retswerb wrote:How does this handle floor transitions? Can it go from smooth to carpeted floor?

My loft apartment has a wood railing on a timber beam that creates a 1"-1.5" lip from the carpet to the beam of the rail and the little roomba forcibly gets itself up on there when cleaning my bedroom.

Alright. I have been a wooter for years and this is my very first comment. TA DA!

I have had 10, count them, 10 Roombas. In a nutshell, they are not built to last. I buy mine at Best Buy for one reason. In 6 years I have bought two service contracts for the 10 I have replaced. Im not an spoon, I have only paid for one. Every one has a different quirk or problem. Stopping and turning off, going in constant circles, not charging properly, etc. They work well--when they work. They are not anywhere close to as effective as a quality upright. I would imagine wood floors, tile, and linoleum , etc it might be close since nothing hides down in it. You do have to "pick up" the room in advance or you will be screwed. It doesnt take long to figure out what they get hung up on. With an upright, you move things as you go. With this, its all in advance. Not a big deal. Its kind of cool to turn it on and leave the house and come home to decent floors. Virtual walls are overrated. Its easier to just block an area with what you have laying around. They do get kind of dirty and u have to clean the brushes and the filter. Maybe 15 minutes every few weeks. This is a good price but is it worth knowing that you will probably be buying some thing else in 2 yrs max? Maybe the best compromise is to simply use it as a supplement to a good upright. It is nice if you have too much to do in too little time. Just let it rip after a quick pick up of the area. Hope this helps. I do like em, but.....

A couple of data points:
http://www.woot.com/Blog/ViewEntry.aspx?Id=8628
2009/06/29 for $130 you got 2 filters and a brush-cleaning tool.
http://www.woot.com/blog/viewentry.aspx?id=9047
2009/08/26 $??? 2 filters but no tool
Tonight $140 gets no tool and *one* filter.

I'm jumping in for one tonight while they still include a battery. Seriously.

I bought one of these for my dorm room. It forces me to keep clutter off my floor and it does a great job of vacuuming. I turn it on when I leave for class and by the time I come back my floor is clean and it's charging on its station. Couldn't be happier!

amykate wrote:Anyone know if virtual walls from an earlier Roomba series (like 400) will work with this one?

Yes they do but the new walls turn off and on with the Roomba. The old ones will work the same as they did with the Scheduler or Pro series. This is one of the lower end models. It does not feature scheduling, anything above a 530 does. But I will say I have only used the scheduling half a dozen times. I usually turn it on as I am walking out the door, then the cleaning is on my schedule. I have 4 Roombas and a 5th on the way now and I just don't find this specific feature all that spectacular. The one thing that is a downside on this model is that it doesn't use the room to room navigation but I am unsure if this is related to the wall or it is actually a limitation of the unit. I am getting a broken 530 shipped to me now for investigation. I take these off people's hands when they are broken so the parts can be recycled and not dumped in a landfill. I suspect it is the walls themselves which can be purchased separately. This mostly replaces any "normal" vacuuming for me, they run most days and they almost always get everything pretty well. And I am not here doing it, I get to come home and someone has been working while I am away but they don't steal my stuff. Good luck.

When are they gonna make one with imaginary friends or one that can fly or at least go up walls? I have some high places I can't reach and would love for one to climb up and dust my ceiling fans...

Does anyone know if this lil' guy will trigger an alarm system motion detector if I set it to clean as I leave the house?

I received a 530 as a wedding present and we love it. Of course, we end up watching it or cheering it on instead of doing other tasks, so I'm not sure it's a timesaver. I love watching it back out of the charging station, beeping like an 18-wheeler.

aleve wrote:The one thing that is a downside on this model is that it doesn't use the room to room navigation but I am unsure if this is related to the wall or it is actually a limitation of the unit.

As I read the iRoomba model comparison, you need a higher model and the "lighthouse" virtual walls to get room-to-room navigation. Different kind of wall, combined with different software that can keep track of the order of the lighthouses. Lighthouses are put in doorways to act as navigation, or behind doorways to act as walls.

KNRG wrote:My loft apartment has a wood railing on a timber beam that creates a 1"-1.5" lip from the carpet to the beam of the rail and the little roomba forcibly gets itself up on there when cleaning my bedroom.

impressive!

lowr3nt wrote:Does anyone know if this lil' guy will trigger an alarm system motion detector if I set it to clean as I leave the house?

