I spent $250 USD on an iRobotRoomba 550 from Costco. So far, it has lasted 11 months and cleans 6 days a week (it doesn’t work on the Sabbath). It doesn’t clean as well per minute as a typical stand-up vacuum, but since it cleans so often the house ends up being much cleaner than it otherwise would be. I estimate that I spend about 5 minutes per week on maintenance (emptying the container and cleaning the brushes). Before getting a robot I probably spent 20 minutes per week vacuuming.
Conclusion: Even if it only lasts a year (which seems like a conservative estimate) I am basically paying 75 cents a day to have an extra 17 hours of leisure a year and a significantly cleaner house.
paying 75 cents a day to have an extra 17 hours of leisure a year
that is, paying 75 cents a day for 2 extra minutes of leisure. For a U.S. knowledge worker this is probably a good deal, but for example, for a Hungarian housewife this is ridiculously bad, even if you work with more realistic annualized costs.
I spent $250 USD on an iRobot Roomba 550 from Costco. So far, it has lasted 11 months and cleans 6 days a week (it doesn’t work on the Sabbath). It doesn’t clean as well per minute as a typical stand-up vacuum, but since it cleans so often the house ends up being much cleaner than it otherwise would be. I estimate that I spend about 5 minutes per week on maintenance (emptying the container and cleaning the brushes). Before getting a robot I probably spent 20 minutes per week vacuuming.
Conclusion: Even if it only lasts a year (which seems like a conservative estimate) I am basically paying 75 cents a day to have an extra 17 hours of leisure a year and a significantly cleaner house.
that is, paying 75 cents a day for 2 extra minutes of leisure. For a U.S. knowledge worker this is probably a good deal, but for example, for a Hungarian housewife this is ridiculously bad, even if you work with more realistic annualized costs.
Damn, I hope I’m not the only Hungarian housewife reading LessWrong...
Yeah, that’s about right. It should also be noted that my calculations were made under the assumption that the user already owns a stand-up vacuum.
Was this an explicit choice on your part, or does it not work then by default?
I didn’t realize I bought the Israeli-version until after I opened the package. No refunds apparently.
Just kidding; Saturday is my catching-up-on-sleep-and-relaxing-day, so I don’t like it making noise.
I love that I believed you