How to Get a Roomba to Clean Whole House

Ah, to be free of home cleaning duties – that would be a dream come true! How about owning a gadget that magically leaves your floors squeaky clean while you don’t have to lift a finger? This is exactly what a Roomba does.

A Roomba is a remotely controlled robotic vacuum that motors around your house and cleans the floors without much hassle. And although nothing beats a deep clean, a Roomba can take the effort out of your regular, everyday tidying.

However, there can be trouble in paradise too. At times, you may find your Roomba skipping a particular room even though they are designed to clean the entire house. Fear not, for there are several actions you can take to resolve this issue.

Make sure you read this article until the end to find out how to get Roomba to clean whole house.

1. Checking the Sensors

As a wireless, remotely guided device, the Roomba uses its advanced sensors and inbuilt mapping system to chart a path across the house. This clever little appliance uses infrared signals to detect objects around itself.

Naturally, if these sensors get blocked by dirt or grime, they would malfunction and hinder the appliance from achieving its maximum operating capability.

Simply use a microfiber cloth or a melamine foam to wipe the sensors every so often. This can do wonders to improve your Roomba’s sensitivity and might just help the navigation problem.

2. Taking Out the Trash

Just like any regular vacuum cleaner, your Roomba has a dustbin inside it. And once the dustbin is full, it won’t be able to clean anymore. That’s why you may see your Roomba suddenly stop whirring around even with full batteries.

Some of the latest models come with a bin indicator that tells you when it needs cleaning. But in the case of older models, if you see your Roomba come to a sudden halt before it has completed cleaning your entire house, take it as an indicator that the bin might be full and will need to be emptied.

3. Checking the Charge

Before setting your Roomba loose to clean your home, it’s a good practice to ensure that the appliance is fully charged. If one runs out of charge in the middle of the cleaning process, it will simply die without cleaning any further.

However, this is not applicable for Roomba models that are working with a home base. If the battery starts to run low, these smart vacuums will automatically return to the docking station to get charged. Also, Roombas can be configured to automatically charge at the home base after each cleaning session, ensuring they never run out of charge.

4. Lighthouse Configuration

Lighthouse is an additional feature that uses infrared signals to guide one from room to room during the cleaning process. Lighthouses can both confine the Roomba to and block it from any single room.

Your lighthouse must have its “virtual wall mode” toggle activated to ensure it will cover your entire house and does not skip rooms.

5. Virtual Wall

The virtual wall is another accessory that offers granular control to the users in terms of setting the cleaning rules. For example, with a virtual wall, a user can stop the Roomba from:

• Cleaning around delicate objects or furniture
• Passing through specific flooring or sections
• Bumping into unstable objects
• Entering any restricted space or room

In many cases, you might have forgotten the settings on the virtual wall. This oversight might be causing your Roomba to avoid a specific section or room inside your house. Resetting the device or even turning the virtual wall off can help solve these problems in such cases.

6. Sufficiently Lit Rooms

When letting a Roomba clean your entire house, you must ensure that furniture isn’t blocking the light sources inside rooms, all corridors and entrances are well lit, and all rooms have their lights on.

Roombas use photoelectric cell sensors alongside infrared sensors to detect obstructions or objects easily. So, if any area does not have sufficient lighting, it might not be able to clean it properly or may even avoid the area altogether.

7. Remapping Home Layout

Say you have configured your Roomba to clean the entire house, but it keeps missing areas. Chances are that there might be a problem with the mapping. It might be faced with obstructions that lead it to skip these areas altogether.

The standard procedure here would be to make sure the vacuum can access all parts of your house that needs cleaning and set it to remap again.

8. Updating the iRobot Home App

In many cases, and especially with Wi-Fi-based Roomba vacuums, this may be an issue with the controlling app. If you have tried all the steps mentioned above and the cleaner still doesn’t work, it may be time to check the application.

If the app is malfunctioning, crashing, or simply needs an update, the machine might not be able to read the instructions coming from the app and may end up missing sections or rooms in your house. Simply updating the app from the Apple Store or the Google Play Store on your smartphone should resolve the issue.

READ MORE: Robot Vacuum Reviews

Conclusion

We hope you now have the answer to: how to get Roomba to clean whole house. In most cases, it may not clean all the rooms in your house if it faces too many obstructions in its path.

These obstructions can range from inadequate room lighting, dark carpets or flooring, low-lying furniture and other objects that can serve as a blockade or even random objects or wires scattered across the floor.

Any one of these instances may prevent a Roomba from cleaning the entire house. The device must be well-maintained in order to ensure optimal performance no matter how often you need to vacuum.

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