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The 500 series Roomba cleans routinely… so you don’t have to. 500 Series robots offers the latest innovations from iRobot with unprecedented efficiency, coverage and cleaning performance. Roomba navigates and cleans rooms systematically, then returns to its Home Base™ to recharge. Roomba efficiently vacuums the entire floor, under and around furniture and along walls and automatically adjusts from carpets to hard floors. Virtual Wall™ Lighthouses confine and guide Roomba from room to room, then direct it to the Home Base to dock and recharge between cleanings.
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Technical Details
- Vacuum-cleaning robot with on-board scheduling for all floor surfaces- 2 high-speed, counter-rotating brushes; anti-tangle technology; side brushes
- Gentle-touch bumper; dirt sensor; built-in cliff sensors; self-charging Home Base
- Includes bumper extension, cleaning tool, power adapter, rechargeable battery, 3 extra filters, 2 Virtual Walls, and batteries
- Measures approximately 13 by 13 by 4 inches; 1-year limited warranty
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By B. Chambers (Southwest)
This works great for me - but I have no kids or animals in my house. It is nice to turn it on and let it vacuum while I do something else. You do have to empty the container often but that means it is truly getting the dust and other particles from deep within carpet. I make fresh flower arrangements and all the greenery that fell on the carpeted floor was picked up. I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND THIS MODEL IF YOU HAVE ANIMAL HAIR. GET AN UPGRADED POWER MADE FOR THAT PURPOSE. It is not perfect but works well for me.
By William A. Youngman (Seattle)
After two months daily use, Roomba keeps our house much cleaner than before. Our house used to be generally messy - now it's generally tidy. Roomba cleans our living room, dining room, kitchen, hall and bath, daily Mon - Fri: hardwood, area rugs, linoleum, and tile. Roomba does its business at 10AM when the wife, kids and I are gone and the dogs are confined to the study. 95% of the time, I return to find the floors clean and Roomba back in its "dock" charged and ready to go. Occasionally it runs out of power before it finds the dock and one time it shut off due to a "brush error" - clogged brush. Every day I remove it's dust bin and empty the full or mostly full bin in the trash - takes about 20 seconds to do this and you never touch the dirt.
Our house is mostly harwood with a two dogs, a pug and a springer that shed LOTS and LOTS of short hair 24/7. Two messy teens as well as a messy dad. We are very pleased with Roomba's ability to keep the dog hair and dust bunnies banished from the home.
On the weekends, I put Roomba to work in the basement family room, master bedroom and study - tile, hardwood and area rugs- it does fine in those rooms, too.
I think the 551 model I purchased at Costco for $259 does the job; it's handling the pet hair fine without the special pet upgrade. Of course my dogs have short hair; I think those dogs that shed in clumps of long hair might need the pet upgrade model.
Roomba needs occasional fussing with. You need to position your cords where they won't tangle, you need to remove and clean the brushes maybe once a week; occasionally clean accumlated dust ,hair etc from its wheels and such. You have to be handy enough (and willing) to do these or I don't think Roomba will work out for you. Myself. I don't mind and our house is clean every day when I come home. Wife is happier, too. I spend about 2 minutes every morning doing "Roomba Prep" - picking up stuff that it might get stuck on, putting away our ocasional table that will waste a lot of Roomba time, picking up the magazine or papers that were tossed on the floor. This helps the Roomba and also contributes to our less messy house.
I am very happy with Roomba. It seems to be well built so I am hoping it holds up well.
By Jessie (Orange County , ca)
Just got it and I love it. Saves me so much time. I have a White Lab whose hair is everywhere. This little machine keeps my house tidy. It cleans the corners better than I can!
Only fault is that when it goes over a rug... SOMETIMES....it leaves behind dust, etc. Either way, it is a life savor for maintenance.
