P3 P4960 V-Bot Robotic Vacuum Cleaner

This vacuum is awesome! If I charge it through the night and run it in the am, I don't need to empty out the small bin that collects dirt, hair(even min which is 2 ft. long!), it even picked up some wet spinach off the floor(small pieces, but unexpected, especially from the reviews I've read.)! It picks up more than my big vacuum can get to. It is rather large, same size of the base of a normal vacuum, maybe bigger in some cases. Still, it fits under cabinets, dishwasher and half way under my tv stand which is bending, so I can't blame the machine. It seems to clean very random, but does get everywhere! It only runs for about an hour(which is short since it runs over the same areas numerous times bouncing around. I usually block off one or 2 rooms and run it for 15-20 minutes before switching to other rooms. It seems to ensure it cleans the entire house, save for bathrooms before the batteries need recharging. It has many functions and runs random, circling, does around edges of rooms. Works great on my tile, linoleum, and even my 1 inch carpet(which I thought would be too shaggy from people's complaints). It did excellent on the carpet and was nice to not have to move the crib this time. I just throw any baby toys not fitting into shelves in the crib while it vacuums, it helps get everywhere quicker, as the battery slows when it is in the random setting(it rotates setting automatically)...though it would still vacuum around objects eventually, but it will kill the battery so much faster, just pick up your shoes or small toys. It also has a sleeve on the bottom for putting dust clothes on. Some people wet them or spray cleaners on the clothes first, so it swiffer mops their hardwood floors. Good, since I tried ordering a real mopping machine and it turned out to be this without the vacuum, so a swiffer. It's a nice addition, you could probably vacuum and swiffer mop simultaneously, but I'm not a teenager so I'll actually mop or scrub the floor. I suppose it would be helpful on the days you don't mop, to keep it tidy. You can buy the controller for it and docking station, I hear it works great when it works, but often the joy stick can't override the automatic vacuuming. Also it dies often before finding it's way to the docking station, so having an automatic recharger is useless if this is true. Many people have said this. I wish it had that function and the ability to set it up to go on it's own and recharge itself at certain times on certain days, but I'll wait until there is an improvement in such functions. For now, this machine helps me when I am cooking or running out with children. It does turn itself off if it gets stuck, like under my busted Ikea furniture, which saves the battery. However, it does not turn off when picked up as this company claims it does as a safety feature! So it could hurt small children I suppose. I watch my toddler chase it around, so I just would not leave animals around it you can't trust or young children that should be being supervised anyway. Hope this helps you decide if this is the right model for you. Also, I am told it is slower than the expensive Roomba, but not much and gives the same results. Why people would buy both, idk, maybe to charge two and clean a big house at once. Also, don't buy the invisible walls as you can just put a small object, like a shoe in the middle of the doorway and it turns around after bumping it slightly. It claims to not go off of stairs either, but I have none to test that out. Since it doesn't actually turn off when lifted, I would stand on the step or 2 beneath it when finding out if it's true.

But I did. For over a month. The reason was that I read the reviews where it said it wouldn't work on even the lowest pile carpet. And that it took forever to charge and didn't run long. I was left with the impression that all this would be good for was "dusting" my kitchen floor, and not much of that since I have 4 throw rugs in that room. I decided to purchase only because Amazon has a good return policy and the description said it would vacuum rugs, so it should. First, I charged my V-Bot for 12 hours as noted in the directions. The charging light was still flashing, as the directions said it would be. I didn't expect much, but we were anxious to try it out. To my shock it worked hard for more than an hour. And did a good job of nearly filling the dustbin. Not only that, but it handled my 3 thin kitchen rugs without a problem. It even (drum roll please) did a spectacular job on the shag rug we have by the back door. The yarn is a good inch, and it cleans it very well. Also, in another room we have a similar shag rug, and it does perfectly fine with it as well. To be honest, I think a ROOM full of shag might burn it out as it does slow down when going over those rugs. It works on our low pile carpet throughout the rest of the house, but it does have problems getting on the nice wool accent rugs (thicker than the kitchen accent rugs) we have in various parts of the house. Eventually it will find a "low point" in the rug and gain access, but once it goes off the rug in another direction, it will be hard/impossible for it to get back on. It works a long time. Always 60-70 minutes, and so far I've been able to use it twice a day when needed-- it doesn't seem to matter if the light is still flashing (indicating it's still charging)-- I still get a full 60-70 minutes out of it. I've always let it charge at least 11 hours. It might do just as well with a lesser charge time. If you want this as a substitute for a regular vacuum, don't bother. I use the V-bot to get the daily messes in the kitchen (around the table, the kitchen rugs by each of the 2 outside doors, etc) and the high traffic areas in the living room and den. It's not going to get up every speck. Although the V-Bot is the size of the head of a regular vacuum cleaner, the actual suction area is about the size of a smaller dustbuster head. It must go over what looks like the same area (although just a little off) in order to pick up what's in an area. Since this machine is moving randomly, sometimes in a slightly growing circle, sometimes in long runs, other times in small back and forward movements that are only slightly off from the last movement, it will surely miss things,here and there. But I find it gets most of it, and that's what I want between my use of the big vacuum every week. And there is no beater brush. I put it in my dressing room and watched it go over and over some threads on the carpet without moving them an inch. These are things a beater brush usually gets on a regular vacuum. It has gotten stuck a few times. I now know I have 2 low spots under my cabinets. It sometimes gets stuck under furniture-- but hey, it goes under the furniture, and it usually doesn't get stuck. We are learning as we use it. I have discovered that putting a few shoes to create a barrier between the kitchen and den (a large area with no door) keeps the V-Bot in the room I place it in. I can also put a shoe at the two cabinet low spots and keep it from getting hung up in those areas. One time it got caught in some of the cords in one corner, and I found if I moved the furniture just an inch in that area, it couldn't get back there, problem solved. I have not used the dusting feature. I have mostly carpet, and frankly, I don't think I'm going to be using that much. But since the duster plate goes over the opening for the vacuum suction area, I would think that the V-Bot is not going to be doing much in the way of actual vacuuming while the duster plate is in place. I've wondered if that's why one reviewer said it only "dusted" their carpet because I've actually been impressed with what this little V-Bot has picked up.

