Spirit in a Vacuum

Just when you thought we were done adding family members for a while, I have to introduce you to a new one: Herbie! Herbie (AKA Herbert Hoover) is our new robotic vacuum, and I am in love with him.

Herbie is an ECOVACS DEEBOT N79 Robotic vacuum, and I found him on Amazon. I have often considered buying a Roomba, but was always put off by the expense and the wishy-washy reviews. It just didn’t seem worth the money. But after the umpteenth day of being sick of having a hairy floor (we have FOUR shedding monsters people!) and being equally sick of having to vacuum, I decided to search Amazon for a worthy contender in the price department. I ended up seriously considering three robots, but Herbie won out in the end because he had the highest star rating overall, and he was the cheapest option at $199.98 (and he is actually currently on sale for EVEN LESS at $149.99!!). He connects to the WiFi in your house which allows you to run the vacuum from an app on your phone, and also is programmable, meaning he’ll run at the same time every day if you tell him to. To be honest though, I love watching Herbie work so much that I haven’t even used either of those features. He has these little spinning side brushes that make it look like he’s shoveling dust bunnies into his mouth and going “Nom nom nom”. It’s adorable and I thought it was so cute that I went ahead and gave him googly eyes to complete the illusion.

Although he is cute, Herbie is great for a lot of functional reasons. He is insanely quiet. I watched a movie while he vacuumed the other day. His dust bin is easy to empty and holds an impressive amount for a vacuum that also slides underneath my couch without a problem. Do you know how often our old vacuum has seen the underside of the couch? Let’s just say Herbie has only lived with us for two weeks and he’s gotten more under-the-couch action than my old vacuum did in the full seven years we’ve lived in this house. Herbie’s charger is low profile and hangs out in the dead space in front of my dishwasher without any clearance problems, so Herbie isn’t taking up any functional space when he’s charging.

Herbie has these great “all-terrain” tires that help him get over the rough transitions between some of the rooms in our house with no problem and also allow him to maneuver onto rugs or carpet. He vacuums the carpet as nicely as he vacuums the hardwood floors. He beeps at you if he gets stuck or he sucks up something bad for him (he does not get along with the floppy remains of Reliant’s stuffing-deprived dog toys, because he sucks those babies right up!). He has a little trouble finding his way back to his charging station when he’s getting low on batteries sometimes, but once he’s close he can park himself pretty well, and his dust bin needs to get emptied into the trash can right next to the dishwasher anyway, so it’s no big deal for us to pick him up, empty him, and reunite him with his power source. He also has great sensors that keep him from falling down the stairs (seriously, it’s amazing) and from crashing into things at great speed. Best of all, I think he vacuums the floors more thoroughly than I do with a shop vac, minus the occasional corner that he can’t reach due to furniture placement.

We run Herbie once a day or once every other day until he runs out of batteries (about 1.5-2 hours) and I have to say that my floors have never felt cleaner (and you know we both run around barefoot all the time, so the difference is super noticeable). And with Amazon Prime Day coming up tonight/tomorrow, Herbie might never be a better deal, so I thought I’d share his greatness with the world.

This post contains an affiliate link. If you click on the link to Amazon above and buy Herbie using it, I get paid a tiny commission so I can bring you more fun content. This is not a sponsored post though, I just seriously am obsessed with this vacuum!