s on the top is all the controls that you'll need buttons to set up scheduling that's a cool feature of this particular pet-friendly model a spot button for when you don't need to clean a whole room but you just want to do a deep clean in a particular isolated spot a dock button to tell it to go dock itself to its charging station a clean button which should be pretty self-explanatory it sprays water out the top of the unit bidet style and you kind of squat over it to click no that's not what happens it starts a cleaning cycle for the room that it go around the road I mean did you really believe that man actually come up with some other nonsense to tell you how about this one the dirt detect light illuminates to tell you the roomba detect dirt wait that's actually what that does it cleans a little heavier when it detects dirt or something hitting some kind of sensor cool also on the top is the big red button to access the replaceable filter and to dump out the dirt canister there are speaker holes for the tones that the Roomba uses along with the error code displayed to tell you stuff like hey I'm done hey I'm getting started hey charge the bloomin battery yeah fart loud much more politely than that of course at the front we find the infrared sensor for the virtual wall units that sends out beams telling the Roomba not to cross them though frankly my wife found it was less work to close doors or find some random boxes to put in its way than to use these as well as a physical bumper that tells the Roomba when it's hit a wall or other solid object then if we flip it over there are four infrared sensors for edge detection to keep your fancy gadget from flinging itself over a cliff like the rest of the lemmings and while we're down here there are the charging contacts a caster wheel the little brush that is needed to grab debris away from the edges around walls and corners thanks to the Roombas round shape a couple super grippy drive wheels and the beater and brush spinning pieces that are actually responsible for removing hair and dirt from the floor to be sucked up but that's all fine and good in theory how well does the darn thing work great question in some respects really well in spite of all the drop-offs in my house the Roomba has never fallen down for me and it does anywhere from an 80 to 90% job of cleaning most of the hallways and rooms in my house it's actually a very impressive little piece of technology but there are some drawbacks to the experience as well the preparation for Roomba is a bit more involved than just kind of grabbing a hose and then like going to town you're going under things and all that kind of stuff you got to set up your barricades position it and come back to it when it's ready for the next task that and the rumbas approach to room cleaning especially if your rooms contain a lot of furniture and other obstacles feels a touch on the random side and even though it actually eventually seems to get pretty good Brigit takes a really long time much longer than it would take you to do it yourself manually but Linus I think you're missing the point you don't have to be actively vacuuming so that's where the time savings comes in and yeah it is but there are some other things that weigh into it for me I mean for one thing the noise the Roomba makes is kind of annoying not as bad as as a standalone vacuum cleaner but having it running for extended periods of time does bother especially my cats and for another the darn thing gets stuck on or fails to clean enough things in my house like this black border drug that it refuses to go on to but won't stay inside if I start on top of it but I have to check on the room but periodically and so while I can do other things while it's cleaning I can't go too far away or it'll often end up sitting there doing nothing it also requires some things that my central vacuum system doesn't more upkeep as far as replacement parts is concerned very frequent emptying of the dust chamber about once per room charging so it can be used only for about one or two rooms per charge before you either have to pick up your base station and put it in the room it's cleaning so that it can dock to it when it's done something that's a bit of a pain sits the cord for it is so bulky it actually kind of gets in the way of cleaning in the station or pick the Roomba up and take it back to the base station but I guess the bottom line is this and I'm going to keep it I paid for it I'm going to keep it and continue to use it or not and the answer is that while the price tag for what is effectively a cleaning accessory that does not replace a normal vacuum is pretty high and I'm not actually the ideal customer for the Roomba folks with smaller single-story dwellings with fewer obstacles or this babies wheelhouse since it can't clean things like a sunken living room or stairs and it's just kind of set and forget I still plan to continue to use it and I do plan to keep it I mean if the whole house needs to be cleaned it is still more efficient to just grab a vacuum and do it properly it'll be more thorough and you know it that needs to be done periodically anyway just to get under things like tables that the Roomba can't access but the thing about the Rumba is that if you make it part of your daily habit it definitely does a great job of dramatically decreasing the required frequency of proper cleanings as long as you're willing to accept a few plant casualties along the way speaking of plant casualties xsplit that live-streaming software that we use for our weekly video podcast the land show has nothing to do with plant casualties they recently released xsplit v2 which has even more powerful production tools and actually I mean honestly exploits just kind of awesome whether your professional streamer first-time streamer or even just someone who wants to broadcast gameplay to show their friends a few tips and tricks I mean honestly we actually even use it just for for screen recording like I set it up for my neighbor I totally used my I totally used my code which you can find in the video description by the way totally is my code download an expletive II was watching these he he's taking this online course and he had no way to go back and reference the material and I was like oh well you can just use this thing and you can record your screen or record webcams record whatever you want all at the same time the interface is extremely intuitive he's like 60 and he can do it so there's that and it allows all kinds of great features you can easily manage guests through Skype you can hook it up directly to your games via game source if you're a game streamer which ensures high fidelity capture with a minimum performance hit and it even lets you easily stream and record your gaming moments with game caster which has an easy-to-use in-game overlay to manage all of your streaming or recording settings so head over to xsplit comm slash Linus to start streaming and recording in HD for free guys like this video if you liked it dislike it if you disliked it leave a comment if your feelings are a little bit more complicated than this as always we have links in the video description where you can give us a monthly contribution if you love our content you want us to keep making it you can buy a cool t-shirt like this one you can change your amazon bookmark to along with our affiliate code so we get a small kickback whenever you buy Roombas or whatever it is you buy on Amazon and I think that's pretty much it thanks for watching and as always don't forget to subscribe