iRobot 500 Series Roomba Vacuum-Cleaning Robot with On-Board Scheduling
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Tools and Hardware Reviews of iRobot 500 Series Roomba Vacuum-Cleaning Robot with On-Board Scheduling
Customer Review: Cleans while you sleep
Summary: 4 Stars
First, I love it. It's almost a "set it and forget it" device. It cleans well and doesn't miss anything. It does, however, needs its brushes cleaned every 2 or 3 days to remove the Maine Coon cat hair that's all twisted around the brushes. Overall, I like it.Customer Review: Cool device, but just didn't perform for the price
Summary: 3 Stars
I loved this little thing from it's first run around our kitchen tiles. It would weave its way around and under most everything, picking up dog hair and bits of cutting board casualties - fabulous! My new little helper! Unfortunately it didn't perform so well on the carpeted areas which is the majority of our house. I think there may have been a problem with the unit because the lighthouse/virtual walls would not keep it confined. I would hear the beep of distress (cleaning) and find it in a part of the house it shouldn't have been it. It also beeped for cleaning every 20 minutes or so, but when I would disembowl the brushes and clean the bins, there wasn't much at all on/in either. Defective or just the Roomba, that is the question. I've had it a month and I am sad to say it really hasn't made the vacumming chore any easier for me. I wanted to love it, but for the cost vs. performance, I couldn't. My bottom line advice:
YES if you have tile or hardwood floors, as long as you don't mind picking hair out of brushes. Yes, it is easy to do, but it's still kind'a gross.
MAYBE if you have small, carpeted areas with no or shorthaired pets, and you are still okay with doing most of the vacuuming with a little help from your friend. And see "hair picking", above.
NO if your house is mostly carpeted and you have pets, unless you just want a novelty that leaves vacuum tracks on your carpet so you can come home from work and think briefly "Ah, the maid came today!". Inspect your carpet closely and it will be full of pet hair unless you removed it with a "real" vacuum. Sorry Roomba.
I'm returning mine, but would buy one again if I had hard floors and hairless pets.
Customer Review: Cool product, but an extended warranty is worth the extra $$!
Summary: 4 Stars
Absolutely love the Roomba (ours is named Rusty :) ), & researched it online for several weeks before actually buying one. Based on one review I read, instead of saving a few bucks by purchasing online, I bought mine from Sears & paid the extra $[...] for the protection plan. Sears will replace it within 30 days, but after that you're on your own, so the protection plan covers it for another 2 years out.
When I got it home I could barely wait to use it, so the initial 16-hr charging period was excruciating! But after that, we worked him pretty hard & I was very impressed. Even after a vacuuming with the upright, the Roomba was still picking up enough to dump out of the bin, probably because it makes so many passes over the same spot. I didn't expect miracles, but Roomba way outperformed my expectations.
Unfortunately, for some reason the brushes stopped spinning on the 2nd day of use. I cleaned the brushes & bearings & emptied the bin, but still nothing, so I exchanged it for a new one. So far so good on this one; scheduled it to run twice while we were out of town over the weekend, & came back to a beautifully vacuumed apartment, with it napping peacefully in its charger.
I don't care if it's not perfect, I didn't expect it to be. But it IS better than I thought, & worth the price in my opinion. Hopefully future generations will be glitch-free, & if Rusty conks out on me again within the next 2 years, I can take advantage of the protection plan & just pay the difference to upgrade.
MY FAVORITE THING ABOUT ROOMBA: It cleans under the beds! My kids no longer allow their crap to accumulate under the beds, because if they do, they can't run the awesome robot in there. That alone is worth a few extra bucks!
I heart you, Roomba.
Customer Review: DELIGHT OF MY LIFE! And my Mother's!
Summary: 5 Stars
I am in loooooooove with my Roomba. I've had it for about a year now, with zero problems. I always thought these were kind of a gimmick, but then we adopted a pair of rabbits, and I promised my husband, who tends to have allergies, that I'd vacuum every other day to keep up with the hair. After a few weeks of lugging the vacuum out of the closet, unwinding the cord, etc., I gave up and bought a Roomba. Now "I" vacuum almost every day while I'm drinking my morning coffee and/or taking my morning shower, our house remains pet hair free, and everyone is happy.
The Roomba, in my experience, does almost as good a job as a regular upright, because Roomba goes over the same spot on the floor multiple times in the same cycle, meaning it spends far more time on any given spot than you ever would in vacuuming. More importantly, though, because all you have to do is press a button, you are likely to use Roomba far more often than you would ever vacuum with an upright, which means for most people, your floors will be cleaner than they ever have been or ever could be any other way. I can't believe how much dust and hair Roomba is able to vacuum up each and every day - it's totally unbelievable, and I can roam happily around the house barefoot, feeling the clean. I am a busy working person, like anyone else, so there's no way I could ever in a million years keep my floors so clean and pet hair free if it weren't for Roomba. After four months of ownership, I was so impressed with my Roomba that I talked my family into pooling our money last Christmas and buying one for my 7-cat-owning mom, who now says it has literally changed her life.
