Having an iRobot Roomba to vacuum your floors is a real luxury. I especially appreciate mine because we have hardwood floors and pets and with hardwood floors there always seem to be little gritty pieces of dirt that get stuck to your feet. That should be reason number one why a Roomba is the best way to get your floor clean. Here are some more reasons.

1) Roombas are short – When you’re a robot vacuum cleaner, being short is a great advantage. They can vacuum under your furniture. Think about the last time you tried to vacuum under your bed. At one point in my life, I owned a vacuum cleaner that could adjust to be flat on the floor but it still didn’t fit under my bed all the way and was a pain to use in that position. The rest of the time, a person has to get down on their hands and knees with a duster or a broom and crawl around with the dust bunnies. This is one problem that a robot vacuum will solve for you.

2) Schedule your cleaning – With a little ingenuity, you can have your Roomba vacuum your house on a schedule. We have a small enough house that the robot can vacuum it in one go and then find its way back to the automatic self-charger. It took a little adjustment on our part. In any house there are places where a Roomba will get stuck, like if you have a real mess of cords or sometimes if there is a transition between rooms that has a high bump. Once you make adjustments, though, a robot vacuum cleaner can do its job with a minimum of intervention on your part. Mostly you just have to empty the thing and clean the brushes.

3) Vacuum Every Day! – Nobody wants to pull out their vacuum or broom every day and give their house a going-over. With a Roomba, this suddenly becomes a real possibility. You can say goodbye to clumps of pet hair and little pieces of grass and leaves that get tracked into the house. It seems to me that this would be a great thing for allergy sufferers and also people with kids or pets.

4) Work is Fascinating – As the saying goes, “Work is fascinating. I could watch it all day.” Especially when you’re watching a robot vacuum going about its business. You can watch it work its way around the house, bump into furniture, move from room to room, detect stairways, and make your pets nervous. A normal arrangement of dining room chairs is transformed into a virtual miniature golf course. OK OK compared to watching Alias, it’s kind of a dud, but I find it fascinating.

5) iRobot Roomba Remote – This option isn’t exactly the most useful thing in the world. I mean, on its own, your robot vaccum will manage to every square inch of your floor. The thing was designed to work without human intervention! And yet, if you get a model with a remote control, you can make the Roomba zip around the room. Before you think it’s all fun and games, though, there is a practical purpose. If there is a particular area or spot on your floor that needs attention, you can use the remote to direct the vacuum to hit that area. It’s fun!

6) Own a Robot! This is the 21st Century, and we were all supposed to be living like George Jetson. Instead, we have no jet packs. I don’t drive to work in a flying machine. BUT I do have my very own robot maid. Maybe it’s not rotund and charming, but it’s still very cool.

7) Cat Owners – They say that people who are allergic to cats aren’t bothered by the hair. It’s the dander. I’m telling you, though, the hair bothers me! It gets around the house. On hardwood floor you end up with clumps that wander around your house and end up under the coffee table. This goes for dog hair too. iRobot has engineered robots specifically to clean up after pets. They designate these models as “Pet Series”.

8) Hardware Hacking – iRobot has released what they call the iRobot Create. This is a Roomba designed to be educational. What you get is a mobile platform that has been designed by the industry leader, and information on how to experiment with it. Now, most people aren’t going to take advantage of this, but you’ve got to admit, it’s pretty cool.

9) Put your rabbit on it and drive it around – See this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YyDWViV7-Y

10) Roombas Detect Dirt – The Roomba is designed with a special feature to detect areas of the floor that are especially dirty and spend more time on them. A blue light will come on and the robot will run in circles on the area until it decides the area is properly clean.