It shouldnt but the best thing is to call the alarm company, set the alarm and put it in the motion protected area to test. You can easily block off the lower part of the md to create an alley if its a problem. Just take the cover off and do it from the inside so it doesnt look tacky. This is how "pet alleys" are created with infra red motions. I doubt it will trip though...

bechne wrote:this sounds more like user error. you don't leave cords and other whatnot like magazines and the lot laying around on the floor when use a vacuum do you? the same should be expected with the roomba. the battery can drain before it finds it's way back home, but that's trivial. it takes 20 seconds to put it back on the charger.

the part about a water filled rainbow is sarcasm, right? those, and any other water trap vacuum, are wretched...absolutely disgusting.

Cords and cables always seem to be left out where Roomba can get to them. Maybe it's just my house, but it proved to be too much to deal with after all the other problems.

I *really* wanted to find a way to live with Roomba! She does get up all the daily dirt, and the going under things she won't get stuck under and sucking up the dust bunnies was like watching a magician!, and the 560 model runs on a timer, so once you've fully modified and baby-gated, and lighthoused your house then she's fantastic (but you're living in a Goldbergian array of protection devices, which ends up looking worse than the dirt or normal clutter.)

If you live in a small house, with precisely sized furniture (either low enough to keep Roomba out, or high enough to let her wander in and out without snagging), absolutely no furniture that can be chipped or dinged or marred (I guess that leaves things made from 2x4 lumber) and you never leave ANYTHING on the floor, and your floors are homogenous carpet or wood or tile (no rugs with fringe, no door mats, no raised thresholds...) then Roomba is FANTASTIC!

The only vacuum cleaner that even comes close to the amazing cleaning capacity of a Rainbow is an in-wall system that vents to the outside! Rainbows are truly the miracle vacuum cleaner of all time. So, no, not sarcasm at all! A bit of light humor, but all of it true! ;-)

How does this handle a college apartment, with clothes on the floor and such?

conman64 wrote:Alright. I have been a wooter for years and this is my very first comment. TA DA!

I have had 10, count them, 10 Roombas. In a nutshell, they are not built to last. I buy mine at Best Buy for one reason. In 6 years I have bought two service contracts for the 10 I have replaced. Im not an spoon, I have only paid for one. Every one has a different quirk or problem. Stopping and turning off, going in constant circles, not charging properly, etc. They work well--when they work. They are not anywhere close to as effective as a quality upright. I would imagine wood floors, tile, and linoleum , etc it might be close since nothing hides down in it. You do have to "pick up" the room in advance or you will be screwed. It doesnt take long to figure out what they get hung up on. With an upright, you move things as you go. With this, its all in advance. Not a big deal. Its kind of cool to turn it on and leave the house and come home to decent floors. Virtual walls are overrated. Its easier to just block an area with what you have laying around. They do get kind of dirty and u have to clean the brushes and the filter. Maybe 15 minutes every few weeks. This is a good price but is it worth knowing that you will probably be buying some thing else in 2 yrs max? Maybe the best compromise is to simply use it as a supplement to a good upright. It is nice if you have too much to do in too little time. Just let it rip after a quick pick up of the area. Hope this helps. I do like em, but.....

All completely true, but you paid WAAAAY too much money to buy this from Best Buy unless you are finding a big sale before you buy one. Go look at Costco, they are $249 for the 550/560 model. I have only bought two I own from Costco, but like you they eventually have fatal problems and I just return them to the local store, explain that IRobot won't speak to me any longer about repairs. They give me my money I walk into the store and get the upgrade. This way the house stays clean and I can fiddle with the ones needing repair. The new one they just recently came out with is incredible; but each model is a huge improvement. We are extremely hard on our Roombas, they have a tough schedule and a lot of work to do. We get a year + with most of them before the performance has degraded or the cleaning head has problems, etc.

Hope this helps,

Alysa

aleve wrote:Go look at Costco, they are $249 for the 550/560 model. I have only bought two I own from Costco, but like you they eventually have fatal problems and I just return them to the local store, explain that IRobot won't speak to me any longer about repairs.

Ah ha! So it was you and me who finally broke CostCo, to the point that they stopped carrying the 560 models and had no Roombas for sale for many months! ;-)

I'm intrigued by this new model you speak of... I may have to give roomba another try, but the breaking my furniture and eating small cords and magazines, etc. is still a problem.

One nice feature of THIS model is that you have to manually start it, no scheduler feature, so, as someone mentioned above, if you do the de-cluttering work and then manually start Roomba, your luck will probably be better than mine!

My parents bought one of these newer Roombas from costco a while back they thought it was super cool and liked how it worked. But in the span of 2 years they took it back about 4 times and then costco stopped carrying them. They got their money back but but would have rather had a robot that worked.

