If you live in the more expensive parts of Britain and watch a lot of Living TV (where James Dyson appears in every ad break), you might well think that the only way to vacuum the house is with a Dyson. His yellow and purple flag has been firmly nailed to the business of tidying the middle-class home. Cleaners in Primrose Hill have been known to walk when something other turned out to be in the broom cupboard.

This is why I had to travel all the way to Austria to be reminded of the existence of robot vacuum cleaners. During my day with a sprightly 70-year-old in a pistachio green jacket, tailored jeans and slingbacks, conversation finally turned to housekeeping and Frau G’s iRobot Roomba 560 (iroboteurope.co.uk). It had freed her from the shackles of domesticity, she said.

She has a point. You just plug in a robot cleaner (a small scarab-like thing) and off it goes, backwards and forwards on one patch until its sensors detect no more dust. All you have to do is take stuff off the floor before it begins. You are then free to watch the Dyson ads on TV, or change into a curiously coloured outfit and leave the house.

Times recommends

• Second homes: credit crunch casualty or money-spinner?
• How I built my own sliding house
• Top 10 incentives for house buyers