After I mentioned my husband’s fascination with a robot that mops the floor, thorn_stevens sent me some informative links. Thanks, thorn_stevens. Your info really helped us.Our biggest concern was cost and return on investment. Would this baby give us what we wanted without incurring additional costs in the long run? After some researching and debating we made our decision.
I'd like to introduce you to Scooby.
Here is Scooby in his box:
Here he is upside down in his box:
What Lrudlrick and I loved about the Scooba was how they made it pretty much idiot proof. Notice that even the part numbers are labeled clearly on the body of the robot.
Open-mouthed Scooby. "Feed me, Seymour!"
So why did we get it? My biggest concern was that we were choosing geekdom over functionality. What one us over was the cost calculations and the idea of clean floors nearly all the time.
We have two dogs. One dog has allergies. Many of you know she’s allergic to ragweed, pollen, dust, dander, everything under the sun. Well, we live by the park and well things can get tracked in.
Lrudlrick and I are sticklers about no shoes in the house and wiping the paws of the pooches but stuff can float in.
Well the notion of cleaner floors for the spring allergy season won me over. That and the $100 dollars off coupon thorn_stevens told us about.
I don’t have the patience or time to make a sweet video with Kraftwerk soundtracks like other Scooba owners have but here is a snippet we took during Scooba’s first day out:
Knowing how our dogs feel the vacuum and steam cleaner are works of evil, we wondered how they would react to a self-propelled mopping robot. Note: Our dogs do not seem phased by the Dyson Animal. I’m not sure if it’s old age or the quiet cyclonic action but I’ve had to shoo them away areas so I could vacuum. Well, check out P-man’s reaction:
Yes, if you were wondering we rolled up our rugs and moved our furniture to clean all our floors. Who knew we’d be that excited about mopping! I’ve got a jump start on Spring Cleaning and I didn’t have to kick myself to do it!
Mopping with the Scooba is simple. You fill the clean water tank with a measuring cup full of Scooba juice (from Clorox) and fill the tank to the top with lukewarm water. Then you put the tank in and press Clean. Scooba whistles a tune and starts cleaning.
Scooba cleans a 200 square foot area in 45 minutes. When it’s done, it whistles a tune that I have consistently finished with a ragtime ditty whose origins currently alludes me. Lrudlrick hums the Darth Vadar theme.
In our experience, on a fully charged battery, Scooba can run two full cycles.
I will preface that you shouldn’t think Scooba will take the place of sweeping or vacuuming your floor. You will need to do the preliminary sweep that you normally do prior to mopping. You’ll also need to move any wires that may get caught off the floor.
It’s been 3 days since we became owners of a robot and Scooba has cleaned every floor of our apartment at least twice, except for our carpeted bedroom. In fact, Lrudlrick has gone home early just so he could mop the floor!
We’re officially hooked on robots. In fact, we’re adding a sibling to the family. We’re picking up the Roomba Scheduler (to be named Shaggy) tomorrow evening Gotta love sales!. We’re planning to schedule the vacuuming in our foyer and entranceway to alleviate the constant chasing of tumbleweed dog hair. We’re a bit nervous on how it will perform with two hairy dogs. I’ll let you know how that turns out.
Oh, on Sunday we also purchased the Scrubbing Bubbles self cleaning shower doodad. It’s kind of cool but the Scooba usurped it’s coolness. Still, if you have a shower and you use that shower clean stuff, check out this thing. It beeps for 15 seconds then sprays a fine mist of shower clean 360 degrees. Now after every shower , I don’t have to hold my towel up while trying to spray my tub. I think there is also a $5.00 coupon available on the scrubbing bubbles’ site.
If you’re looking for info on Scooba, check out this links below:
thorn_stevens’ site
Scooba manufacturer’s site
Scooba blog
Chat forum on everything Scooba and Roomba
Technical info from a Scooba fan
First impressions from the maker of the Kraftwerk Scooba video
Related Tags: geek gadgets, scooba
