Wootalyzer's Pricing Post! - The price of today's woot item is saved here for future reference
------------------------------------------------------------
iRobot 581 Roomba Vacuum
$279.99 + $5 Standard Shipping
Condition: New

*DISCLAIMER* Wootalyzer! is in no way affiliated with Woot!, and this post may not always be here!

Well, at least it isn't a Dyson....

Great deal. $300 on Amazon.http://www.amazon.com/iRobot-Roomba-581-Robotic-Cleaner/dp/B0082D9WVK

Wow! This Roomba looks mean!

Oooh... Darth Roomba!

Darth Roomba: Dyson, I am your Father.
Dyson: Nooooooooooooooo
Darth Roomba: Join me and together wii will clean the livingroom.

Life imitates art.

53 reviews in Europe, and no, I'm not going to try to convert currency: $279.99 here tonight
http://www.irobot.com/global/en/product.aspx?id=55

manual:
http://www.irobot.com/images/homesupport/Manuals/00152.0210.v1.ALLRoomba.Manual.EN.pdf

Review:
http://www.robotreviews.com/chat/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=12317

Videos:




Review video:

Check me on this: Isn't the past tense of "weep," "wept?" Just asking...

Can someone who has one of these tell me how well they do with larger pieces of debris like the size of cat or small dog kibbles or maybe like small wood stove pellets?

rennyn wrote:Can someone who has one of these tell me how well they do with larger pieces of debris like the size of cat or small dog kibbles or maybe like small wood stove pellets?

They definitely won't sweep up something the size of a cat, but dog kibbles and small wood stove pellets wouldn't be any trouble.

They do pick up kibble. And everything you miss when you sweep. Best thing I ever bought to keep my house clean. I have a 3 story house and it saves me hours of cleaning time. I love love love my Roomba!!

Is the wireless protocol from the wireless command center to the Roomba known? Can you control the Roomba from a PC or similar device without hacking the hardware?

I wouldn't recommend spending $300 for this because:

1) They don't work as well as a regular upright. They can't suck up dust. It's basically just a crude sweep.
2) They are not as reliable as an upright. My 560 broke after a year - the brushes won't spin any more. Yes, I tried Googling the issue to death. No avail. Meanwhile, my Dyson lasted 7 years before I sold it in a moving sale.
3) They are only worth cleaning before you leave the house for a while because they clean so slowly.
4) They take up just as much, if not more, floorspace than an upright.
5) The cleaning mechanism sucks, it always spits dust back out into the air so is bad for allergy users. If you look at the filters, they look terrible. Meanwhile, the Dyson HEPA filter looks new even after 7 years.
6) If I wanted to clean the room immediately, but am not leaving the house, turning this thing on and waiting for it to clean the living room will take 30 minutes, while I can grab an upright, vacuum the room, and put away the upright all in under 5 min. While the Roomba is cleaning, you have to make sure that you, your pets, and your kids have to get out of its way constantly.

Get an upright. Get a Dyson. Move a little bit and stave off those extra pounds on your love handles.

rennyn wrote:Can someone who has one of these tell me how well they do with larger pieces of debris like the size of cat or small dog kibbles or maybe like small wood stove pellets?

The machine will pick up some debris such as kibbles or stove pellets, but there is a model of Roomba which is specifically designed for such things and this is not it. That model has two brushes and no vacuum.

We have three Roombas, a Scooba and a gutter cleaner and years of experience in their use.

They generally do an acceptable job but there are some drawbacks over hand vacuuming.

The first is that you must get your hands dirty cleaning them. Sorry but that is the dirty, and I do mean dirty, secret no Roomba owner says much about.

You will, if you are like me, in time grow to hate the machine that beeps at you and says "Please remove and clean Roomba's brushes/wheels, etc." This is particularly annoying when you have just spent 15 minutes removing and cleaning Roombas nasty parts.

Any piece of dirt on the sensor above the brushes will set this off and at times you will feel like drop kicking it across the room (not advised unless you have steel feet.)

But please be advised that you must actually remove and clean the filthy parts of the unit by hand.

There is no bag. You can shake out the dirt chamber and most of what collects on the filter. The vacuum in these things is mostly a joke as it really more of a floor sweeper. But the little fan does pick up some fine stuff dust and lint, so I have to grudgingly give it some credit

Hair, especially will tend to wrap around the ends of the brushes and must be removed by hand. There is no other way. That is what they give you the red cleaner device in the picture for!

When I really want to clean the Roomba thoroughly I take it out to my shop and blow it out with compressed air. You would be amazed at how much dust comes billowing out of the machine then.

It does not dust, nor will it do baseboards, or stairs, which anyone vacuuming by hand would normally do.

The batteries are fairly expensive. Depending on how much you use the machine, you should keep a spare handy if and when you need it.

