A Roomba is made to clean until you say when. The Roomba Virtual Wall has a lot of things that you can learn from to help you with cleaning. How does the Roomba Virtual Wall work?
The Virtual Wall creates a barrier that your Roomba has to abide by. When this wall is activated, the Roomba will not go further than it has to. The Virtual Wall can operate in two modes:
- Virtual Wall ModeVirtual Wall Lighthouse Mode
With a basic understanding of how the Roomba Virtual Wall works, your Roomba will be ready when you are to tackle each room at a time.
How Does Roomba Virtual Wall Work?
There is a Virtual Wall Barrier that cuts your Roomba off from other rooms only. Roomba Virtual Walls are meant to keep your Roomba in a secure location to clean that area only.
Roomba Virtual Walls are infrared walls that only your Roomba can see. The Virtual Wall will act as a barrier for your Roomba. It will keep the Roomba contained in a chosen area.
On the other hand, the Virtual Wall Lighthouse acts as the gatekeeper for your Roomba so that it can access other rooms. This Virtual Wall has both the Virtual Wall Barrier and Lighthouse feature attached to it.
Virtual Wall Mode
With the help of the Virtual Wall mode, you can stop your Roomba from running into a precious vase or something dangerous.
A Virtual Wall is set outside the doorframe for the room you want to keep your Roomba away from. The maximum length the Virtual Wall will keep in contact with is 7 ft.
The Virtual Wall will also stop the Roomba from coming into contact with it by creating a barrier around itself.
You can activate the Auto Virtual Wall, for when the Roomba vacuum comes to clean, it automatically brings up that wall.
You can, however, still manually activate your Virtual Wall. You must do this at the beginning of each cleaning, and the Virtual Wall will shut off after 135 minutes.
Since the Roomba has virtual walls and does floor mapping, is your Roomba capable of cleaning different floor types?
Virtual Wall Lighthouse Mode
When the Virtual Wall is in Lighthouse Mode, it lets your Roomba know that it has access to another area while cleaning.
Once your Roomba has gone to all of the rooms that you require it to visit, the Virtual Wall Lighthouse will help it return to its Home Base.
iRobot recommends having no more than two Virtual Wall Lighthouses working when your Roomba is cleaning.
Here are the following steps to change between the two modes:
- There is a Mode Selector under the name of your Virtual Wall. Lighthouse Mode will be at the top, and Virtual Wall will be at the bottom.Next is your Range Selector. This lets your Virtual Wall unit know how big the doorway is or how much space you want to block off to your Roomba.
Once your Virtual Wall is set to the Lighthouse Mode, put the Virtual Wall on the inside of the doorframe. You can now use the slider to indicate how far you want the barrier to reach.
With this mode, you can go up one additional foot to a total of 8 ft. to cast a wider net for your Roomba.
Take note that the longer your range is while your Virtual Wall is in Lighthouse Mode, the faster your battery will drain.
Are They Compatible With All Roomba Models?
The Virtual Wall Barrier is compatible with most of iRobot’s Roomba lineup (Like the 675). They are compatible with the following Roomba Robot models:
- 500 Series600 Series700 Series800 Series900 Seriese Seriesi Seriess Series
The Virtual Wall Lighthouse is only compatible with a few Roomba models, which include:
- 564, 570, 571, 572577, 580, 581, 587, 599610, 611, 625780, 785, 790, 799880, 889
The Virtual Walls will need 2 C Alkaline batteries to operate and they typically need replacement every 6 months.
Troubleshooting with LED Indicator Lights
There are different sensor light motions that can help in indicating when batteries are going low or that something is wrong with your Virtual Wall:
Conclusion
The Roomba virtual wall is a great tool if you need to keep your Roomba robotic vacuum out of certain areas or rooms. It creates an infrared wall that your Roomba can see and will avoid.
