I have a Lefant M210 robotic vacuum which I suspect is sold under other names. For the price, it’s a great little vacuum. Nothing really fancy. It goes around and picks up dust, dog hair and crumbs. I probably run it on each level of the house every other day and it fills up its little hopper.
It has a bunch of sensors to avoid walls and stairs. And it comes with an app that isn’t very easy to connect and a remote. Neither one is really necessary. I just hit the “on” button and off it goes. It is even smart enough to find its charging station when its battery runs low, which is only after about two hours of driving around the house. It’s relatively quiet and fits under the furniture.
The only downside is when it starts eating cords. You have “robot-proof” your house to minimize entanglements. And for some reason, the dog just ignores the little thing.
Everything was going fine for about a year. I even bought my mother-in-law one because it worked so well. But then recently it started going nuts. It would only venture out a few inches and then turn and then repeat until it gave up and gave out a beep beep like it was stuck in a closet.
After observing it for a while I decide something must have been triggering its open staircase sensor because it keep backing up like it had stairs all around it.
So I cleaned everything. I cleaned the sensors with a Q-tip and rubbing alcohol. Check the wheels for hair. Took off the brushes and clean out some dust that was wrapped around them.
I recharged it. Tried to reset it. Took the batteries out of the remote and then back in. Took the wheels off and shot every hole with compressed air. I looked around online for some troubleshooting advice. This went on for a few days.
Finally, I had enough. If the robot wasn’t going to move forward I decided to give it a push! And what do you know, that fixed it! I fixed it by just pushing it forward. It just needed encouragement! The poor little guy was just scared!
Not so fast! The problem returned…but I fixed it
It turns out my little pal needed a bit of surgery. Nothing dramatic, just removing a few screws and blasting the insides with some air to remove any dust from the sensors.
Remove these five screws to remove the rubber gasket piece.
Remove the six body screws and carefully pull off the outer shell. Blast everywhere!
Here is the rechargeable air blaster I use instead of canned air.