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Stop worrying about how the sausage is made... There's a reason why I program it to run while I'm asleep... so I don't have to worry about 'how' it works, only that the floor is visibly clean when I get up. Look at it as a blind man in a hedge maze who can only 'hear' a signal coming from 'home' when the battery is low. Although I notice mine tends to follow a consistent path when it starts cleaning, it is largely a random algorithm which over a set period of time during a cleaning cycle, would cover a majority of the area to be cleaned. It is heavily dependent upon size of area to be cleaned the and number of obstacles versus battery capacity. So it is possible to have in a large home - a spot(s) not cleaned one day but is the next - all because of the randomness of each cleaning. In a smaller area, the unit gets more chances to cover every area before the battery runs out. Note: it still cleans until it is docked. NO MAPPING only has two downsides - (1) if it doesn't find it's way home before the battery dies, you have to pick it up and put it back at the dock AND (2) no ability to resume cleaning after recharging (important only if you have a LARGE area to be cleaned). That said - the iRobot website has guidelines to help you select the model that best suits your need. I used that to land on the e5. The e5 works 'good enough' for me as my area to be cleaned is just about or a bit more than the area recommended. I run it everyday before I wake up. The first floor is very clean - 6 cats and 2 dogs worth of fur tumbleweeds mostly gone. I know it may not have enough battery capacity to cover every square inch. But it is good enough to say that over a two or three day span, all areas get cleaned in a large home. That said - I still need to pull out the electric broom (not the Dyson) every now and then to suck up corners that a round unit cannot reach. Carpets I will still use a Dyson - but much less frequently - to deep clean dust, etc... In the four weeks I've owned it - maybe 5 times have I had to carry it home because it couldn't find it's way home to the dock. And that is largely due to the obstacle course that may lay between the unit and the docking station. If it's in the living room near the end of the battery cycle, it'll have a hard time finding it's way out and back to the dock. So... picking up and carrying the unit back to base maybe once a week is still better than hauling out my Dyson every few days. Is mapping worth the extra $? Only you can make that call. For me - this works just fine...
Sorry, there was a problem. Please try again later.This model has dirt detection and sensors that tell it not so much where to go but where it can't go. You will find it returning to a room like a kitchen repeatedly if that is the angle it bounces towards. Mine is obsessed with under a particular chair, but really it is because it bounces off a bookcase when it leaves home and that chair is the next stop. You can set up a barrier like books or buy the additional barrier towers by iRobot if you want it to stay out of an area. The trick to successfully using a robot vacuum is to understand it cleans to high standards over time. The more often you run it the better your floors will look. It doesn't require mapping to do that effectively.
Sorry, there was a problem. Please try again later.Hi Bootie, vRoomba e5 use iAdapt® 2.0 Navigation Technology utilize a responsive algorithm to navigate the cleaning area. Instead of a systematic cleaning pattern of back and forth, Roomba® heads out to clean, and when it encounters an obstacle, it maps the location internally and then moves in another direction. Roomba® will continually clean and map in this fashion until the battery is low or there is no more new area to clean. Robots that utilize iAdapt® 2.0 do not have a Recharge and Resume feature, meaning the robot cleans as much of an area as possible on a single battery charge.
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