Roomba 880/980 vs Botvac D, which one breaks less?

[comp666]

I purchased a Botvac 75 over a year ago, and it's worked great... until the bumper sensors broke (tested w/ NeatoControl). There are tutorials for how to take it apart and replace the bumpers, but I don't have time/skill to do it. The brush head also broke once due to dirty bearings, but I replaced that easily. Since it's outside of the warranty period, I guess I'm out of $400.

For my next purchase, I'm considering the Roomba 880, Roomba 980, and the Botvac D80. I know there have been lots of comparisons in terms of cleaning power, navigation, noise blah blah blah. But what I'm really interested in is reliability. Which one does not require me to go in and fix it after 1 year of use? I know the Botvac D has the new brush bearing which is supposed to be more reliable, but have the fixed the bumpers? Thanks.

[vic7767]

The Roomba models are much more reliable and if there is an issue after the warranty period, most parts are modular and are very easy to replace using a Phillips head driver.

[comp666]

I think I am going to go with the Roomba 880. When hair gets stuck around the 880 brushes (like this: http://www.bestcordlessvacuumguide.com/ ... actors.jpg), does it cause damage to the unit if not cleaned out immediately? I have to clean my botvac brush and brush bearings pretty much after every run, in fear that it will damage the unit.

[vic7767]

The Roomba 880 and 980 share the same CHM-brush deck. Here is a Youtube quick video I made showing how easy it is to clean the extractors (no longer called brushes) The extractors shown in the video had not been cleaned for about a week and had been run about 5 times.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBIq3YBjnYk

[comp666]

Great video, 1 extractor cleaning per 5 runs sounds great to me. Thanks!

[jdong]

I think I am going to go with the Roomba 880. When hair gets stuck around the 880 brushes (like this: http://www.bestcordlessvacuumguide.com/ ... actors.jpg), does it cause damage to the unit if not cleaned out immediately? I have to clean my botvac brush and brush bearings pretty much after every run, in fear that it will damage the unit.

To be clear, the type of extractor hair tangling pictured from that review ONLY happens when the bot is run with the bin completely full.

When the bot has suction, hair either ends up in the end caps or in the bin, not stuck to the rollers. The 880/980 extractor design is absolutely a dream if you have pets or family members with long hair. Maintenance is super easy, and more like the video than like the extreme review pics.

(I've owned an 880 style bot for about a year now and have plenty of maintenance experience)

[comp666]

My roomba 880 arrived today. Overall feels very well built and solid. The bumper action feels higher quality than the botvac bumpers. Hopefully this means the bumpers won't break like they did on my botvac. I set it up and put it on the charging dock, only to get an error 1. Popped open the battery, blew on the contacts a few times and the error is gone. Saw the battery was green so I launched the cleaning routine. It moves faster and quieter than the botvac, which makes it seems like the vacuum power is less than my botvac. The dirt bin did pick up a significant amount of debris though. The roomba managed to get itself stuck between my chair legs and the desk. After about 5 min of rotating and trying to get out, i freed it from its misery. Looks like I'll need to move the chair on cleaning days so it doesn't form a roomba trap. After about 20 minutes it just stopped dead in the middle of the floor, without even attempting to seek the dock. I'm gunna chalk that up to the battery not being fully charged and give it another chance tomorrow.

[vic7767]

It's always a good idea to allow a new battery or new Roomba to charge a full 16 hours . Even after the Clean LED turns steady green there is still a charging current being applied to the battery that contributes to overall individual cell balancing. The benefits of balanced cells leads to a longer lifetime for your Roomba battery.

[jdong]

Give it a few more cycles of the battery before drawing a decision. My 880 also had some very short and weird run cycles the first few times. The robot needs to see a couple complete charges and discharges before it really knows the battery capacity

[third_deg]

Roomba uses optical switches for the bumpers, so they don't wear out. We tested them to over 6 million bumper hits before approving the design. A number a a typical limit switch simply can not reach.

[comp666]

After 2 weeks with the 880 I can say that it's better than the Botvac (original) 85 in terms of maintenance.

Hair:
* The botvac required cutting hair off the ends of the brush with a knife after every run, to avoid damaging the plastic ends.
* The roomba, you just pluck the hair wad out after 3-5 runs, exactly as demonstrated in the youtube video posted by vic7767 above

Emptying the bin
* Taking the filter off the botvac causes dust to fly everywhere. A brush is needed to clean the dust out of the grooves of the filter.
* Emptying the 880 bin is a breeze. Pop it out, hit it against the can a few times and you're done. No dust cloud from removing the filter.

Vacuuming power
* Botvac wins here. It leaves deeper carpet streaks and the bin *appears* to have more debris at the end of the week.

Cords
* The Botvac will get tangled on micro usb cables if you leave them on the floor
* The roomba rolls over them like a champ

Overall the Roomba requires much less thought and maintenance. A true set it and forget it experience. For me, that's the whole point of buying a robot vacuum.

[piokrza]

But Roomba 880 still lacks REAL mapping sysytem...it's dumb and practically useless in modern large one-floor houses, because you need to set up those stupid LH devices.

[jdong]

But Roomba 880 still lacks REAL mapping sysytem...it's dumb and practically useless in modern large one-floor houses, because you need to set up those stupid LH devices.

In a medium 1-floor plan, I actually preferred the 880 to the BotVac for all the reasons comp666 gave. The BotVac 65 navigated but I couldn't care less about that because it still constantly got stuck or destroyed TV cabinet cabling or ignored the magnetic keep off tape.

I did plenty of experiments in my 4 room 1200 sq ft space just sprinkling a pile of oatmeal on a piece of carpet. I found at most it took 2 days and 2 cleaning cycles to get it.

So despite having "no" navigation ability, it appeared to get around just fine. Sure it couldn't guarantee a complete clean in one cycle but that did not matter. I schedule my robots to run every day and the end result is still the same -- my carpets were constantly clean.

[piokrza]

-- my carpets were constantly clean.

~3.5in from the baseboard..

[jdong]

-- my carpets were constantly clean.

~3.5in from the baseboard..

More like 2 inches.

Hey I wouldn't mind having good corner cleaning too, but given the current trade offs, I own all 3 bots and would choose the 880/980 over the BotVac for now.

[djos]

But Roomba 880 still lacks REAL mapping sysytem...it's dumb and practically useless in modern large one-floor houses, because you need to set up those stupid LH devices.

+1 I love our scooba but having to separate the dining room from the kitchen with virtual walls because random cleaning can't do the job properly, is simply annoying.

I'm actually thinking of buying a 2nd hand Roomba 5 series just to clean my garage tho because it's just a big rectangle.

[djos]

Btw I'm noticing a lot of 980 problems being reported here so it looks like iRobot has got some work to do!

[vic7767]

I'm noticing a lot of 980 problems being reported here

Not really a lot of problems, more like a lot of questions dealing with the WiFi and apps. The 980 seems to be very stable in operation and overall cleaning.

[djos]

Ok slight exaggeration but still reading thru the topics there's seemingly major issue with 880's melting plastic around the charging contacts.

Plus a few reports of ppl having to return 980's for high pitched noises plus it seems they are prone to getting lost in strong sunlight and dark rooms or even if the lighting levels change significantly part way thru a clean. I've seen at least one charging battery issue.

[vic7767]

Ya, I agree with the 880 charging contact issue but I don't like to group the 880 and 980 into a single topic since the issues are totally different. I've also seen Lidar issues with the Botvac (mostly failed motors) and drive wheel motor issues.