My Roomba Scheduler And It's Maiden Voyage!

It's time for the moment of truth. I've read the entire instruction manual and followed all the instructions step by step to program my new Roomba Scheduler to automatically turn on at high noon on Sunday. I am pretty proud of myself. The Roomba remote control scheduler and the virtual walls all require batteries which were not included. Fortunately, I had extra batteries that just happened to fit everything so I wasn't like a kid at Christmas without the batteries to operate their new toy. The remote takes 2 double AA's and the virtual walls each take 2 D size batteries.

The Roomba show starts in 5 minutes!

I proudly inform my husband that Roomba is set to automatically come on in 5 minutes (at 12:00 noon) and to make sure he has a good seat so he can watch the show. He smiles at me knowing how difficult it must have been for me to actually get to this point in the process considering how I still miss my 8 track cassette player and have no clue how to program our VCR - let alone get the DVD player to work. He is an ASE Master Certified Automobile Technician and excellent webmaster - there isn't anything he can't fix or put together. I, on the other hand, am completely helpless when it comes to assembling anything and absolutely despise jigsaw puzzles! I can tell he is skeptical but is doing his best to remain positive because he sees how excited I am. I am just positive it will work perfectly. Countdown begins: In 3, 2, 1... and NOTHING. Not even a beep or anything. It just sits there mocking me from its docking station. My husband leaves the room and is very wise not to laugh or say anything stupid.

If at first you don't succeed...

I poor over the directions determined to find out what went wrong. I reprogram everything and inform my husband the next Roomba show will begin promptly at 12:30. The scheduler only works in 15 minute increments - so you have to wait patiently as the minutes get by. I'm nervously adjusting the virtual walls around the room to make sure when Roomba automatically turns on it does not go into any of the bedrooms. Countdown begins: In 3, 2, 1... and still NOTHING. I am speechless - which is something anyone who knows me will say doesn't happen very often.

Roomba Tip #1:

Make sure you have set the Scheduler time for a.m. or p.m. correctly! It's kind of like the first time you screw up when you set your alarm clock and it goes off in the middle of the day instead of in the morning! It took me a little while but I finally figured out I had Roomba scheduled to turn on at 12:00 midnight! Problem solved. I made Roomba run without the Scheduler to see how well it worked. The suction is way better than I imagined it would be. In fact, when it is done you can certainly tell your carpets and floors have been freshly vacuumed. I'm here to tell you -- I was thrilled with the results!

More on the story! - Roomba Dies! - Back to Index