I have this exact model. works great for guinea pig shavings when we cleans him out. does a great job everywhere except the linoleum floor in the kitchen.

lately the battery has started acting a little funky, but it's been 2+ years of odd charging schedules.

i got it two years ago from woot, for about the same price.

kdeuce wrote:my old roomate had one of these. we called her Leeloo. she worked great. i miss Leeloo.

Wait... was it the Roomba, or your old roomate whom you called Leeloo?

Love the Roomba I got from WOOT about a year ago. I ordered a cleaning tool
Here, and clean it every other use.
Now I see they have some black strips to place where you don't want the roomba to go. It tricks it into thinking there is step so it turns away. Does anyone know whether one could substitute plain felt or some other black material?

Buy the Roomba! It speaks in happy & sad musical tones. Might just be your new best friend.

Ah, a Roomba!

It's been a while....

We've had three. All bought on Woot.

First (the original 4296) lasted well over a year until my mother tried to insert a brush a wrong way and succeeded, busting the housing....

The second one was new 418, not refurb - and died after very short life span. Never bothered to try sending it for warranty, because it was a good excuse to upgrade to 500 series...

Third one - this exact model 530, from exactly 1 year and 2 days ago (and was $10 cheaper!!!) is still going strong!

They are truly amazing...

But I have to warn you!
You are buying this to save time by having it vacuum while you go about your business (or even away). And eventually it will work out that way... But keep in mind: all the people I know who bought one - wasted hours and hours on the first few runs sitting out there and watching it do its thing! Quite a show, I should tell you!

So remember the time saving factor is going to kick in about a month or so, and before that - it's going to be a big time wasting machine!

We bought one of these last year as part of our investment in refinished hardwood floors. To keep grit from being ground into the new surface, we wooted.

We have two Golden Retrievers that shed so much they could form their own carpet in a week. Roomba struggles with the pet hair. Beeeeep-boooop. "Please remove and clean Roomba's brushes."

iRobot has a Roomba supposedly designed for pet hair, with different brushes and a big dirt bin, but I haven't seen any on Woot.

But clean out the pet hair and send it on its way. Works fine. On the hardwood floor. It's amazing how much grit it picks up every day.

But we quit using it on the carpet because there's just too much hair.

We had some problems when we first got it, but iRobot was great help in troubleshooting, and they sent us some free parts.

I bought mine via woot a little less than a year ago. I love it!

Tip: Register your Roomba on the iRobot website, and they'll email you a code you can use for replacement brushes, filters, or whatever other accessories you may need. I ended up buying another virtual wall. It's so much more convenient than strategically placing trash cans and furniture around the house to block off rooms.

Welp, broke down and bought one for myself.

Should work nicely in my new apartment I'm moving into soon.

I bought this model the last time it was offered and I love it! It's much easier to clean than my older model. I like to watch it zip under the sofa and clean.

micaela310 wrote:Does anyone know how this does on hardwood floors? My current vacuum doesn't do a great job and I'm tired of sweeping every day.

It is perfect for hardwood floors. The battery lasts longer because there is less friction. The Roomba's little brushes pickup all the dust bunnies and random bits that roam the plains of hardwood.

The only issue we have seen is that, sometimes when it climbs onto the area rug, it leaves a little lint scraped off of the bottom of its intake.

LEM- wrote:But keep in mind: all the people I know who bought one - wasted hours and hours on the first few runs sitting out there and watching it do its thing! Quite a show, I should tell you!

+1

There's some kind of EMF emitter in the center of the big CLEAN button. It causes the stares.

dimend wrote:90 day warrenty?? Nah. Just saw the ad at the bottom of the page for roomba blow out deals and bought a roomba dirt dog for $129.95, unconditional lifetime guarantee at Hammacher Schlemmer. Free shipping by putting ROOMBARV.

SORRY WOOT!

FYI, the Dirt Dog is not a vacuum, it's a sweeper. Depending on your house and what type of carpets you have, if any, it may or may not do the job for you.

Here's a link that talks about the Dirt dog versus the regular roombas a bit:

http://tinyurl.com/2g58byb

juicius wrote:I have one of the original Roomba, purchased maybe 8 years ago or so? Whenever it first came out...

I recently resurrected it when Fry's had the battery on sale for cheap ($30). Then one of the treads fell off, but it was a quick fix: $10 for a new pair. And then it developed the circle dance, a common ailment. But there are plenty of web guides for that and I fixed it only to have the side brush fall clean off. Side brush is another $10 or so but I haven't ordered it yet since it still does a fine job.

I'm tempted to get another one for upstairs.

How do I make my Roomba stop the circle dance? I was out of town for a week and when I came back Rosie started just that. I thought maybe the cats beat her up when the house sitter was away.

Bought one of these 8 months ago. Not bad. Does a great job on hardwood floors. Only complaint is that you need to make some mods to keep dust out of the brush gears.

Otherwise after about 6 months of use you will start to get a brushes need to be cleaned error.

Now my wife and I will sit and watch the Roomba do the floor work. I agree its not going to be a time saver. Will we have to stop it from falling down the stairs?

Let's see, Roomba and "I, Robot" -- they BOTH suck...

((except for the book))

Roomba si!
Ella quiere si Roomba (Como)
Roomba si!
Ella quiere si Roomba (Como)

Si es verdad que tu eres guapa,
Yo te voy a poner gozar
Tu tienes la boca grande
dale ponte a jugar (Como)

one-two-three-four
Uno-dos-tres-cuatro (Woooo-ooo!)

dellasanchez wrote:How do I make my Roomba stop the circle dance? I was out of town for a week and when I came back Rosie started just that. I thought maybe the cats beat her up when the house sitter was away.

Let her do the stairs...

