If you’re anything like me, there are probably times when you find yourself scrambling to vacuum your home at the last minute. Naturally, the idea of having a handy vacuum that I can “set and forget” and always have a spotless home makes me giddy with excitement.
Whether you are thinking of buying or have already snagged one for yourself, you are probably wondering how to program a Roomba vacuum.
I’ll explain how to set up and utilize your robot vacuum in this guide. Using the buttons on the robot or your smartphone, you should be able to schedule cleans in a matter of minutes.
How Does The Roomba Work?
There are set rules for Roomba, just as there are moral standards that guide human behavior. These guidelines dictate how the Roomba operates. As opposed to moving in a straight line, the robot vacuum could, for instance, begin in the center of a room and vacuum in an outward spiral pattern to clean a specific area. Later, it moves toward a room’s walls.
Additionally, as it cleans, Roomba will develop patterns. The two main patterns are random bounce vs. wall following. The wall-following pattern, as its name implies, cleans a room’s perimeter. The Roomba will move around or under furniture while cleaning. A random bounce pattern is another option for Roomba, which allows it to move around the space until it runs into something. In order to ensure that the entire room is cleaned, it shifts its direction and moves to a different location when this occurs.
Roomba’s main components are its wheels, brushes, sensors, and bumps. Together, these components can handle carpet, tile, hardwood floors, and anything in between. Here’s a quick overview of each part:
- While we use our eyes to see, a Roomba uses infrared and photocell sensors to navigate around a room. These sensors each serve a different purpose: cliff sensors let the vacuum know when it’s near a “cliff,” such as stairs or a balcony. The vacuum will retreat from the ledge if it detects this. Similarly to this, the vacuum is alerted to the presence of walls by wall sensors, but Roomba follows the path of the wall rather than turning back.
- B2K may be all about that “bump, bump, bump,” but a Roomba only needs one bump to get the message. In the event of a collision, the robot will move in a different direction as a result of the sensor being triggered by the force of the impact. It must be a fixed object, like a table leg, a kitchen island, or even a wall, that causes this impact.
- A Roomba has optical encoders built into its wheels, which use a light sensor to calculate how far it has moved.
- Two multi-surface brushes are used by Roomba vacuum cleaners. Debris is loosened, lifted, and drawn in by the first brush while it is accelerated by the second brush into the suction channel of the vacuum.
Robotic vacuums owe their invention to ants; in fact, the 2002 patent application iRobot filed cites ants as the product’s primary source of inspiration. Although ants don’t have much brain power, they share a set of behaviors that guide their behavior.
Read More:
- Are Roombas Worth It – Should I Buy Roomba Vacuum?
- Roomba Comparison 2022 – Difference Between The Roombas
How To Program A Roomba Vacuum Using Buttons
Although their design might vary slightly, programmable Roomba models feature With the help of the Clean, Clock, and Schedule buttons, cleaning sessions can be scheduled.
Follow these steps to program your robot vacuum:
Set The Correct Time
Setting the current day and time is required before you can schedule cleaning. To do this, press the Clock button on the robot’s surface, then, while still holding the button, select the day, hour, and minute using the corresponding buttons. This will set the time correctly.
Releasing the Clock button after entering the time is necessary. You’ll know you’ve set the time by the vacuum’s beeping sound.
Choose Your Preferred Cleaning Time
The fun really starts here. You can specify the precise time and day that you want the robot to clean with Roombas that can be programmed. For up to seven days, the vacuum can be programmed to clean once per day. Your house’s entire level will be cleaned by the robot.
The fact that you have to manually choose the cleaning day and hour for each day of the week is the only drawback. The implication of this is that you cannot set a time, such as 9.00, and expect the vacuum to clean at that time every single day.
To avoid having to deal with the sound of a robot walking around on days when you will be at home, you can decide to schedule cleans only for a few days and possibly skip those days.
You can choose the rooms you want to clean only on particular days with other more advanced and intelligent Roombas. You could schedule, for instance, that your bedroom only needs to be cleaned once a week but your kitchen is cleaned every day.
If this sounds like a feature you would love to have, the best Roomba model I would advise looking into is the iRobot Roomba s9.
