Vacuuming is a chore that’s marked by the absence of acknowledgment, rather than the presence. Everyone notices and remarks on a fragrant and delicious Sunday meal. But you never walk into someone else’s house and say, “I noticed your floors are remarkably free from detritus today!”, unless you are a real jerk.
That makes vacuuming an uninviting and thankless task. It also means that robot vacuum manufacturers have to develop some kind of metric to prove that the robot has actually been cleaning. Lower-end models bounce randomly around your house; higher-end ones find some other way to prove to you that they’ve picked up all that schmutz.
Case in point: iRobot’s Roomba 690 uses a technology called “Dirt Detect.” When the robot’s sensors detects a particularly dirty area, it goes over it several times to make sure that it’s thoroughly clean. It took the Roomba 690 one hour to clean about 300 square feet of my toddler-, infant- and dog-infested house, taking several passes over each area that triggered the Dirt Detect feature. When I checked the app, it had found—wait for it—173 Dirt Detect events.
Out of curiosity, I took it to a friend’s house with no kids and a hypoallergenic, non-shedding dog. Their Dirt Detect count? 2.
Families are gross.
The Roomba 690 is the midrange model in the Roomba line. While the 980 is my favorite robot vacuum, its price puts it out of range for most people. The 690 offers much of the same time-tested iRobot technology, but at a much lower price.
Setup is much the same as the 980—plug in the charging station, and plop the bot down on its pads. It took about two hours for the botvac to charge fully, with an average of 1.5 hours runtime before it depleted its battery.
As with the 980, the 690 is Wi-Fi-enabled and works with Google Home and Alexa. On the app, you can check the battery’s status, schedule cleanings, and keep track of time spent cleaning and your Dirt Detect events. It also uses iRobot’s same virtual wall system.
There are a few noticeable differences. Rather than the 980’s advanced AeroForce cleaning technology, the 690 uses an earlier iteration called AeroVac. The AeroVac system sounds nothing like AeroForce. The sound is tinnier and less robust, so much so that my spouse asked me if we could be sure it was actually cleaning (173 separate Dirt Detect events! Count them, my dude!).
However, the AeroVac tech is clearly quieter than AeroForce. In contrast to the 980’s whopping 80 decibels, the 690 generated an average of 65 dB worth of noise.
Also, rather than the 980’s advanced mapping capabilities, the 690 uses sensor technology to navigate through your house. Practically speaking, it means that you’ll hear it dinking on the walls and on your furniture as it cleans. It didn’t hit nearly as hard as the Neato D5, but it did open an unlatched bedroom door.