Roomba Vacuum – iRobot Roomba Vacuum

Lowest Price

: 42.42

Brand

: Roomba

Model

:

Reviewer: K. Arnett| Date:2008-12-09

The replacement parts were of good quality. The packaging protected the parts effectively. I also appreciated replacement screws being included with the flat rotating brush.

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Reviewer: L. Hess| Date:2008-11-15

They look like they are in great condition, but somehow we have yet to figure out how to get them re-installed. Everytime we run the roomba now it isn't picking up, but rather just sweeping the dirt around. Probably user error, but frustrating cause we love Rosie (from the Jetsons - our Roomba)

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Reviewer: Algesan| Date:2008-07-30

I gave this one two stars since they actually do save you 45 pennies in the end, but the MSRP on the iRobot site is 39.99 (+ $9.95 shipping), NOT 59.99.

So, what they did was have the item with "free" super saver shipping, after raising the price $20, then giving a "discount" of $10.50, which means your actual savings is .125%, not "18%".

Normally I'd save the $.45, but this was so sneaky, that I will be giving the manufacturer my business.

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Lowest Price

: 8.98

Brand

: iRobot

Model

:

Reviewer: Sandpiper| Date:2009-07-09

The iRobot R3 500 series 3 pack filters were exactly as displayed and arrived very quickly. I will definately reorder from this vendor.

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Reviewer: Zac Hubbell| Date:2009-07-08

Replacing the IRobot filters is fairly important for the proper functioning of the machine. While I have heard of people handwashing their old filters (and it working well), I have been very happy with this product!

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Reviewer: A. Dent| Date:2009-03-11

We've been using 2 Roombas, intensively for more than a couple of years and, finally, it came to the point where we thought we wanted some replacement filters, mainly because the existing ones began to look a bit worn out.

Three extra filters... 2 of them are unlikely to be used because you are may replace your Roomba before they get a chance to perform. They are so well-made, they hardly ever break or degrade. My advice: try to find a combo pack that includes one filter because 3 filters is probably 2 too many. If you have 2 Roombas, like we do, then purchasing this pack does make sense.

Note: I'm not aware of such a combo pack which is why I am taking one star away - the Roomba makers seem to be forcing us to buy more than we need in this instance.

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Reviewer: Work of Life| Date:2009-02-21

Roomba owners know that a fresh filter captures more dust than an old one. If you haven't changed your filter in a while, you are really hampering the cleaning potential of your little robot helper. This is a good price and certainly much better than buying from irobot directly. I make my filters last much longer by taking them outside and using canned air to blast them "clean". It only takes about 5 seconds and makes them almost as good as new. I do this about 4 times (once a month) before I finally replace them.

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Reviewer: A. Jae| Date:2009-01-07

Have been wanting a Roomba a long time; with a fractured shoulder, the Roomba became a necesdsisity.

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Lowest Price

: 32.99

Brand

: Roomba 500 Accessories

Model

:

Reviewer: A. Dent| Date:2009-04-10

These are worth having if your Roomba did not come with then or not with enough of them.

When set as a virtual wall, it will not allow Roomba to enter certain areas such as the bathroom.

When in Lighthouse mode, Roomba will pass through into another room and, after done with cleaning there, it will guide it back to the charging station.

Depending on how wide the passages you need to protect/signal, it can be set to 0-3ft., 4-7ft. or 8+ft.

It requires 2 C-cell batteries.

It seems to be 100% effective as a virtual wall when placed properly and close to 100% effective as a lighthouse.

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Reviewer: M. Daws| Date:2009-03-05

This item works in keeping your roomba in a contained space/rooom, just remember roomba will only work with 3 of these at a time. I did not know that until after I had purchased a total of 4 lighthouses.

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Reviewer: Dinesh Rajawasan| Date:2008-05-26

Works well, contains and guides roomba effectively. Nice to have option of Lighthouse and virtual wall together.

But wish I could give it power off a wall socket, not just batteries. Then I could forget about it completely!

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Reviewer: David Pfeffer| Date:2008-04-13

The Virtual Wall Lighthouse is amazing, turning on and off with the Roomba 500 series via RF. I use a network of 5 of these to keep my Roomba out of the bathroom and to let it know which rooms are which.

Definitely get these over the plain old manually-activated virtual walls. You'll forget to turn them off and they eat batteries. Also, the lighthouse works with rechargeable batteries and the manual ones don't.

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Lowest Price

: 269.95

Brand

: iRobot

Model

:

Reviewer: X. Wu| Date:2009-07-09

It doesn't work as well as the menu says with in terms of automation.
1. The cleaning path is so random that some areas are repeated many times while some areas are not covered. The menu says it calculate its own efficient path, but it seems to me that it is randomly bounces against any object.

2. It is supposed to come back to the home base when it is done its cleaning cycle or battery runs low. Well, it cleans my room for a lot longer than 25 minutes(factory estimate) until it runs out of battery and dies without coming back to home base. Next time, I have to press on "dock" button hope it comes back to home base.

3. Even with two light houses placed at between rooms as instructed by the menu, the robot doesn't know how to come back to home base. I finally press "dock" button, but still I have to do a lot of interference to force it back to base.

It does do a good job on cleaning dirt and hair.

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Reviewer: Jerkat1| Date:2009-07-07

Bought one for my wife for Mother's Day. I used it more than she did. This thing worked great for about 2-3 months. After that, the batteries gained a memory and wouldn't work longer than 30 minutes. 3 months after that...one of the gears in the wheel broke and then all it would do is go circles. I threw the $400 thing in the trash and swore I'd never buy one again.

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Reviewer: Scott Lewis| Date:2009-07-01

This is an amazing product..I love it. It does a great job cleaning and all you have to worry about is the maintance. I highly reccommend the roomba to keep you house clean.

