
Customers consistently note the excellent navigation capabilities of the DEEBOT OZMO 950. Its lidar-based system effectively avoids obstacles and cleans tight spaces. Users praise its smart maneuvering around furniture, highlighting its superior ability to navigate compared to other robot vacuums. The advanced navigation system is a significant advantage for many customers.
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So I will start with the statement I loved my IRobot Roomba 960. I named it Bobby and joked my kids that Bobby did a better job of chores then they did. After working great for a year, it had intermittent issues where it would stop in the middle of a job, not completing. Not sure what the issue was but it regularly failed to complete and it was beyond the manufacturers warranty. I don’t usually buy the GeekSquad on purchases but I had on this and am really glad. BestBuy quickly figured out whether they could fix and the answer was no. That meant BestBuy cut me a check for the original purchase price. I took the opportunity to research robot vacuums again and, even though I liked the IRobot the first time, selected the EcoVacs 950. I am so glad I changed. It cost me $150 more (when comparing to the Roomba 960 that does not have the automatic dirt disposal bin) but it is worth it. To start, it vacuums better – picks up more. You can set how strong the suction. On ‘standard’ vacuum power level, it is also very quiet and plenty strong enough. You can talk on the phone with it working around you. It has two stronger settings that still aren’t too loud. Faster – completes jobs faster. The algorithms to figure how to vacuum seem to be much better. Technology – the ability to control where and when it vacuums is awesome. I can send Bobbi (its new name) to specific rooms to vacuum, I can draw a box on part of a room and have it just vacuum that part (like a spill in a part of the kitchen), and it will store multiple maps. It is excellent. Roomba dustbin. I have a Labrador retriever that sheds. With the Roomba, it would require the bin to be emptied at least once, usually twice, for each vacuum job. The vacuum would return to the base and alert me. If I didn’t get to it within an hour or two, it would cancel the job. The Ecovac can do the full floor with ease without emptying. It looks like the stronger suction packs the bin much tigher. I haven’t checked to see how many days it can go without emptying but it probably won’t go 2 full days for a 1300 square foot floorspace. If you don’t have a Labrador that sheds a lot, you can get multiple days with the Ecovac without emptying. The Ecovac Struggles a bit more to climb on to thicker carpets but it hasn’t been an issue. It checks edges of the carpet by trial and error and has finds a way to where it needs to go The irobot handled this a bit better but it still took longer to complete the overall job. Overall, the Ecovac 950 is worth the higher price.
Posted by markinraleigh
I was disappointed by Roomba's i7 (my review starts with "I Think I Got a Lemon") and returned it. A big sale at Best Buy and bonus for members brought it down the same price, but in my opinion it's a value even at the higher price point. I run it daily. It's covered my house in a single charge and avoided new obstacles -- two things the i7 couldn't do (the i7 ended the job after encountering anything new) and it has a slightly larger dust bin that has rarely needed emptying during a job. The 950 has the smart map and virtual boundary features I liked on the i7, but the 950's laser guidance gives it an advantage. It behaves smarter; using its laser, it glides around table and chair legs with its two front sweepers instead of bumping its way around them (which is good for the furniture and the vacuum). You can watch the 950 create a map in real-time on the app, and the map always displays the vacuum's current location. Saving a smart map with the Ecovacs app was more difficult than the i7 (I accidentally found the feature when I enabled "Multi-floor maps," whether that was the correct way to do it or not; I only have 1 floor). The room detection was smarter but is less customizable (I can label a room "bedroom" but not "master bedroom" and "kid's bedroom"); I hope custom labels are in a future update (hear me, Ecovacs?). I suspect the 950 has less suction power but it's still capable of picking up socks and phone chargers (not the cord, the charging block) so clear small objects from the floor.
Posted by GreenBayWis
I've bought two other robot vacuums over the last decade and returned them after a week or two of use as they would always command enough attention in my environment that it was easier to vacuum manually. When I got he Deebot 950 the first few days I was convinced I was going to return it, it had major trouble navigating on a black rug, and would get stuck on a number of items though most reviews were steadfast in saying that this device was / is one of the best robots to navigate sans intervention. What had me keep tweaking things to get it to work mostly without interruptions was the fact that this thing picks up an amazing amount of dirt on a daily basis. Since I have two mutts I knew it was going to pick up a fair amount of hair but it's jaw dropping on really how much dirt accumulates in my apartment on a daily basis. Having had it for two months, you can't pry this thing from my cold dead hands. It has made my living environment loads cleaner, forced me to pick up flotsam around my apartment more often knowing there is dirt that needs to be removed on a daily basis. I put white tape on the depth sensors which solved the black rug problem (I have no stairs or falloffs so don't need depth sensing) and arranged a few things that would have it get confused. I'd say 9 out of 10 days it completes a vacuum when I'm at work with no user intervention or input. <- That's pretty impressive considering the difficulty of navigating my apartment. The mopping element is definitely more work than the vacuuming, it doesn't wet the cloth enough to make a difference, but if you quickly dump some water / cleaning agent on the area and set it for a 2 rounds, it'll do a good job. Even though it's not as effective as the daily vacuuming I never got around to properly mopping my apartment so after an initial manual deep cleaning, this will hold things steady on the mopping front. When I weigh those benefits to the crazy price tag, I find myself saying 'this is actually worth it' which is impressive / a good surprise.
Posted by fizzlefitz