By Joseph M. Pizzitola (AL USA (the literate part))
First, let me tell you what the roomba isn't going to do- it's not going to clean every room of your house perfectly. It's not going to do as good a job as a regular vacuum (my other vacuum is a dyson). It's not going to catch every spec of dust or dirt in your house. If you are the type of person that is going to get furious if you see a left over spec of dust or dirt, this isn't for you. Although it has a spot mode, cleaning up spilled things like cheerios on a hard wood floor would best be left to something like a dust buster (unless you want to watch it knock the cheerios all over the floor with the spinning edge brush)
That being said, the roomba is very very good at what it is designed to do- clean fairly well on a regular basis. Instead of cleaning once per week (or every other week), the roomba will do a great job cleaning a room 2-3 times per week. The frequent cleaning made practical by the roomba makes up for the lack of raw suction. My house would still probably be cleaner if I vacuumed with my dyson more frequently, but let's be honest- I'm busy, I'm lazy, and getting 80% of the job for 20% of the effort sounds like a good trade off to me. It's nice coming home to a clean living room, bedroom, etc without having to get off my lazy butt to do something about it.
This roomba is quiet. If it's in the living room, I can barely hear it in my bedroom. My cats have slept right through this thing cleaning the room they were snoozing in. I wish I had this when my daughter was born several years back, because it's hard to use a regular vacuum without waking the baby. I am pretty sure she would have no problems sleeping through this thing.
Some things to consider- not all areas are OK for a roomba. If your house is very cluttered and you have crap all over the floor, the roomba is probably not a good idea. Carpet eats up the battery much faster than hard wood, so you won't get the same amount of coverage. Small little rugs on tile/hardwood are more likely to get pushed around than they are vacuumed, so it's best to just move them out of the way before using the roomba. The roomba will get caught up in power cords, long curtains, etc, so you should block those off or move them out of the way prior to using it. You will quickly figure out what you need to do to make sure that your roomba doesn't get stuck while you're out. It's really not that big of a deal.
The brush cleaning tool they send with it (the round one) is pretty much useless. Maybe it's just the amount of cat hair that gets caught in ours (a LOT, especially when vacuuming under the bed), but trying to clean the brush with that little thing is like trying to use a banana to carve an ice sculpture out of a glacier. I find it's easier to just use my hands and rip the fuzz out.
I can think of a few improvements that irobot could look at doing with the next generation- onboard memory to remember room layouts to increase vacuuming efficiency, wireless ethernet for computer interaction like scheduling and remote monitoring, etc.
My wife and I are already talking about buying another one just for the bedrooms, and maybe one for the downstairs as well. Possibly a scooba as well. This is quite possibly the biggest innovation in cleaning technology since the invention of the vacuum almost a century ago, because unlike all of the intervening improvements between then and now, the roomba actually saves me time and effort. Compare that to my dyson- it's a great vacuum and very powerful, but it doesn't really vacuum a room any faster than my mother could with her Kirby when I was growing up.
So in a nutshell, if you've got the money, you should definitely buy one of these- maybe more. It easily joins the ranks of other labor saving household gadgets- a dishwasher to wash dishes for me, a washer and dryer to wash and dry my clothes for me, an answering machine to talk to people I don't want to, and now a vacuum to clean my house while I'm at work.
By R. Ranjan (san jose, ca)
First of all, I would like to make it clear, roomba does job what it is supposed to. However, I think, it is more representative of a status symbol of having a robotic vaccum cleaner than having a practical and useful machine. I will explain:
1)Roomba makes irritating noise on hardwood floor, that is what we purchased roomba for. It takes unnecesssary extra time to clean a 8x10 rug. For most of folks, automated cleaning is hassles free, but I now realized that grabbing a traditional vaccum cleaner and finishing a cleaning job in 5 mins is much more efficient than letting roomba roam around for a while and still needing your attention.
2) 2 lighthouses it comes with need 2 C batteries each and you have to take them off the lighthouse when you are done using it. There is no switch to make it off. This is not a good design.
Overall, I am pleased, but I am afraid, it wont be used as much as I thought. Amazon made me feel good as it sold this roomba at much lower price than other stores or websites.
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Buy iRobot 500 Series Roomba Vacuum-Cleaning Robot with On-Board Scheduling Now