janets98 wrote:I own this model and use it for pickups in between cleaning. It's wonderful. Doesn't chew up extension cords or drapes. Only drawbacks: Won't pick up dry cereal or suck spiders off the ceiling.

You have dry cereal on the ceiling? Is this part of the story about the Superman cape, the ceiling fan, and the emergency room? Maybe I don't want to know...

momof2angels wrote:Can anyone tell me how loud this iRobot is? I am thinking of buying one for my elderly parents but don't want something so loud that it would bother them or interfere with Dad watching tv.

Not contrary to the other responses, it is definitely loud enough that your Dad will have to turn up the TV if he's in the same room ... but instead I would just run it during other times when the sound won't matter ...

I thought I was genius when i coordinated the color of my hard wood floor with the color of Dodger, my boxer.... if you can't see the dog hair it must not be there, right?

But Dodger tracks in the Florida sand and it feels so yucky on bare feet, so I just bought this roomba.

Now my question, in a round about way...

It has never happened before, and it may never happen again but today I made a purchase from both woot and sellout.woot.
Too bad the product on kids.woot stunk so badly.

How come I could not find a way to just check out once?
I had to check out twice to purchase each product. That hardly seems right.

jgallo wrote:Therein lies the rub - these things die way too quickly. How many other vacuums die? Roombas suck - and not well.

Like anything with batteries, motors, and moving parts, especially products that are likely to be attacked by household pets and children, there will be a wide range of reliability experiences out there ... I am fortunately on the other end of that spectrum, having had a pair of Roombas for many years with good success ...

Another aspect is user expectations ... if a user expects a Roomba to clean as well as his Wind Tunnel vacuum, he will be disappointed ... if he expects to use the device every day and have the battery last for 3 years, he is being very unrealistic (noting that most rechargable batteries are good for, what, 300 charges?) ...

Lastly, there is the area of technology ... the Roomba technology in it, and one should expect that technology to be advanced, which means that new (and presumably better) models will appear from time to time, and will not necessarily be backwards compatible with older models and accessories ... can anyone say "iPhone"?

What?! Another firing Rocket Number 9 creamy and delicious robot? What the fire Rocket Number 9 is with this ass scaffolding? What a damn pile of Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966). fire Rocket Number 9 !

Just seeing how this word filter works, here.

firin' Rocket Number 9 -a.

Edit: balderah!

Does anyone know how well this model does with room dividers as opposed to the 400 series?

We have mostly hardwood floors in the apartment, but a rug in the hall, and there are wooden room dividers that are about 1 inch high that our old, now non-functional, roomba would get stuck on.

It would be so great if it could just vacuum the dining room, hall, and living room all at once instead of us having to wall off each individually.

I bought this for $150 a few months ago, and I can't say this does a great job. It is better than not vacuuming at all, but these machines do not have the suction of the full size vacuums.

If someone told me I could only keep one thing, My left testicle or my Roomba 560...

I'd tell them to give me my roomba.

Does it suck as hard as a standup vacuum? no, and yur re tarded if you ask that question. Like the slow drooling re tarded.

I have used my standup vacuum once since owning a roomba. If you have half a brain, these robots are amazing. 800 sq ft 2 bedroom carpeted apt.

yeawuteva wrote:what are the chances this vacuum is going to scratch my baseboards and walls? How accurate is the sensor?

It doesn't scratch our baseboards, but the sensor can miss some low-height trim if it's not near a wall.

How does the Roomba clean multiple bedrooms and go from room to room or does it just clean one room at a time?

I don't have the time to read all 200+ comments, so here is the deal with the Roomba 530. I bought this exact model at the end of June when Woot had them for sale.

1) This Roomba is absolutely awesome.

2) It cleans everything very well. Carpet, tile, and hardwood is no problem. I even put it out on the front porch one day and let it clean up the concrete out there. However, it might scratch hardwood floors if you have rugs or an entry mat on them. Anyway, it cleans so well that when I broke a glass jar the other night and glass went everywhere, I grabbed the Roomba and let it clean the mess up. It seems to have picked up every piece of glass as I haven't found any in my foot yet.

3) Roomba picks up just about everything and does dog hair very well. I have a Siberian Husky and I am finally living a hair free life!

4) The run time on the battery is just over an hour.

5) It is quiet enough that you can still watch TV while it is doing its thing.

6) When you get this you will be amazed at what it picks up the first few times you use it. I find it does just as well as the upright vac. You will also wonder how you ever lived without Roomba and why it was you waited so long to buy one.