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Reviewer: W. Fisher| Date:2008-11-24

First let me say that I agree with people who say that the robot does a competent job of cleaning. You should SEE the dust bin after vacuuming! I am also in awe etc etc, but I'm going to try to focus on things that others have not mentioned.

My 550 (560 actually, I think...it came with a few more odds and ends in the box) is actually my second Roomba. The first was the Discovery SE, one of the 400 series. The 400 was pretty good with two exceptions: 1) It would not work on rug fringe. It gets hopelessly tangled in less time that it takes to say "Wait!" The second problem with the older 400 series is that the battery dies fairly quickly if you do not use it VERY frequently. I use it once/week and by second battery is showing its age.

In any case, the 500 series is advertised to be able to deal with rug fringe, and indeed it does so reasonably well. It is also supposed to be able to do 4 rooms using these "lighthouses" that have been previously mentioned. To summarize, these are little gadgets that put out an IR (UV?) beam that the robot can see; it generally will not cross the beam, so you can use the beam to mark off rooms. After a certain amount of time, the robot sends out an RF signal to the lighthouse, and the LH lets it through into the next room. Repeat for 4 rooms if desired. Then the robot knows how to find its way back to where it started to plug itself back in to recharge. Cool.

Here are the problems with the lighthouse scheme: First, the beam gets wider very quickly. So there is a fan-shaped area in front of each lighthouse that never gets cleaned. In other words, when moving between the two rooms, the beam gets shut off but when cleaning either side, the robot will not enter the fan shaped area that the beam covers.

The second lighthouse problem is that the robot seems to use time rather than room size or complexity to decide when to move from one room to the other. In other words, for larger or more complex rooms, it simply does not cover the room before moving on to the next.

A non-lighthouse problem that you should know about with the 500 series is that I think they must be lower-slung than the 400 series. My 500 robot is not NEARLY as good is climbing up onto a rung as the 400. The 400 got stuck in fringe, but without fringe, it is nearly flawless. The 500 tends to push the rug around, bunch it up, and even get caught if it bunches up the rug in a corner that it has not way to get out of without getting back over the rug.

You MUST be sure there are no cords on the floor. For example, a floor lamp, a computer power cord, etc. My robot has gotten caught when I forget, and nearly pulled down a few items with dangling cords.

And finally, I have one room with hardwood floor and a rug about 6 or 8 inches smaller than one dimension of the room. So there is a 6+ inch "valley" between the rug and the wall. The 500 series does not clean the 6+ inch valley well at all. It goes along it, but does not pick up dirt well. I think it is probably that the brush is on the rug on one side and on the floor on the other, but is touching nothing in the middle. I end up taking a dry mop and going along the valley and pulling dirt out into an open area where the robot can get it.

Given all that, though, the robot saves a LOT of work. If there is something special happening, I would probably bring out the hand vac and get all the little corners and fans and valleys that the Roomba does not reach, but for every-day/week vacuuming, it is way easier than doing it by hand despite its problems.
==========================
Update 3/24/2009: I've had two problems, both fixed/replaced under warranty. First, it refused to dock. It would nose up to the dock and keep pushing and pushing; then finally back up and try again. Repeat forever. Used email support (I think). After doing a bunch of tests that they requested, they sent me a new dock. All ok now.

Second, the robot started spinning in circles. Even if I used the remote to try to make it go straight, it would turn. Sounds like a drive motor on one wheel died or something. In any case, I think I phoned this time. After a bunch of tests, they had me return the robot (minus dust bin and top insert) and they replaced it.

Now it works well, and guess what? The new robot can get up on rugs much better than the old one. I don't know if there was a hardware or software change, or if my old one was defective in some subtle way that I did not know about. I guess I might give this new unit an extra star if I could.

Interestingly, my 400-series also had to be replaced once, but it has worked fine ever since. I hope that will be the case with this one as well.

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Reviewer: habblie| Date:2008-11-23

Have had it for a month now and I use it several times a week, almost every day. 5 people, 2 cats and 6 dogs make a lot of dirt! Roomba handles it well.

Likes...
* can vacuum daily, without really doing it!
* does a pretty good job. much better than me doing it myself, which i would only find time for once a week
* docks itself successfully most of the time
* stops and tells me verbally to clean it's brushes if they are full of pet hair
* lighthouses are a great feature
* sometimes it gets lost and needs help finding it's dock. i put this under "like" cuz i think it's cute

Dislikes...
* it's supposed to slow down prior to bumping into things. it does this sometimes, but for wide, solid objects only, like walls. it runs full-speed into table legs and other thin objects. half the time it runs into the wall at full speed too
* it's making a black line where it rubs on my baseboards. i put a row of felt furniture feet across the front. this solved the problem, and also helped with the full speed collisions (though it looks stupid).

Worth Mentioning...
* have to Roomba-proof prior to vacuuming. a very small sacrifice to having the bulk of the work done for me
* small dirt canister. but the brushes always need to be cleaned when it's full anyway, so if i have to pick it up to clean the brushes, might as well dump the canister
* you'll get your fingers dirty and a little greasy cleaning the brushes, so not a good option for germaphobes
* gotta take a regular vacuum cleaner to the rugs once a week or two. and i use a hand vac for the corners and behind objects as needed, every couple of weeks
* got mine at a "popular warehouse store" for fifty bucks less, where i can also return it at any time, even a year or more, if it starts to crap out on me


TOTALLY worth it. Would recommend it to anyone. Only gave it 4 stars because there are improvements to be made, but it's AWESOME. However, you will be disappointed if you think it's zero maintenance. It makes your life easier. But it doesn't think for itself or clean itself so it needs a little help and maintenance. Also makes a good pet. I call mine Sally.

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