Roomba Vacuum – iRobot Roomba Vacuum

Reviewer: eng9880| Date:2009-07-05

We have had the Roomba for a month now and we like it. It is nice that you can do two things at once. It does a thorough job and out dog adapted to it very quickly. It does need to be cleaned a lot, but with that said is easy to clean and maintain. We wish we had three of them since it really only does one room at a time. It came with two virtual walls, but because we have so many doorways in our house, we could use two more.

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Reviewer: Jake Blues| Date:2009-07-02

The whole point in buying a Roomba is to save time. Any time you save is quickly lost by the amount of time spent cleaning the brushes or walking around the house to see where the Roomba stopped due to the battery running out without even making an attempt to dock with the charger. The Roomba doesn't seem to follow any sort of pattern when cleaning. During every cycle, it will go over one area multiple times while completely ignoring other areas. I also find that the Roomba is just tall enough to get stuck under our sectional and the dresser in the bedroom. In fact, just today I had to free the trapped Roomba from the exact same spot three times.

The actual vacuuming that it does do is fairly ineffective on anything other than hair or loose surface dirt. For a good, deep vacuum you'll still have to break out your upright.

I'm a robot-loving nerd but the Roomba just doesn't do it for me. The idea is years ahead of the technology required to do the job effectively.

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Reviewer: Lynn S.| Date:2009-06-30

I gave this product 4 stars because it's effective and fun, but doesn't completely meet my expectations (like returning to the docking station and needing to be plugged in 24/7) but it's close. I've used this for a couple of weeks so I'm still wary of it's lifespan as other reviewers mentioned. I suppose purchasing it from BedBath & Beyond would make a return easier.

I have a house with two XL cats. I really dislike the loud sound of a traditional vacuum and needing to attach a hose to get anywhere near corners or under furniture. This unit's noise is very tolerable and cleans places I never have. The cats aren't afraid of it either.

I section off a room at a time and then go do something else. I wouldn't run this while out unless the room really has no hazards for the robot like something to get wedged under. I dump the bin and filter fluff into the trash after each room. I don't run it in every room, every single day. I think that's a little psycho. The clean floors have made me want to mop them with the swiffer wetjet I also hadn't used in many months.Very nice results.

This vacuuming has really cut down the amount of swirling hair balls and floating hairs in the house - fewer eye irritations and allergy symptoms like my husband used to get when he would clean something around the house. I got the kit from HSN with two towers that I've needed to block off the oddly designed old house that I live in. Transitions onto area rug easily.

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Reviewer: M. LU| Date:2009-06-21

Got the 532 two days ago and we thought it was a miracle since it works great in our 3 dog house hold. But today, it starts to act up and require cleaning of the cliff sensors. However after cleaning the sensors per instruction in user manual, the unit still goes backwards a few steps then stop and give same error again. So, this is going back. I do like the idea and the product and I am hoping I just got a bad unit by luck. Maybe I will wait a little bit longer before try another one.

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Reviewer: Nikolas T. Everett| Date:2009-05-25

Cute robot. My three year old loves it and it really does work. In fact he saw a picture of it and yelled, "thats the robot right there! Be happy robot. It wants to clean the floor." When I explained I was writing a review for the robot so other people would buy it he said, "it ought to stay with us."

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Reviewer: Alan Suding| Date:2009-05-16

Some of the add-on parts used are no longer available (wireless routers) or replaced by newer versions (BlueSmirf). Fundamental approach still applies but will take some reader knowledge to apply with current products. Interesting hack book nonetheless.

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Reviewer: jef| Date:2008-09-15

Great book, I would suggest getting more than one roomba so you can mod one and still vac the floors. Top fun, all good info in one book, Yes you can get most of the info online but I think its better to have the directions at hand when halfway through a mod instead of rushing to look it up again link after link

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Reviewer: David L. Bump| Date:2008-07-22

I've only gotten into chapter 3, with a few peeks in the back, but so far this book has lived up to my expectations and more. It has all sorts of basic information for people who haven't had much experience with tinkering with electronics. There's also plenty of reassuring and cautionary information for those concerned that their attempts to play with or improve their Roomba will break it instead. I'm looking forward to trying the experiments -- the book will be worth reading even if I never get around to them, though.

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Reviewer: PJT| Date:2007-01-25

I received a "Rootooth" adapter as a Christmas present so I bought this book to expand on hacking Roomba. It is very detailed and easy to follow. The book assumes that you have some basic programming knowledge (i.e. MS VB, MS C#, MS C++, Java)to get the most out of it. You need to know how to compile and execute Java code to do the experiments in this book. It has some cool experiments and a lot of references to downloads for any utlities you will need to hack Roomba. I would highly recommend "Hacking Roomba" as a must have.

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Reviewer: Donald Cochrane| Date:2007-01-15

As a SW programmer interested in SW Robotics Control, this book goes over a lot of those things you would want to do with the Roomba. The iRobot Roomba is a great platform for this and the book highlights these features nicely. Well worth the purchase.

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