I have two....both dead. Just would not hold a charge or work worth a van damme. I think I will call them both ROBOMA, because they too are useless!

xradialx86 wrote:Roomba si!

one-two-three-four
Uno-dos-tres-cuatro (Woooo-ooo!)

The way I see it, you missed it by one character:

(Woooo-ooot!)

After reading more maybe I use the virtual wall to stop it from going down the stairs or the amazing electronics will stop it from taking the dive off the stairs. I'll just have to sit and watch it.

I bought a Roomba from Costco about 3 years ago. Worked great when it was in its prime, but pet hair + friction in the gearbox defeated it eventually.

Basically my dog's hair (I had a cat for a short time - that was worse than dog hair) gets tangled on the brush, bearings, posts, gears, etc. For all the engineering that has gone into these things, they're just not suited for houses with pet hair.

They're also not really suited to large rooms / houses. Don't get me wrong, the Roomba does a great job cleaning.. but the time spent prepping the room & doing maintenance on the filter + gearbox makes it more convenient to just break out the "big vacuum" for bigger rooms.

So yeah... if you have a small house or apartment with no pets, you'll be happy. If not, consider yourself warned.

Have one I purchased from here already and really like it, though I think it was marginally cheaper at the time. Had an issue with the motor and the roomba support people came through leaving me very satisfied. I just bought another to give as a gift.

I've had three. This model (bought about 1-1/2 years ago) was the one I've had the most problems with, so I'd definitely go for the extra warranty. I need to tear into my 530 and do some soldering to get it working again, and I've been putting it off. It has the dreaded circle dance affliction :-(

Plus I really like the scheduler with the 560. I was disappointed that a 560 didn't come up during the woot off.

I bought this same Roomba last time I saw it on Woot and I have a total of 5 iRobots. This model is GREAT on carpets, vinyl, and hardwood floors. There is no worry about it diving off the stairs - the sensor works just fine.

To keep from having complaints down the road, clean it often, use it often and keep the battery active by charging and discharging and all will be well. Clogs of dirt/hair and sitting idle kill iRobots.

As a side note ... just for fun I had my neighbor vacuum my berber carpeted home office with her new upright Dyson vacuum. After she was finished I started the Roomba and let him do his thing and the carp that filled the dust bin on the Roomba was shocking. And I am a tidy person. It is worth the investment!

There is no doubt this machine does a good job in a pinch, I have had 6 of them. Here are some minor issues, if you look at the pics of the underbelly there are three white brush type arms, those break constantly and then the machine circles round and round. To replace this part is expensive. You would be better off to spend the extra money at Bed Bath & Beyond buy a new one and when the arms break take it back to exchange for a new one with no questions asked, that is their policy. Plus although it picks up pet hair (I have 3 cats) it only does a decent job on hard flooring not on any type of carpet or throw rugs.

Any programmers here? Check this out: http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/gtoal/1247764

I bought one last August $129.99. My wife was not to keen on it but after the first time using it she uses it about every day. I had purchased a two year warranty ($29.99) from Squaretrade. We have had two problems with Gertrude. The first was that the side brush kept falling off. Bought a brush and motor assembly from iRobot ($14.99) which Squaretrade covered. Three weeks ago the main brush assembly stopped working. Called iRobot who said that the main brush assembly ($49.99) was bad. This assembly includes the brush assembly motor. Installed the new brush assembly and it is working OK. Squaretrade is also covering this under their warranty. I would recommend this iRobot and the purchase of a warranty from Squaretrade as you can see this has paid for itself.

Took a minute to figure out the ad is to the tune of barry manilow

roomba works surprisingly well on hardwood floors

dimend wrote:90 day warrenty?? Nah. Just saw the ad at the bottom of the page for roomba blow out deals and bought a roomba dirt dog for $129.95, unconditional lifetime guarantee at Hammacher Schlemmer. Free shipping by putting ROOMBARV.

SORRY WOOT!

But remember the dirt dog doesn't have a filter and it's made for the garage or workshop so it will not be gentle on your walls and furniture. Plus it will suck up wires and carpet edges.

andrea8090 wrote:I bought mine via woot a little less than a year ago. I love it!

Tip: Register your Roomba on the iRobot website, and they'll email you a code you can use for replacement brushes, filters, or whatever other accessories you may need. I ended up buying another virtual wall. It's so much more convenient than strategically placing trash cans and furniture around the house to block off rooms.

Plus if you have a problem with it within a year they will repair or replace it for free. I've been using Roomba's for 6 years now. I bought this model brand new last year and I love it. It doesn't smash into walls and furniture like the older models. The sensors and most of the bottom are sealed off so less dust gets inside the unit making cleaning much easier.

Have the same one. I bought it about a year ago and love it. I have hardwood floors throughout with ajust a couple of are rugs and have to say it cleans extreamely well.

We love our Rosie. Got her on Woot about a year ago. She's actually Rosie II. Rosie I died after being cleaned by a 4 yr old kid with a wet sponge. But had a warranty from SquareTrade, they gave me my money back, waited for the next Woot, and bought Rosie II. We put stuffed animals on her to watch them "fly".

I would love to see woot sell a bag of carp.

Woot should offer this deal every week until I can afford one.

maybe now i'll be able to use the virtual wall that came with my last Beautiful Ocean Cabana!!

Make sure you guys pick up an Aerovac bin.

i have curly hair that is prone to shedding-if you do too word of advice: remember to clean the side cleaning brush and the wheels often. the curls get all twisted up in there and i had experience where ive forgot and the side cleaning brush stopped spinning. But no matters i still love King Julian (yes i've named my roomba, if you have a problem- get over it)

What is the "virtual wall" used for?

will it go from carpet to laminate floor and back? i live in a one bedroom apt