Like others have said they are great when they work but are not built to last.

Motion detectors rely on rapid changes in temperature.

Roombas don't have the heat signature of a big human and they don't get that hot. Still best to test it though....

tawfiqmp wrote:Does this actually work effectively?

I picked up a 535 off of Woot many moons ago and have been generally happy with it. There are some caveats with it however. The Roomba has two spinners on the bottom, a brush and a rubber beater thing. Both are prone to picking up pet hair, carpet fibers, and whatever and getting them spun around the axle. If you don't clean them out regularly (at least once every couple of runs), the Roomba will overload it's poor little motor and refuse to vacuum anymore.

Mine actually refused to run for quite awhile after I cleaned them, then started working again one day just out of the blue. I now keep a close eye on the spinners and clean them out every time.

Mine is not very smart about finding its home base before it runs out of battery. I'd say that it makes it back home maybe 1 time in 3. I do have the base tucked away in a corner, so this could easily be different depending on how you have it set up. At any rate, it's not a big deal to pick it back up and return it home next time you're in the room.

It does a pretty good job of getting the carpet cleaned, just judging by the amount of crud I empty out of the bin every time it runs (having Chinchillas means there is fine fur and dust to pick up always). The carpets sure feel clean after it runs too.

The Virtual wall works as advertised, but beware that it runs on batteries and the batteries do run out eventually. It took me some time to locate my Roomba the first time that happened (it ran out of battery under a couch in a different room).

bechne wrote:i love mine. i have the exact same model from woot!. it's good for in-between cleanings, it doesn't hit every inch of floor every time. i suppose if you ran it daily or often it would be pretty effective at cleaning most spots.

i just wish it had the schedule option (lighthouse?) so i could tell it to automatically start while i was at work.

The 530 can be programed with a scheduel using the db9 or usb connector. If you feel like hacking a little.

From the description: "You can set it to work at a set time, like while you’re out of the house, and it returns to its base."

Woot, are you sure? I don't believe the 530 has a timer function.

conman64 wrote:...I have had 10, count them, 10 Roombas. In a nutshell, they are not built to last. I buy mine at Best Buy for one reason. In 6 years I have bought two service contracts for the 10 I have replaced. Im not an spoon, I have only paid for one. Every one has a different quirk or problem. Stopping and turning off, going in constant circles, not charging properly, etc. They work well--when they work. They are not ...

Well, at least they aren't making robots that mean the difference between life and death. Oh... http://www.irobot.com/gi/ground/SUGV/

ckeilah wrote:She was a great idea, and she does clean up the floor for you, but I've found that it takes more work caring for the errant robots than it does to just get out the Rainbow, fill it with water, put it all together, plug it in, vacuum the house, break down the Rainbow, dump out the water, wash out the reservoir, take apart the innards and clean them with a toothbrush, put them back in, and trundle it all back into the closet.

Ah, now _there_ is a vacuum, one that I would love to see on Woot!.

I bought this about a year ago from woot.

It frightened the parrot no end!

Squawking, wings up in the air, obviously hated the damn thing. Poor Bird. My roommate, his owner, found it funny. But I suspect it's the high frequencies it puts out.

Still, for me it's as good a pet as a parrot any day. and a little less cruel if you forget to feed it.

thephirefox wrote:The 530 can be programed with a scheduel using the db9 or usb connector. If you feel like hacking a little.

neat. Now, if someone would post the script an the hardware hack...

Great for keeping a place clean, but not heavy duty. You still need a regular vacuum for heavy stuff when you've neglected the place. Empty it often. Great over carpet joins, but too many chair and sofa legs can cause issues: the algorith is not THAT sophisticated.

Still, dogs and cats find it amusing.

conman64 wrote:They do get kind of dirty and u have to clean the brushes and the filter. Maybe 15 minutes every few weeks.

I would suggest to clean the brushes after every use, especially if you have pets. The pet hair gets tangled around the brushes and need to be cleaned often. It honestly takes maybe 2 minutes to do and is said to prolong the life of the roomba. It comes with a very handy brush cleaning device that works very well.

I bought the same exact model about a year ago and it works great! I would not recommend using on carpet though. Also, the Roomba will last a lot longer if you clean the parts recommended in the instruction manuel every other use or so. Not hard just takes 3 min. I definetly would recommend this for anyone with hardwood or tile. Enjoy!

tawfiqmp wrote:Does this actually work effectively?

freakin rocks! I own 3 one for each level (cuz Rosie the Robot doesn't do stairs....Just bought one for my retired parents...hope they love it!