7) The only downside is that if you are slightly OCD, then you don't get the nice lines in your carpet that you can make with an upright vac. Roomba kind of just goes around randomly, thus creating random lines in the carpet. Solution, use the upright when you are having guests over.

leonbev wrote:These things don't work well at all with long pet hair. I have a Persian cat, and I end up having the clean the brushes every 15 minutes when I use it.

I can still hear those "Ding Dong! Clean Roomba's Brushes! Ding Dong!" warning messages now...

well yeah, but thats because it's picking up the pet hair, A-DOY!!!

I have this exact model from the last woot and it does indeed say Croooooooooow! Croooooooooow! a lot, but thats because its so efficient at picking up the hair that it gets clogged fast. If I run it several times a week its not as bad.

Are replacement filters easy to find?

Does it work with Mac?

I apologize if someone has asked (and answered) these already but I don't have time to read all 7 pages of comments, what with being at work and all.....

I have 2 cats and 3 large dogs. 1 is a Golden Ret, long hair. You need to clean the brushes after every 2-3 times you run ut but it is great. Push start and leave the room. My dogs don;t even get up when it is running, they just let it bump into them.

I've got two of the Roomba bots (probably a pre-req to being a wooter) and I wanted to share info on extending battery life from the help blog on robotshop. I could paste the link, but the item is pretty short....

"Your Roomba may be experiencing an issue where the APS Battery is deeply discharged and may need to charge longer than the standard 2.5 hours. (or 6 hours if you have a standard charger) If you have fully charged your Battery (the Roomba Power light is solid green) and its charging time was short (less than 20 minutes) and its run time was short (less than 20 minutes) you will need to do the following.

1. Reset the Roomba charging system. Do this by removing the Battery and holding down the "power" button for at least 15 seconds. Then reinstall the Battery.

2. Plug the Charger into Roomba (avoid using the Home Base if you have one so as to ensure the Roomba’s charging cycle is not interrupted).

3. Charge the Battery until the Roomba Power light is solid green and keep the Roomba on the Charger for an additional 72 hours (3 days). Note: Do not interrupt this charging cycle.

4. In Max mode, run the Roomba for one complete cycle without a Home Base present, to deplete the Battery. Keep track of the runtime and if it has improved, repeat steps 3 and 4 a few times. If your Roomba does not have Max mode, run several Clean cycles until Roomba stops and plays the "dead battery" song.

If this procedure does not work, it may be worth considering the purchase of a new Roomba APS Battery."

emikat wrote:I have never owned or seen a Roomba in action, will this pick up snacks, food from a tile floor? I am considering this for my kitchen and with 2 toddlers, 2 cats and a dog there are lots of food spills. Would this pick up a cheerio, grape or piece of dog kibble? Whats the biggest size item it will devour without causing damage to it?

I bought this exact model the last time it was on woot. I absolutely LOVE it.I have hardwood floors in my kitchen, dining room and living room. It works GREAT! I use the invisible wall between rooms and that works great also.

I have watched this thing to see if it would pick up certain things, and it always does. I don't know how it would be at large stuff, but crumbs and lint and dog hair and dirt, no problem.

I think it works excellently for hardwood floors, I think it would work just as well on tile floors. I'm not sure how great it would work on plush carpet, but it works ok on area rugs.

It takes about an hour to finish a large room. It does a great enough job so that I can mop afterwards, no sweeping or hand vacuuming necessary firt. I let it run and the BONA my floors.

Love my Roomba. It's the best invention ever. It cleans well, but sometimes get stuck on things. Cleaning it out is easy and it's completely worth the cost.

This product works wonderfully. I have mostly carpet floors but works great in my tiled bathroom and kitchen. The kitchen has deep grout lines, but it still seems to pick up what I miss when sweeping. You do need to clean it out regularly, but the pieces pop in and out so easily that it is never a hassle. I'm actually buying one for my friends as a wedding gift because I think its so great. As it is a 530 you can not set it to go off at a certain time (570 and above only), but thats never really been a concern of mine.

Ive owned this one and can tell you guys.. i have 2 dogs, parakeets and this thing picks up all their hair and feathers no problem. it does a great job on carpet and is not too loud. Worth every penny. easy to clean and maintain. it exceeded my expectations.

Refurbished?!! No thanks

Does it vacuum row by row in an efficient manner or randomly travel around wasting the batteries??

rhgrafix wrote:Does it vacuum row by row in an efficient manner or randomly travel around wasting the batteries??

Check out the picture I posted about thoroughness and coverage:

Roomba Coverage

bpichman wrote:does anyone know how well does it work with dog hair. My little beagle shelty sheds hardcore.