The units with which I am familiar move randomly within an area. They are fairly stupid in this regard, so they will traverse an area many times over, which is not a bad thing.

They do have a habit, it seems, of not being able to always find their way back to the charging station and will sometimes turn themselves off under furniture, where you will have to go looking for them when you find them AWOL.

The units are gentle on furniture and will go under a lot of furniture, which is something that most people hand vacuuming will not do to as great an extent.

I have never been impressed with some of the engineering of this machine especially the brush bearing design as well as how difficult some of the brushes are to clean. Forget about trying to express these issues to customer service! They keep the engineers well removed (Heaven forbid!) from contact with actual customers.

Still having a robot to do what you do not like to do and to clean a floor for up to 45 minutes at a time, is a nice thing. They do not make much noise. Most pets get used to them fairly quickly after which the machines are ignored by them. I have no problem leaving the machine to work when I am away whether it is at night or during the day.

I sure do wish Dyson would come up with a better engineered product to compete with Roomba. I know that there are other competitive machines out there, and my next robot floor cleaner will not be a Roomba.

Ditto on those last couple of comments.

When did room as stop talking though? All of our, now returned, roombas jabbered away at us constantly.

I can't tell you about the old models but the 770 has a very good battery and picks up and keeps dust contained. Either way I would rather "clean out" the Roomba than "walk" in the stuff. Don't know about you but I would never vacuum as often as my Roomba does. My Dyson which I love is now seldom used!

The Darth Vader of Roombas. Dun Dun Da Dun... suck!

Pretty annoyed with the write up today. Wept is a real word!! "Weeped" is not and it was used more than once. Just sad. So sad that I almost... wait for it... whats the word...

WEPT!!!!!

wasting my time nit-picking a dumb woot... I think I hate myself now

mikerstein wrote:Check me on this: Isn't the past tense of "weep," "wept?" Just asking...

YES!! Thank you!

I'd give a qualified recommendation to iRobot, though it all depends how much time you have in your life for cleaning and what your budget is. We've had an older roomba for about three years now - used a standard Hoover upright before that. The Roomba is better hands down.

Our Roomba does a great job with particulate of all sizes - it has an amazingly strong vacuum. You do have to clean it out by hand but that's pretty simple to do, especially if you keep a sharp scissors on hand to (carefully) release string from the brushes. We've never had to buy replacement parts, simply brushing and blotting the filters from time to time. I'd say that the brushes need to be cleared after every run, and you have to empty the debris tray too.

It's great that you don't need vacuum bags, and we often find little things we lost under the sofa in the Roomba's debris tray. Too many people think you can run a vacuum cleaner over a carpet and the room is done in five minutes - the roomba takes its time and does a deep clean.

Our dogs hate all mechas and this is no exception, but we can leash them to the door, switch it on, then drag them outside leaving the Roomba to do its job, which is great.

With a fresh battery, you get about 2-3 mid-sized rooms on a charge, and charging DOES take several hours, depending how old the battery is. The OEM batteries last about 8-9 months but are pricey, the gray market ones I've gotten give you about 6-7 months of diminishing effectiveness.

In terms of local housecleaning prices, even regular-price roombas are a good deal here, though obviously you still have to do fixtures, ceramic, dusting, and stairs by hand.

Any one knows how this compares to the Neato? i have one of the pet and allergy ones and it does do a good job and picks up lots of dust!!! I really love it!

I have had two Roomba's and loved them as long as they worked. Unfortunately, neither of mine worked longer then a year.

If you buy this, make sure to get the square trade warranty. I'm shipping back my second Roomba to them for my money back and waiting for my Dyson to arrive from Woot.

I have the Roomba 530, and I love it.

I am on my second Roomba (thank you SquareTrade), and it took me about 6 months after my old one broke to get a new one. In that time, I did vaccuum about once a week, but when I got the new Roomba, I let her go in my living room. After 15 minutes, she asked me to empty her bin. Did that, then put her back to vaccuum again. 45 minutes later, had to empty it again. Another 45 minutes, and she was full again (and the room looked amazing).
They also can pick up litter (while my upright shoots it across the room)

These things don't do as well as an upright if you take the time to vaccuum properly with a good upright. They take longer than an upright. They don't dust. They are very likely to break. They are obnoxious to clean. Most pets are petrified by them. The batteries need replacing after a year. They clean in stupid patterns. But my house is twice as clean when I have one.

Neato is better.
Muuuch better.

I've had a Roomba 580 for several years, same mechanicals as the 581 (same side brush, bottom brush/squeegee, same battery)

It works fine and it gets places under cabinets, under the kitchen table, under chairs, etc that are hard to get with a regular vacuum. But if you have pets and pet hair, cleaning the Roomba is a pain in the butt. Seriously, I spend as much time taking apart and cleaning the Roomba as I would just vacuuming myself.

