Roomba vacuum cleaners are getting more and more popular. But you may a little surprised by how dumb it looks. A few tips and best practices will help you get the most out of your robot.

1. Avoid narrow spaces. Every part of your room should be twice as large as your robot vacuum cleaner, or thinner than it. If the space is just a little larger than your robot, it may get stuck there for several minutes or forever. The solutions: put something to block the way, make narrower than the robot, or make it large enough. It may be good to spend a little time with your robot the first time you run it. You will see all the traps that go into its way.
2. Clean the brushes from hair and other debris regularly (1/week or 1/month). That way there will be less resistance, making your Roomba vacuum cleaner more efficient both for the battery and the cleaning.
3. Make sure your Roomba can go into every room. If you have steps between rooms or very fluffy carpets, your robot vacuum cleaner won’t be as efficient. I guess it’s something to see before you buy your robot. Otherwise you will have to take it manually from one room to another. If your robot tries to climb on the step between rooms, it may harm itself, so don’t forget to close the doors before you let it run.
4. Keep your room tidy. Roomba will not harm your vases or furnitures. However, a room that is not tidy will strongly decrease your robot’s performance (remember when you had to pick all the things one by one from the floor when passing your vacuum?). So tidy regularly, you’ll see, it will better when you are in the room too (unless you just put everything on the table or sofa).
5. Make space in the middle. When starting to work, the Roomba vacuum cleaner goes into a spiral from the middle of the room until it reaches a wall or another obstacle. This part of the cleaning is very efficient and can cover a large surface. So if you make a lot of free space in the middle, your Roomba will cover a large surface from the beginning. Plus, if you are like me, you may enjoy walking around freely in the room, and a feeling of having a bigger room.
6. Don’t hide the charging station. When your Roomba looks for its charging station, it has to find it quickly. Otherwise, it will just go on cleaning randomly until it finds it. So put it somewhere your robot can see it. In particular, the corner behind furniture is rather bad idea. A corner with nothing else or under a table is more reasonable. If you follow this piece of advice, you will see your Roomba vacuum cleaner is rather efficient after all.