So far, so good
Written: Jan 29 '06 (Updated May 15 '07)
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Pros: Fully automated cleaning, pretty thorough, fun to watch.
Cons: Not a replacement for a regular vacuum cleaner.
The Bottom Line: A great addition to the cleaning crew, but not a replacement for the maid.
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| sneddren's Full Review: iRobot 4230 Scheduler Robotic Vacuum |
I hesitate to write this review as I have read plenty of other reviews about the poor reliability of the Roomba. I've only had the Roomba for a bit over a week now and that's obviously too early to speak as to reliability (unless, of course, something had gone wrong early). With that said, and hoping I don't jinx our Roomba, we are amazed by this product.
If you buy the Roomba as a replacement for a regular vacuum cleaner, you may be disappointed. The Roomba, from my experience, is best used as a daily (or other regular schedule) adjunct to a good room cleaning, one that occurs probably once a month or so in our house.
I think the functioning of the Roomba has been adequately described in other reviews, and the manual is brilliantly concise, complete and easy to follow, so I will not repeat those details in this review. Let it be known, though, that it's easy to program the Roomba to start according to a daily schedule that you determine so you can program once and let it go through the routine without having to turn it on manually.
This is not a complex piece of machinery to operate and the buttons and remote are very nicely designed. The wonderful thing about our Roomba is that we set it to start at about 5 pm every day, with us coming home from work at about 8 pm, and we come home to a clean floor. Since we have a dog and two cats, this is a significant achievement.
The Roomba does its cleaning and then returns to its charging base, where it has a very cute red button that glows on and off like a heartbeat when it is recharging. In fact, we have detected (or assigned) many human like characteristics to the Roomba, from the way it wiggles its rear end as it locates and approaches the charging base to the way it seems to chase after the dog to the various sounds of satisfaction or distress it makes as it either cleans the house or gets hung up on cords or rugs and needs help.
We have hardwood floors and the roomba generally gets over the fringes on the rugs well, though sometimes it has to rock back and forth and raise itself (a very amusing sight, and a very clever design feature) and get over the obstacle. Cords, however, have been a problem. The Roomba doesn't seem to be able to get over a tangle of computer cords very well, so we have had to push them out of the way.
We recently had our house remodeled and wanted to do whatever was possible to keep the new hardwood floors clean and the Roomba definitely has fit the bill for that. The one slight problem, initially, was that the Roomba got lost and couldn't reach its recharging base before its power ran out. Our first level (where the Roomba works), has a raised entryway, which cuts the first level in two, like a horseshoe. In the center of the level is the kitchen, so if you imagine the level as a horseshoe shape with the center blocked by walls, you can see that the Roomba has to know that from it's charging base, it has to travel in a U shape to get the entire area clean and return from one end of the U to the other to reach its base (which, I believe, is located with an infrared sensor in the Roomba).
At first, the Roomba would get to the other end of the U and not be able to locate the base station before running out of power. Somehow, and I guess its through the internal "brain" of the Roomba, it has learned how to go first to the end of the U, do its work, and then work its way back around the U to the charging station so it can recharge properly. Pretty incredible stuff.
The Roomba picks up all the dog hair and cat fur (as well as the little nasty bits of litter the cats track around), dirt and dust that gets into the house and fuzz from the rugs. One of the typical two hour Roomba sessions (which is about the battery life before it needs recharging, though right now the Roomba has been running for almost 2.5 hours and it's still going strong) will pick up everything that should be picked up.
It is true that the Roomba may miss some small spots on the floor and it doesn't do corners that well, but in the course of a week, it does such a thorough job that there's not much it hasn't covered. The internal dirt receptacle seems to be plenty large to hold the dirt from a day's work on the floor (which is about 1400 sq ft).
So while I hold my breath the Roomba has better reliability than others have reported, I remain very impressed with the job it does.
Update March 20, 2006:
It's been a few months since Roomba has joined our family and, hoping I don't jinx our luck so far, it's been all that we could have hoped for. No real problems mechanically so far (though I have had to learn a bit about the scheduler, as it seemed to skip some days) and only one performance issue. As others have noted, the Roomba doesn't do well with the fringes/tassles on some carpets. We happen to have a lot of fringed carpeting in the house and about half the time, I get home to find Roomba caught on the fringes. I've watched this happen and the Roomba valiantly tries to free itself (and often does), but there are times when the mechanical parts get caught in the fringe material and it just gives up.
Otherwise, the Roomba works as it should. It absolutely keeps the floors clean and is a marvel at finding its way around the house and returning when done to recharge itself. We're so impressed that we're considering buying the Scooba (or whatever the washing robot is called).
UPDATE, AS OF NOVEMBER 24, 2006
Our Roomba continues to operate, pretty much as it always has. We've noticed that the battery life is not what it used to be and there have been a few minor problems with the Roomba not returning to the charging dock properly, but overall, we remain impressed.
So impressed, in fact, that we'll be buying a second Roomba for the upstairs areas of the house.
The real reason for writing this update, though, is to praise the functionality of the Roomba for holiday time, and not as a gift. As we were preparing to host Thanksgiving yesterday, we were busy with cooking and other things and forgot about vacuuming the house (especially needed since the leaves are falling and get tracked into the house). So I set the Roomba off in the morning as we were cooking and it was like having a third person available. By the time guests arrived, both upstairs and downstairs had been taken care of by Roomba and we never had to take out the "real" vacuum.
It may sound like a minor thing, but having a robot to vacuum as you do other things is a holiday timesaver of the highest order.
UPDATE, MAY 2007
It is with deep regret that I have to inform the world that our Roomba died. It was quite unexpected, though he had been having problems holding a charge in the past few months. We replaced the battery, then the charging unit, but nothing could save our Roomba. RIP, Roomie.
IRobot did offer to provide us with an out of warranty purchase of a new Roomba, at a discount, which we will do. IRobot was good about this, though we would have preferred to have had the Roomba survive, and for $100 or so we will have a new Roomba soon. We knew these units were mortal, so the death of Roomba after about 18 months is not a huge surprise, but it would be nice if the units lasted longer.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 230
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Epinions.com ID:
sneddren
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Reviews written: 36
Trusted by: 6 members
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