Overall, it does what I bought it to do, which is clean the dust from my floor. So it's worth the purchase. There are some complaints though. First being, stuff seems to get stuck in the bin. Larger dirt mainly will get stuck inside the robot before reaching the bin, blocking other dirt, making the robot completely ineffective. It's really hard to get that dirt out when it happens. It also tends to get stuck in tight spots or on things like cables or under desks/beds, and then will just keep bumping into it or turn itself off. Otherwise, everything works well...

It came with defective batteries. Someone threw in some cells nearly dead and would not hold the charge. I should have known this when the initial charge took 3 days and never charged. It was also totally dead on arrival. My brother put together new rechargeable batteries and soldered them together. It runs for less than an hour then needs a 6 hour charge. Sometimes after 10 minutes it stops. Turn it on then off, give it a little shake and tit starts up again. Picks up everything loose sitting on top of carpet but does not replace vacuuming. Reminds me of the dust busters that were popular years ago but on wheels. It does turn around if it bumps into things. Turn it on when I go to work and hope it keeps running for half an hour.

Update: 9/28/2014 This thing is still working well and I'm using it as listed below. For my purposes though I needed it to pick up more of the larger debris and less dust. I first poked a few holes through the existing filter with a fork in 4-5 places and it picked up twice as much! The next day I just ripped out the normal filter and instead put a mesh screen in it's place and put the filter frame on top of it to hold it in. Now the thing picks up 5-6 times as much, runs 15 minutes longer, and it still actually gets most of the dust and fine particles as well. I think, while the filter will work for most uses, I use it multiple times a day in a restaurant-type setting, so I am more concerned with larger pieces of debris, like rice, crumbs, and random food pieces, etc. It now serves my specific purpose even better. The modification to the filter puts less strain on the vacuum motor meaning it runs cooler and more efficient which yields a longer run time in my situation (even with 2-4 hours charges). To be clear, it works fine as-is without modification, it works remarkably better with these mods. Original Review: Works well for our needs. I use it in a restaurat-style nonprofit (camp to be specific) and I mostly have it run while we are resetting other parts of the room. Keep in mind our room is setup to serve 400+ people, so it's quite large, but this little guy seems to make his way around okay. To clarify a few things incase you're wondering: 1) It's settings aren't controllable, based on what I had read in the description I thought "settings" were adjustable, they aren't. It starts in random mode, goes to spiral mode, then goes to corner mode, then back to spiral mode, then it repeats this sequence over and over. I haven't stop watched it, but it seems to stay in one setting for about 2-3 minutes before switching. 2) I don't' really charge it for 12 hours like I'm supposed to each time...I know this might alter battery life but hey, I serve 3 meals a day, it gets a full charge over night, then maybe a 2-4 hour charge between meals. When I do this, I still get over a 30 minute run time, and remember mine is bumping into hundreds of chairs and course-correcting. 3) For my application I don't expect it to get everything. It does a decent job wherever it runs over and gets about 80% of what I need it to. I really use it when I need to vacuum the floors between meals but am strapped for time. Whatever it gets I don't have to later on. That being said it did ok in my home when I tested it out the first day. I tested the hallway, living room, and kitchen floor. As other reviews state it does best on tile or linoleum etc. It did fair on my carpet. It always has something for me to empty out of it's bin. 4) Cleaning, I pull the tub out and dump it, wipe it with a paper towel, and I wipe the filter paper thing with a paper towel too. That paper gets a LOT of stuff on it, so I know it's working. I wouldn't expect it to take over a person vacuuming, the technology in general isn't there yet (anywhere). But, for a family with 3 kiddos under 5 years old, if I borrow this for home I know it will vacuum all the rooms I need it to fairly well. As other reviews mentioned it doesn't do well on carpet, it ran slower on my carpet which is a medium sized but almost doubled it's cleaning speed when it was on my hard floors. I'm currently pondering buying a fleet of 4 more of these and releasing them all into my dining hall. A nice feature that I didn't see advertised is that if it gets stuck (doesn't happen often), it shuts itself off to conserve the battery. If it's stuck or out of battery it beeps at you every once in a while so you can find it. Overall I'm very pleased with this purchase and will be buying more once my 2015 budget spending rolls around. So you better get yours before I buy them all up :)

