This cleaning robot sits at the bottom of the price range, yet it has many features you'd expect on more advanced cleaners. It can clean multiple kinds of surfaces, it has an option for wet cleaning, it navigates well between obstacles, and it has a safety switch that turns it off if it gets stuck.
If have allergies, the HEPA filters installed on this robot could really improve your well-being inside the house. According to US Standards, HEPA filters must trap at least 99.97% of dust particles and mold spores.
This robot is equipped with a powerful vacuum that deals efficiently with dust and small dirt particles, including inside rugs and carpets; bristled brushes that collect larger particles and pet hair; and a detachable microfibre cloth for wet cleaning hard floor surfaces.
A small battery-powered device called "virtual wall" allows you to create a virtual boundary that the robot will not cross. It emits an invisible infrared ray 7 feet long that serves as a stop-sign for the Roomba. So, for example, if you don't want the Roomba to wander into a room with your pet's food and water, or a bunch of wires scattered on the floor, just place this device in the doorway.
Not only does this robotic vacuum cleaner do tiles, hardwood, and whatever other hard surface you might have as your floor, but its the ground clearance lets it climb onto carpets and clean them perfectly. This lets you get dog hair, crumbs, dirt, and other debris out of that carpet you spent so much money on.
You can set-up a schedule for the iRobot to clean at certain times of the day, such as while you're away at work. If you can't hear the Roomba in the home, is there really any noise?
Using the Virtual Wall devices that come with the 880, the Roomba can clean one room, then be sent off to clean the next room in succession. The 880 supports up to 3 rooms.
The Roomba 880 uses rubber dust collectors to pick up more dirt than the bristled ones on lower quality models. Not only do they effectively do that, but they are much easier to clean, as you don't need to comb anything out of the collectors, you can just pull everything off in one motion.
Advertising itself as "5x the air power" as lower models from iRobot Roomba series, the Roomba 880 picks up even the tiny dust that settles on your floor, and even the dust that might exist between tiles or floorboards.
Think of this product (and the iRobot brand as a whole) as the Apple of autonomous cleaning robots. It's somewhat over-priced when compared to its competitors - especially for a mid-range product - but it offers superior build quality and the guarantee of quality that can be offered by a company that has been around longer that the competition. Still, the cost is high for someone wanting to test the waters of robotic vacuum cleaners, and a brand doesn't justify it.
The manual given with the product leaves much to be desired. Such problems include (but aren't limited to): how to place the Virtual Walls, what the lights on the machine mean, and unsatisfactory description of the cleaning patterns.
The iRobot Roomba 880 (as most robotic vacuum cleaners) sometimes hits walls, table or chair legs, and anything else on your floor. It's recommended that you pick up whatever might obstruct its path before starting up the robot.
This device is so compact (2.9 inches tall, 11 inches in diameter) that it has no problem cleaning even in areas inaccessible to a normal robot cleaner like under nearly any piece of furniture, in the corners or along the walls.
Not having to deal with the power cord that may be too short to reach into certain places, or get tangled, is a huge advantage of this battery-powered vacuum.