Yeah, it's cool to hit the button and have the Roomba vacuum. And if all you had to do is just empty the dustbin when it was finished, that would be great. But that just isn't the case at all. You have to take out the brush and squeegee, remove all the hair that gets tangled in them, and once every month or two I even have to disassemble the module that turns the brush & squeegee because hair migrates down into the little plastic gears and you have to take it apart to get the hair out!

So if you look at the Roomba as a really cool toy that happens to vacuum, then yes I think you'll be pleased with it. It does a decent job vacuuming. But just realize that there is far more to owning one that just hitting the "start" button and emptying the bin once every few days.

Oh, and I have to echo the posts above regarding the battery. OEM batteries are very expensive and last about a year. The cheaper replacement batteries (about $25 on ebay) last about 9 months. It would be really nice if you didn't have to replace the batteries so often.

wjfreeman wrote:

Hair, especially will tend to wrap around the ends of the brushes and must be removed by hand. There is no other way. That is what they give you the red cleaner device in the picture for!

When I really want to clean the Roomba thoroughly I take it out to my shop and blow it out with compressed air. You would be amazed at how much dust comes billowing out of the machine then.


I have never been impressed with some of the engineering of this machine especially the brush bearing design as well as how difficult some of the brushes are to clean. Forget about trying to express these issues to customer service! They keep the engineers well removed (Heaven forbid!) from contact with actual customers.


I sure do wish Dyson would come up with a better engineered product to compete with Roomba. I know that there are other competitive machines out there, and my next robot floor cleaner will not be a Roomba.

I have to agree, the overall idea of the Roomba is great, but the way the mechanicals have been designed by iRobot just suck. Hair is constantly making its way into the little plastic gears in the carrier that holds the brush and squeegee, and it has to be disassembled to free up the plastic gears.

Maybe newer models (the 700 series) are better designed, but the 500 series certainly take a lot of time and maintenance to keep working.

I have never had a Roomba so I can't compare the two, but I LOVE my Neato and read lots of comparisons before making the decision to purchase that over the Roomba. Not saying don't buy this, but do your research and read reviews- especially from owners of both Roombas and Neatos. The ones I found that had both overwhelmingly favored the Neato which is why I chose to buy it over the Roomba. Most said the suction of the vacuum was much better and they liked the mapped out pattern of the Neato vs. Random movements of the Roomba.

I bought my roomba over 3 years ago. The original battery still works. The only issue I have with it is the front 3 brush spinner lost it's screw at some point so it's not attached right now... I just need a new screw.

The roomba is awesome to just set free and clean the house. It is also hands down the best vac. to use in rooms because it gets under the beds which is a total PITA with a regular vac. You would probably be shocked at how much hair and dust is under the beds!

It is fantastic on wood floors and tile to get the dirt up, pet hair, etc.

We got a dyson ball about a year ago for touch up and yes, the dyson has better suction power. We generally only use the dyson as a 'super clean' in the bedrooms (carpet) in the high traffic areas once in a while to pick up what roomba left behind. For the wood and tile areas (rest of the house) roomba is the vac of choice as it's so much simpler and it does as good of a job in those areas.

I have two roombas that I got in a Woot two-for-tuesday offer back in 2008, which are the 400 series. They are both still working well, other than one that doesn't beep, but thats a non-issue.

They aren't a complete replacement to an upright vacuum for more thorough cleanings. However they work well for general cleanings every few days and do pickup a lot of dust/dirt/hair in the process. I don't plan on getting a newer model until one of my existing ones end up dying to the point beyond repair.

I just want to know who wrote the accompanying story and what they had smoked/injected/ingested/inhaled before writing the piece. Whatever it was it must have been PRIMO S**T!!! ;)

Not interested in a roomba. Wifey loves her Dyson. Remember, "a happy wife makes for a quite, untroubled house."

One question, though. Are the things noisy? As in like a vacuum? If they are I might be interested in one to irritate my wife's cats.

@squawks
Here's another data point. Neither of us have the full statistics, but here's my very different personal experience.

1) Mine does.
2) Mine is still working fine after a year, with maintenance no more than what I've ever done to a vacuum.
3) I leave the house for eight hours a day, so it's not really a big deal.
4) Mine takes up less room, because I store it under a table. Even if its footprint is the same size, it's obviously way shorter.
5) I haven't noticed this, but it's very possibly true.
6) I never feel the need to have the room clean that fast, but to each his own. My cats avoid it just fine on their own, and I only run it when I'm gone so I'm never dancing over it.
Get this. Use the time you would have spent vacuuming to go for a job and ACTUALLY "stave off those extra pounds on your love handles."

squawks wrote:I wouldn't recommend spending $300 for this because:

Fanboy much? True, this isn't going to replace your upright. But for convenience and effortlessness (sic), these rock. And FTR there are comparable, affordable alternatives to Dyson.