Bottom line: I don't know how anyone with pets lives without a Roomba. Scrimp, save, buy refurbished, beg, borrow, or steal one if you have to, but really, if there's any possible way you can get your hands on one of these, and you're a pet owner, do it! Roomba is worth every penny.
Customer Review: Decent, but not perfect, but decent
Summary: 3 Stars
Update: After owning this product for a few months the battery wouldn't hold a charge longer than 20 minutes. Not nearly enough time to clean all my rooms. I had to return it and get a new one. I still love it, but very disappointed in the batter life. I removed 1 star because of it.
I've had my Roomba 550 for about 2 weeks. I decided to wait a little time before posting a review just to make sure I worked out the kinks. My house is 1 story 1668 square feet. The entry way, kitchen, bathrooms (2), and laundry room are all vinyl. None of these spaces are very large except the kitchen which is pretty large.
Things to be aware of when first run Roomba:
It will get LOTS of hair. I have a cat and a wife. Enough said? So it didn't get overwhelmed with hair the first time I ran it, I decided to run it in one room, clean out the hair, then the next room, clean out the hair, etc. Now, I probably could have taken my regular vacuum and did it that way first, but this was more fun (and I believe better quality.)
So - yes it sounds like A LOT, but doing it this way allowed the Roomba then to do its own thing afterwards. There was a lot of hair in our house because we would only vacuum about once a month! Once it got up all the latent hair, then I didn't have to continually clean it. Big help. What I'm doing now is running it twice a week through my entire house. I don't have to clean the brushes every time because there isn't that much hair anymore, but I do like to empty the bin that collects the dirt after every run. That really only takes a minute to do - very easy.
According to the directions you should clean the brushes every 3 times. My advice is if you have a cat and a wife, you may want to clean the brushes once a week. It really isn't that hard to do - take about 3-5 minutes.
Okay, the breakdown of the product:
Pros:
+ Obvious: I don't have to pull out my vacuum and it vacuums if I am home or not.
+ It hits about 95% of my floors. It skips spots, but I skip spots as well with a "real" vacuum.
+ It is cool! My cat loves/hates it.
+ It actually does a great job as a vacuum. My wife and I have enjoyed the difference our carpet feels walking around barefoot.
+ I don't have to worry about the thing. It docs automatically (automagically!) and is charged up for the next time.
+ Really easy to use - push the button with your toe (okay, you can use your finger as well) and/or set the schedule. The 550 only comes with ONE schedule per week. If you want it to automatically clean more than that I believe the 570 has a dual schedule (but not sure.) For the $100 savings, I can use my toe for the second time.
+ Pretty easy to clean.
+ MUCH quieter than a standard vacuum. I can't run this thing while sleeping probably, but I can run it while watching TV with only turning the TV up a little.
+ Quality is better than my standard vacuum (Dirt Devil.)
+ Picks up cat and wife's hair!
Cons:
- Although it picks up hair well on carpeting, it "blows" hair more on vinyl. After it passes through my kitchen or laundry room, I find little "tuffs" of cat hair left behind. But, of course, this is a vacuum, not a broom. It picks up the cat litter in the laundry room pretty well.
- You have to clean it. Okay, I probably should have cleaned my standard vacuum as well, but I can't just lift that up, turn it over and pull the brushes out.
- It has only one design flaw that bothers me. On the rollers, they are made to come apart pretty easily - hair easy to remove except for one area. On the rubber roller it has this one area that should come apart to remove hair, but it doesn't. This is mainly why this product lost a star for me. It is a design flaw. It could easily be fixed and I hope they will someday. Hair gets trapped around this little green area and the only way to remove it is with a knife or something pointy to get in there and pull the hair out. This really surprises me since the rest of it is made to very easily get the hair out. Not sure why they missed this one part. Not a "deal buster" for me, but it is something you need to be aware of.
- Like other reviews have stated, it seems to be very random where it cleans. I am finding that doing it twice a week gets everything covered very well, but wish it didn't have to be this way. The first time through is actually pretty good - but some areas are missed while other areas are hit about 5 times. I have no idea why it does this! But, seriously, do it twice a week - you will be so happy and your carpets will look beautiful!
One other note - it really does hit my whole house with one charge. I find though I like to use the light houses on two of my rooms (less used ones) during one of the cleanings. This gives the Roomba more time to focus on the heavier traveled rooms. Not sure if it really works that way, but feel like it to me.
Conclusion:
Why haven't you clicked: Buy Now? This thing is great - worth the money.