5 stars

(this was actually a review for the roomba 400, but its not on the site anymore - nonetheless...)
I have wanted a Roomba for a while. I have a perfectly good vacuum (so I thought) but it was getting on in years and was cumbersome, plus I hate vacuuming and being a pet owner I really need to do it more than I would prefer (never). So when I found the basic Roomba very on sale I was suspicious and decided to research reviews first. In short, people seemed really excited about their Roombas. Its maybe the best reviewed product I have ever come across. These people seemed a little over-enthusiastic, but the few negative reviews seemed trivial so feeling confident I went and bought my Roomba [...]. Now I am one of those crazy fans too. I am in love with my Roomba.
When I brought it home I ran my regular vacuum first. My house looked clean. Then I ran the Roomba and checked the dust compartment. I was both horrified and fascinated at how much junk was in there. Who knew I was living in such squalor and filth! It was weirdly satisfying to dump it all out. Every time I run it I am shocked at what it picks up. I haven’t had the trouble with carpet tassels that others report – but it does try to eat my bath mats. On the occasion that it does get stuck, it is really quite good at getting itself unstuck and negotiating obstacles. Dump the dust compartment every time, clean it every handful of times – this will stay easy if you do it regularly. Don’t clean it over the trash; it is so easy to disassemble (and reassemble) that the smaller pieces can fall out into your trash can which means you’ll have to dig for them – obviously I learned this the hard way. I talk about my Roomba like it’s a new puppy and am convinced that everyone needs to own one.

3 stars

Really fun and effective but the "saved time" is spent cleaning brushes, emptying dust bins, setting up virtual walls, recharging batteries for the virtual wall, prepping rooms, etc. Details...
-Brushes require cleaning every three uses (per instructions)! That means sitting in front of the TV, getting a knife and pliers and taking apart its brushes and front wheel. This of course creates a dusty mess. Maybe this issue is exaggerated because of my wife's long hair and a wool rug.
-It is really difficult with large rooms. It runs in a random pattern so if it dies halfway through, the entire room needs to be re-cleaned.
-For my large room I have to set the virtual walls to break my room into quarters. Then I have to guess where the virtual walls actually go. They make a "V" shape from the virtual wall unit but the "V" shape changes as the battery life dies.
-Battery lasts one hour and takes a good hour to charge. So my living room takes 8 hours to clean (1 hour cleaning, setting up the virtual walls, another hour recharging - repeat 4 times for a large room).
-Virtual walls last about 5 hours before dieing. Run on D batteries which take 16 hours to charge. Do the math. To get the most out of the virtual walls I need to be home after the roomba ends so i can hurry up and turn off the walls.
-You will want to prep a room every time it cleans. It just pushes my small rugs around the room. There are some cords I inevitably cannot hide from it. For larger rugs it regularly gets tangled up in the corner and stops (so I have to untangle, recharge, and clean the whole area again).


+On the other hand it is effective enough, novel enough, and fun enough to inspire me to do all of those things.

1 stars

The 9/14/08 sale circular at Target sells the Roomba 415, but it is ambiguous about how the vacuum's battery gets charged. It does not say "charger not included". I bought it today at Target, (then waited 10 minutes with my receipt up at the front of the store for a store manager to come with a special key to get the security cord off before I could take my purchase home, then got asked if I paid for it instead of an apology for waiting!). I got the box home and opened it, and there is no charger or cord included, and then I went back to 2 Target stores today to find a charger to buy one, but they do not sell the charger! (They will sell you a docking station on line, which costs more). This is a bad deal, because you have to then order a charger online from iRobot/roomba to get the basic charger cord with transformer for $34.95. So I still don't know how this performs. Oh yes, the brushes on the iRobot already had carpet fuzz wrapped in them too, right out of the box....hmmmm, did someone at the store test drive it first?

5 stars

I bought this vac two months ago and it has worked great. Because all I have to do is pick up a couple of throw rugs and press a button, my floors get vacuumed daily. And with four dogs and a cat this has been the best purchase in ages. The first week I used it, the debris bin filled up and the brushes did require cleaning. But I think it was merely catching up for everything my regular vac missed for years. Now there is barely anything on the floor to pic up at all, and I haven't had to clean the brush in a couple of weeks.

5 stars

This roomba was given to us as a wedding present and it is by far, the one we use all the time. We have a medium-haired dog and it seems to keep up with pet hair pretty well. It does take time to learn the roomba's limitations like which rugs it doesn't go over too smoothly or clearing certain items off the floor before using. It's battery life is ok for a smaller household... but if you've always wanted a roomba... get this one first and upgrade later (I know... pretty pricey). You'll find yourself watching it clean up your house and actually pick stuff up!

4 stars

I never thought vacuuming would be so easy. I got this for Christmas. It takes a little to get used to the random action, but after you get used to it's randomness, it's pretty cool. Picks up alot of the dirt on my floor. It's great for the in between times when you need to get your floor clean. Wish I had the home base, but I don't. The home base is quite expensive.The dirt cup is small, needs to be bigger. It's great if you don't want to get your big vacuum out.

3 stars

It's a lot of fun but I have found that I spend as much time cleaning the lint out of the vacuum and the brush, dumping the bin, shaking the filter, and getting the room set up for it to vacuum as I do getting out the vacuum and doing the job. In fact, I think I spend less time doing it myself because I don't have to fold up the rugs to get the fringe out of the way and move every little thing on the floor. I am also astonished at the expense. My battery lasted one year, that's about a lot for replacement part, they recommend replacing filter, brush, feelers, etc. at least every year, probably the filter more often. It becomes quite expensive. In fact, it is probably now cheaper to buy a new one than replace all the old parts. That's another reason

1 stars

I purchased a Roomba vacuum two years ago. I used it for just under 1 year and it stopped charging. I was very impressed that the company exchanged it right away, however shortly after I received my new one - that stopped taking a charge too. I had only used the new one a half dozen times before it died. I was so frustrated that I put it back in it's box to deal with later. Well I guess I waited too long. I finally contacted IRobot to help me with this issue and it turns out both the unit and the charger they exchanged are bad and now they want me to spend another $100 for another unit. I absolutely refuse to spend another dime with this company as I have had such bad performance with not only one but two units. I spent way to much money on the original to have had use of it (and poor use at that) only a couple of dozen times. I am extremely frustrated with this product and would not recommend to anyone.

1 stars

IF YOU HAVE HARDWOOD OR TILE FLOORS AND NO CORDS ON THE FLOOR, THIS VACUUM IS A TIMESAVER. HOWEVER, IF YOU HAVE ANY AREA RUGS OR CARPET, THIS VACUUM is bad. I HAVE TILE FLOORS AND I HAVE TO REMOVE THE AREA RUGS AND USE THEM AS A BARRICADE FOR MY CORDS. I AM ON MY SECOND ONE AND NOW THE BATTERY NO LONGER CHARGES. I WOULD RATHER SPEND 15 MINUTES USING MY ORECK THEN 2-3 HOURS CLEANING THE BRUSHES AND SETTING UP THE ROOM FOR [..].