Agree 100%. I m kicking myself everyday for not having bought a dyson and instead going with a roomba. Now it does a really crappy job for 40 mins before getting stuck under the furniture somewhere and cleaning the thing is more disgusting than vaccuming for 4 or 5 mins (which is what i need to run my vaccum for since i live in a 1000 sq ft apartment).

Edit* - forgot to add - if you have black carpets, roomba wont work over them (they have this weird edge detection sensor that gets fooled by the color black and thinks it is staring over the edge of a deep precipice of sorts) - i was able to find fix online by taping the sensor but still yet another glitch that I didnt know before purchasing it.

Would not buy this again even if it was on sale for $49. Just cleaning the grime and hair off the device one time will be punishment enough!

0ldeag1e wrote:I'd give a qualified recommendation to iRobot, though it all depends how much time you have in your life for cleaning and what your budget is. We've had an older roomba for about three years now - used a standard Hoover upright before that. The Roomba is better hands down.

Our Roomba does a great job with particulate of all sizes - it has an amazingly strong vacuum. You do have to clean it out by hand but that's pretty simple to do, especially if you keep a sharp scissors on hand to (carefully) release string from the brushes. We've never had to buy replacement parts, simply brushing and blotting the filters from time to time. I'd say that the brushes need to be cleared after every run, and you have to empty the debris tray too.

It's great that you don't need vacuum bags, and we often find little things we lost under the sofa in the Roomba's debris tray. Too many people think you can run a vacuum cleaner over a carpet and the room is done in five minutes - the roomba takes its time and does a deep clean.

Our dogs hate all mechas and this is no exception, but we can leash them to the door, switch it on, then drag them outside leaving the Roomba to do its job, which is great.

With a fresh battery, you get about 2-3 mid-sized rooms on a charge, and charging DOES take several hours, depending how old the battery is. The OEM batteries last about 8-9 months but are pricey, the gray market ones I've gotten give you about 6-7 months of diminishing effectiveness.

In terms of local housecleaning prices, even regular-price roombas are a good deal here, though obviously you still have to do fixtures, ceramic, dusting, and stairs by hand.

bcb1 wrote:I've had a Roomba 580 for several years, same mechanicals as the 581 (same side brush, bottom brush/squeegee, same battery)

It works fine and it gets places under cabinets, under the kitchen table, under chairs, etc that are hard to get with a regular vacuum. But if you have pets and pet hair, cleaning the Roomba is a pain in the butt. Seriously, I spend as much time taking apart and cleaning the Roomba as I would just vacuuming myself.

Yeah, it's cool to hit the button and have the Roomba vacuum. And if all you had to do is just empty the dustbin when it was finished, that would be great. But that just isn't the case at all. You have to take out the brush and squeegee, remove all the hair that gets tangled in them, and once every month or two I even have to disassemble the module that turns the brush & squeegee because hair migrates down into the little plastic gears and you have to take it apart to get the hair out!

So if you look at the Roomba as a really cool toy that happens to vacuum, then yes I think you'll be pleased with it. It does a decent job vacuuming. But just realize that there is far more to owning one that just hitting the "start" button and emptying the bin once every few days.

Oh, and I have to echo the posts above regarding the battery. OEM batteries are very expensive and last about a year. The cheaper replacement batteries (about $25 on ebay) last about 9 months. It would be really nice if you didn't have to replace the batteries so often.

100% agree. In many ways, the Roomba falls into the "too good to be true" category because it is only convenient when it comes to cleaning, but when you need to replace a part, clean the parts, clean the brushes, make sure you have an hour or two to take care of that and one of those smaller tool sets. Ours has a tough job with cleaning up after some messy animals, but I dread when I have to empty the bin or when I hear the "Clean Roomba's brushes" message.

I've got a shag area rug and I'm concerned the Roomba will kill itself (or the rug) trying to clean it. Has anyone tested this on a shag-type area rug?

Until they make a dock that has a little vacuum/container in it that will empty the roomba while it charges. I will not be buying another one. This system need to fix that 1 last step. that way you don't have to touch it except for Maintenance And to empty the dock's container once a week. Irobot are you listening?

Had one of these, not the same model, but a Roomba and bought the Neato instead. 100% better, as it has an actual vacuum in it and better cleaning and less maintenance and it hasn't broken like the Roomba. I repaired the Roomba and gave it to my daughter, but Oh Well.
The Neato will stop go to the charging station and then resume where it left off cleaning and then finish the job. I have it scheduled to clean at 8:45 twice a week and it works great.
Neato Rules!

pupyluvr wrote:Oooh... Darth Roomba!

Darth Roomba: Dyson, I am your Father.
Dyson: Nooooooooooooooo
Darth Roomba: Join me and together wii will clean the livingroom.