It comprises of a powerful vacuum cleaner in a sleek body with an intelligent mind to scoop out dust from the unreachable corners of the house. And, even though iRobot claims the Roomba is easy to clean, it takes a substantial amount of efforts to clean the rollers and the three-blade nylon brush on the edge occasionally. It’s not a quick learner though and takes some time to learn the room's dimensions, layout and obstacles over time.While cleaning, the Roomba 980 is pretty noisy too. The rear houses a dirt and debris collection tray, which is pretty small and needs to be cleaned out at least once every week, depending on the area of cleaning and the amount of dust it picks up.Moving on, flip the Roomba over and you will find six height detection sensors on the edge that detects gaps and staircases to prevent the robot from rolling down.

The front end sports a massive bumper which protects the robot’s internals from shock and also acts as a sensor for obstacles ahead.Did you know that the Roomba can also be controlled with your voice? Well, not literally — it needs a smart speaker combo to get that part done. for example, you can keep it next to Power Cords Manufacturers a sleeping pet, their food, or a rug, etc, and the Roomba will move around it.Rating: Since the advent of smart AI-assisted speakers, the concept of smart homes has been widely adopted and even implemented around the world. The integration is erratic, partly due to a buggy software. This essentially means that the easiest way to get the Roomba to work is to depend on the physical buttons or a schedule. The two rear wheels can also independently accelerate in both directions (front and back) to help the robot turn around 360-degrees.The dustbin is also a tad small, which means that you will have to keep clearing the bin every two days (depends on individual scenarios). However, over time, the device knows where the dock is located and automatically heads back to the charging station when needed.When it comes to staying on its feet, the Roomba 980 is well equipped.As stated, the idea of dumping the responsibility for household chores to smart devices has appealed to the millennials, who prefer utilising their time schedules efficiently, or just be lazy (pun intended).

At Rs 69,990, the Roomba 980 comes across as 'expensive,' but considering it as an additional helping hand to cut down one chore, it seems reasonable.We did find that the smart speaker integration a bit buggy. But if the mat is thin, loose or light, there are high chances of it entangling between the wheel and rollers or getting sucked in. A charging dock (bundled) needs to be placed against a wall in the room, where the Roomba can rest itself and rejuvenate. Impressed, we put the Roomba 980 to test to see whether it manages to deliver on its promises. So if you have a larger room, your cleaning process will take too long. During the cleaning process, if the Roomba falls short of power, it will automatically guide itself back to the dock, charge, and get back to complete the cleaning. Through the app, one can keep a tab on the statistics, such as total distance covered in a day, the battery status (sadly, there’s no proper battery indicator on the robot itself) and system errors. So if you are away for a few days, you can simply schedule it to run at particular intervals so that you come back to a clean house