A neat little unit But no charging doc, Batteries don't last long enough. Doesn't seem to suck up much from bare wood floor and keeps getting hung up in the thresholds. I guess If you just like looking at it, then its a steal for the price.

I renamed him Alfred, because he's my new little butler. Anyways, I just got him today. The first thing I noticed about him was his durability. Right out of the box, fell 3 feet onto hardwood flooring. Not a scratch. Putting him together was a bit tricky for chicks like me who know NOTHING about putting anything together. The battery cover was hard to get off. Then, I was trying to put the dust rag in and was afraid to break him, but really all you have to do is move it and YANK! I wish the instructions stated that, I was trying all sorts of fancy tricks. His performance is great thus far...honestly I plugged him in for like an hour then sent him on his way, I really wanted to see him go! He picked up SO MUCH HAIR! My dog sheds like it's her job. He only went for like 10 mins before his battery died (not charged all the way, of course), but in that time he picked up a handful of hair and made a very noticeable difference in my dining room. I'd say he got about half done. He did seem to be getting confused though, the poor thing. I set him in my living room for a little bit and when he ran into a piece of paper he backed up and got stuck. I could hear him struggling, though, and saved him. It'll be tricky when it comes to larger rooms with furniture since he does get stuck going around in circles. My living room is cut in half by a sectional, so I'll just keep an ear out for him. He is also very quiet, I was thinking he'd be almost as loud as a regular vacuum, but I'd say about half that. I could hear when he got stuck, but it's easy to tune him out even from a few feet away. Reading these reviews, I was very wary about spending $100 on my Alfred. Now that he's here and I've seen what he can do, I am so happy I invested in this. As a full time mom, worker & student, he is a lifesaver. I can send him on his journey while I clean other rooms, then go behind him and mop. Saves a LOT of time and effort! I haven't seen his full effect, though, so we'll see how often I'll have to thoroughly vacuum the house, and keep this review up to date.

The P3 V-Bot Robotic Vacuum Cleaner is a nice little vacuum that I picked up cheap a while back. Because there are a lot of contradictory comments about this item, I thought I'd give you my impressions, both good and bad: Good: 1) It cleans up small dust. If you've got dust bunnies, it does a pretty good job of sucking them up. 2) It can vacuum area rugs. I have a couple of rugs that are Oriental style rugs (i.e. cheap IKEA knockoffs) and they get vacuumed with no problem. 3) It has a reasonable run time. One day of charging gets you about 45 minutes. Neutral: 1) The vacuum is louder than a Roomba, but quieter than an upright. It's quiet enough that you can run it in the other room if you've got a separating door, but I don't think I'd want to talk on the phone while it was around. 2) It's fairly lightweight. I believe that this is because lots of the equipment inside of the Roomba (brushes and such) is absent and it works purely via suction. The build quality is also much less nice than the Roomba, but at 1/5 the price, that's not surprising. Bad: 1) It's not a Roomba. I figured this going into it, but as a warning for those of you who think this is a miracle item, it simply will not replace the regular use of a vacuum. It's good for dust bunnies and loose pieces of dirt, but will not clean larger items well. 2) The filters are hard to get. $10 from the manufacturer, P3 Industries. 1 + (212) 741 - 7289. 3) It's a pain to clean. The filter that came with the vacuum was of very low quality, so I'll probably end up making my own out of cheesecloth at some point to save money and get a more robust product. I don't anticipate this will be difficult, but it would be nice if it were a little longer-lasting. 4) No handle. The Roomba has a cool handle so you can carry it around like a briefcase, whereas you have to carry this thing around like a big discus. I'm not sorry I got this item. It helps my house between vacuuming days and is generally pretty trouble free. However, if you think you're getting a Roomba, you most certainly are not.