If it works well with dog hair/dander, i'm in. Anyone have an animal with one of these?

Works well on dog hair (I have 2 shaggy guys). But keep in mind that it is NOT really a vacuum. There's no suction. It's a darn good motorized brush. Also, you can order the larger "pet" debris receiving container for this. (The Pet Roomba comes with 2 different dirt containers but is otherwise identical as far as I can tell.)

Purchased one last time 6/30. Already had wheel failure (screw fell out) and brush module failure (motor stopped, irobot sending a new module). irobot rep told me refurb will Bobo-style quicker than new...

Piisexactlythree wrote:Are replacement filters easy to find?

Does it work with Mac?

I apologize if someone has asked (and answered) these already but I don't have time to read all 7 pages of comments, what with being at work and all.....

The filter is re-usable, but you can get more directly from iRobot. I just tap mine against the edge of the trash can and all the dirt falls off.

As for working with Mac . . . are you planning to hack it through its serial port? Or are you asking if it will pick up mac and cheese?

lukesammons wrote:Got one off Woot 2 months ago. Love it. Wife loves it even more.

Same here. Living room always looks better, and the kids have taken a liking to it. My 6 yr old has dubbed it "Dusty" and always picks up after himself so that Dusty won't accidentally eat his toys. That was a seriously unexpected bonus.
The 3 yr old will randomly decide to turn him on and watch him go, but she always comes running to let us know...
Cleaning/maintenance takes about 10 minutes a week, and still use the regular upright every couple of weeks.
Wife loves it, will use it in the kitchen on the tile.

cathygarwood wrote:How does the Roomba clean multiple bedrooms and go from room to room or does it just clean one room at a time?

This model won't do that very well. You'd have to get their top-of-the line Roomba to do that efficiently. It will leave one room and go to another as part of its random travel path (if you don't wall it off with the little infrared gadget) but I don't think you could count on a thorough job in any room before the battery was gone.

cathygarwood wrote:How does the Roomba clean multiple bedrooms and go from room to room or does it just clean one room at a time?

As boxplayer mentions, it's not optimized for that ... one our Roombas (Hobson) "got out" the other day (i.e., the batteries died in the virtual wall and we didn't realize it) and wandered through several adjacent rooms before its battery ran down and it returned to base ... yes, it did return to base, much to my amazement, because based on tracks in the carpet (etc.) we could tell that it touched the dining room, kitchen, living room, foyer, music room, master bedroom, master bath, and master closet during its travels! But as nearly as we could tell, and as one would expect, the coverage was marginal in each of those rooms.

However, I can tell you from experience that two adjacent medium-sized rooms with a reasonably large opening between them will work fine.

I have 2 cats and I was afraid when my roomba saw the little furs everywhere, it would raise the white flag and I would find the little thing, wandering down the street, looking for a new home, but "Robbie' is a trouper and gets to work each morning. It's also very entertaining to watch the cats stalk it, thinking it's prey. I do wish that woot would put batteries for them on occasionally though!

wanpakumono wrote:Works great on dog hair! I have two dogs and it cleans the hair up nicely!

I keep saying next time when these Roomba's come around. I think I just may break down next time its up during a woot off :p


~Zara

Love the roomba (and posting to see what my new color is).

i love you woot

Piisexactlythree wrote:Are replacement filters easy to find?

iRobot's website has them; however, at least on prior models, they can be rinsed out, washed with a little bit of liquid hand soap for good measure, and allowed to dry to good-as-new state repeatedly. And more than one usually comes in the box. I've owned three (including the original when first launched), and I've never needed to buy a filter due to this feature. :-)

Just wondering what color square I have :-)

mmiteshm wrote:what abt battery? is it APS or regular?

Roomba!

test--what color is my new "experience badge"?

boxplayer wrote:The filter is re-usable, but you can get more directly from iRobot. I just tap mine against the edge of the trash can and all the dirt falls off.

As for working with Mac . . . are you planning to hack it through its serial port? Or are you asking if it will pick up mac and cheese?

Thanks for answering one of my two questions. I had some concerns re- filters since there is one in the machine and one in the box as well. It lead me to think the filters either wear out or are difficult to find. As for Mac, I wonder if somehow I could hook an iPod up to this and have it play "Flight of the Bumblebee" as it wanders through my house.

One of these days I may be able to talk my wife into buying one of these things.

just testing to see what color I am

ogunsensei wrote:test--what color is my new "experience badge"?

Purple?! Oh, well--not too shabby. I need to check my account and see how many more purchases before I get a black square again. lol