KNRG wrote:My loft apartment has a wood railing on a timber beam that creates a 1"-1.5" lip from the carpet to the beam of the rail and the little roomba forcibly gets itself up on there when cleaning my bedroom.

absolutely has no problems...I have sealed wooden floors, tiles, linoleum, carpet, cork, and throw rugs that are low to shag and this robot does it all!

afphred wrote:I bought the same exact model about a year ago and it works great! I would not recommend using on carpet though. Also, the Roomba will last a lot longer if you clean the parts recommended in the instruction manuel every other use or so. Not hard just takes 3 min. I definetly would recommend this for anyone with hardwood or tile. Enjoy!

Cleaning once a week is simple and easy and makes the robot perform like a champ! It's spring and I have 2 shedding dogs, so I clean it twice a week till the shedding drops off some...LOVE IT!!

conman64 wrote:Alright. I have been a wooter for years and this is my very first comment. TA DA!

I have had 10, count them, 10 Roombas. In a nutshell, they are not built to last. I buy mine at Best Buy for one reason. In 6 years I have bought two service contracts for the 10 I have replaced. Im not an spoon, I have only paid for one. Every one has a different quirk or problem. Stopping and turning off, going in constant circles, not charging properly, etc. They work well--when they work. They are not anywhere close to as effective as a quality upright. I would imagine wood floors, tile, and linoleum , etc it might be close since nothing hides down in it. You do have to "pick up" the room in advance or you will be screwed. It doesnt take long to figure out what they get hung up on. With an upright, you move things as you go. With this, its all in advance. Not a big deal. Its kind of cool to turn it on and leave the house and come home to decent floors. Virtual walls are overrated. Its easier to just block an area with what you have laying around. They do get kind of dirty and u have to clean the brushes and the filter. Maybe 15 minutes every few weeks. This is a good price but is it worth knowing that you will probably be buying some thing else in 2 yrs max? Maybe the best compromise is to simply use it as a supplement to a good upright. It is nice if you have too much to do in too little time. Just let it rip after a quick pick up of the area. Hope this helps. I do like em, but.....

I've had five in four years....3 still running without difficulty....I spilled water on one and the other my grandkid poured a pop on it.....so both were water fluid/accidents that we did....not a problem with the machines.

lowr3nt wrote:Does anyone know if this lil' guy will trigger an alarm system motion detector if I set it to clean as I leave the house?

the do not trigger my motion sensors...ADT has them all set above 2 foot off the floor nor does it set off glass breakage sensors (like closing a toilet around here can....sheesh

Commonly confused with http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwVdBH4vjLU

I totally understand. Random moving in circles. Looks kind of funny. Hell, you might be able to program your Roomba to Zumba.

I know lots of brushes went out in the last Happy Hour Buckets of Carrots, so check that thread for possible trades.

warning1 wrote:From the description: "You can set it to work at a set time, like while you’re out of the house, and it returns to its base."

Woot, are you sure? I don't believe the 530 has a timer function.

yup I think you are thinking of the 550 + models that have the auto scheduler....

conman64 wrote:

I have had 10, count them, 10 Roombas. In a nutshell, they are not built to last.

I have had the exact opposite experience. I bought two of the early Sage versions a very long time ago and they are still running strong, twice a week, every week for years now. I had to replace the batteries a couple of years ago, but that is the ONLY thing I have ever done in terms of maintenance (aside from thorough cleanings).

I love my robotic minions and if they keep going like this, my grand children will enjoy them as well.

Loved my 400 series, until the battery died JUST over the warranty. A new one cost almost as much as a Wootba deal. The replacement battery lasted 2 months.

lowr3nt wrote:Does anyone know if this lil' guy will trigger an alarm system motion detector if I set it to clean as I leave the house?

Only if you tape a full size inflatable Barack Obama doll to the top of it.

lowr3nt wrote:Does anyone know if this lil' guy will trigger an alarm system motion detector if I set it to clean as I leave the house?

You don't have to worry about that with this particular model. You CANNOT set it to clean at a certain time. With this particular model, you have to be in the room to activate the vaccuum.
Be careful about bathroom doors though. My vaccuum locked herself in the bathroom. She shut the door and could not get out.

In for 2. Can someone fill me in on how the square trade warranty works, how to purchase it (cause you can't add it to the purchase here, and whether it's worth it. Thanks in advance.

How about gettin' some of the programmable, 560 and above, ones on here? Usually seems to be lower models around here.