Returning to the cleaning time schedule, let’s. Long-press the Schedule button. Next, select the preferred time using the corresponding Day, Hour, and Minute buttons.
For instance, press the Day button several times until the desired day appears on the screen if you want the robot to vacuum on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays.
Next, pick the hour when the cleaning robot should begin. Press the Hour button several times until the desired hour appears on the screen while continuing to hold down the Schedule button.
If you want the cleaning session to begin at a specific minute of the hour, repeat this same procedure with the Minute button. Release the Schedule button, and the robot will beep to let you know that you’ve set the schedule.
If you want the robot to clean every day of the week, you must follow the same procedure each time.
The schedule I have created is something I typically like to review and confirm. Simply hold down the Schedule button while pressing the Day button repeatedly to view the chosen days and times. Release the Schedule button once everything is in order.
Read More: How To Empty iRobot Roomba Bag
Change The Cleaning Schedule
You might occasionally want to adjust the time you previously set for the hour and minute. To view the cleaning time scheduled for that day, just hold down the Schedule button while repeatedly pressing the Day button.
If you want to change the cleaning time that appears on the screen, click the Hour or Minute button and enter a new cleaning time. Release the schedule button. As per usual, after the changes are made, there will be a beeping sound.
Holding down the schedule button while repeatedly pressing the Day button will bring up the day you want to remove from the cleaning schedule.
Next, hold down the Day button while pressing it to eliminate a specific cleaning period from the robot’s schedule. To signal that the schedule has been deleted, the robot will beep. Pull back on the schedule button.
Read More: How to Clean Roomba Wheels
How To Program A Wi-fi Enabled Roomba Vacuum
The ability to schedule cleans from your smartphone while you are away from home is one of the biggest benefits of a wi-fi enabled Roomba vacuum.
You must first download the iRobot HOME App in order to begin. Next, open the app and choose your robot. Select Schedule, which should be at the bottom of your phone’s screen, to set up daily cleans.
Utilizing the controls, you can then select the day and time that you want the robot to clean. When a schedule has been established, the controls will turn green. For each day you want to program the bot to vacuum, repeat these steps. On the days that are pre-planned, your robot will automatically begin cleaning.
Simply toggle the corresponding control button to turn off a day, and it will turn grey rather than green.
Features Of Newer Roomba Models
The Roombas product line has undergone upgrades over the years after being available for almost 20 years. Compared to older models, newer ones have a number of benefits.
The Roomba 980 and later models, including the Roomba i7, use Vision Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (VSLAM) to build a map dynamically while keeping track of its surroundings. The Roomba 980 has a forward-facing camera that is angled up at a 45-degree angle. The robot’s software uses that camera to take a picture of the room’s layout and then looks for patterns in the pixels. Instead of having to go over the same area of a room multiple times, this navigation system enables Roomba to clean in straight lines in a single pass.
Newer Roombas also use power and battery life more effectively. iRobot products are powered by rechargeable ion or NiHM batteries, which typically last for 90 minutes or so before needing to be recharged (with newer models adopting ion batteries). Since they are completely self-charging, Roombas are intelligent enough to move toward a charging location when their battery life is getting low and will dock as they regain a charge.
Read More: Roomba Not Charging: How to Fix It (2022)
The iRobot Home app, which is available on the iPhone and Android app stores, adds extra convenience for newer models of Roombas even though they can still operate without WiFi. Following a successful connection to your home network, you can use your smartphone to program a cleaning schedule, access more information, and configure your Roomba’s behavior, such as what to do when the dustbin is full.
Our vacuums aren’t the only things that are becoming more intelligent. You can assign the task of scheduling a cleaning session to your smart home if you connect your Roomba to the same network as your Google Home. Also available to Amazon’s Alexa, you can tell Google Assistant to “start”, “continue”, and “stop” cleaning and your When it’s finished, Roomba will resume those actions and head back to its base.
Conclusion
The hassle of constantly keeping your house clean is eliminated by a programmable robot vacuum.
The best part is that you can program your robot to clean up to seven times per week, which makes scheduling cleaning sessions for Roomba models especially simple.
Here’s a quick recap on how to program the Roomba vacuum:
- Hold down the Clock button to set the correct time
- Hold down the Schedule button to select the day, hour, and minute for cleaning
