Awesome device! Get one!, June 1, 2008
First off, I want to say - get this product through Amazon directly. The third party resellers don't appear to stock product inventory and it can take weeks to ship (had to cancel a previous order from a third party reseller for this reason).
As for the iRobot Roomba 410:
Awesome little device. I use it downstairs in my...read full review
First off, I want to say - get this product through Amazon directly. The third party resellers don't appear to stock product inventory and it can take weeks to ship (had to cancel a previous order from a third party reseller for this reason).
As for the iRobot Roomba 410:
Awesome little device. I use it downstairs in my kitchen and living area. I have two cats and a stained concrete floor and it does a magnificent job picking up cat hair and other miscellaneous dirt, bugs, etc. The first time I ran it, after only 20 minutes, I stopped it and opened the dust bin - pulled out a massive ball of cat hair and dust I wasn't even aware was on the floor. Over time, the amount of debris I have extracted from the unit has decreased substantially indicating it is doing its job. Fantastic - exactly why I bought it!
The cats love it; they follow it around and jump out of the way when it decides to suddenly turn in their direction.
Like any mechanical device, there are a few quirks and things to be aware of:
1.) It can get hung on power cords and rug edges. Watch the unit for the first few times you run it and (if possible) modify your space to eliminate these hazards (I taped down my rugs in a few places which helped a lot). Afterwards, you can let it run without worry.
2.) It has a small dust bin and as such, may need to be stopped and emptied every 20 minutes or so (at least on the first few runs, or until the room starts to become clean).
3.) Let it run until the battery goes down (about 45-60 minutes). This maximizes battery duration and performance. Accept the fact that the battery will expire in a year or so (maybe less) and you'll have to buy a replacement from iRobot (50 bucks, big deal).
4.) The unit is made almost entirely of plastic. I estimate a life expectancy of approximately 4-5 years, maybe longer if I clean it regularly and replace the brushes, bearings, etc. when needed (all available for order in iRobot's website). By that time, I'm sure iRobot will have 4th or maybe 5th generation Roombas available and I'll definitely be in the market for a new one!
5.) Don't expect it to return to its charging base every time. In my case it usually doesn't. I just pick it up and set it on the charger (maybe one day it will find it on its own and surprise me).
Overall, I'd give it a 9 out of 10. It efficiently does the job it is designed for, has a great "coolness" factor and it is a heck of a lot of fun to watch!
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Roomba 410, July 27, 2008
I love my Roomba 410 to death.
This is one of the cheaper version, but it fits my particular situation. A small apartment, tile floor, uncluttered. Under those conditions, this thing works great. I run it once a day, and my floor is cleaner than it's ever been. It can't reach edges and so it leaves a tiny strip around edges, so every once in ...read full review
I love my Roomba 410 to death.
This is one of the cheaper version, but it fits my particular situation. A small apartment, tile floor, uncluttered. Under those conditions, this thing works great. I run it once a day, and my floor is cleaner than it's ever been. It can't reach edges and so it leaves a tiny strip around edges, so every once in a while I run the fine-tipped suction tube of my old carpet cleaner around all the edges to get that.
The bottom line is that is now easy to have an apartment with clean floors. Put the Roomba down, it does its thing for an hour and quits, pick it up and clean it, put it back on the charger and you're done. Cleaning requires a grand total of three minutes, so whereas I once vacuumed once a month, I now vacuum once a day.
And my floors are clean, and they STAY that way.
I have some extension cords down but it NEVER gets stuck on cords. It'll drag the cords around but it has never gotten stuck. It's amazing to watch this thing go into a tight spot, bounce around cleaning, and come right back out.(I've done some programming. The program in this thing has got to be VERY sophisticated.) It gets under beds, tables, and chest of drawers, no problem. I don't have any rugs so can't say anything about how it handles rugs.
I have two cats. This thing picks up cat hair by the ton. The cats get used to it in about a week.
Replacement batteries appear to be expensive, but I've already got a line on a place that reconditions batteries, and the present battery will probably last until the warranty expires.
For my small apartment (around 500 square feet) the seven-hour-to-charge battery is as effective as the three-hour-charge battery, because it can all gets done on one charge. Besides, as a chemist I've got a feeling the seven-hour battery is likely to last longer.
Initially, the first three or four days, expect this thing to pick up a ton of dirt. In fact, on first use I recommend stopping it halfway through the run and emptying it. With daily use, the normal load will drop to a little dirt and cat hair. Depending on traffic in the room(kids, you know.I have no kids.), of course.
I believe the next cheaper model does NOT have the dirt sensor. (The dirt sensor is a thing that detects it has hit a particularly dirty spot. When this happens, the Roomba will stop and pay particular attention to that spot. It'll flash a little blue light in outraged indignation while it circles around cleaning that spot.) I recommend getting the dirt sensor (which my Roomba has). In my opinion, a Roomba is much more efficient when it can detect it has hit a dirty spot.
I already know I want one those Scooba thingies, too. minimize
Look Daddy , it's R-T-Doot-1!!!, December 19, 2008
Update 06-27-09: Still kicking! Still have had no problems whatsoever. Have not had to buy any parts either. Same brushes, filters, etc. Still need to clean it thoroughly after every second run. Takes about 3 mins.
If the battery is charged 100% and left to sit for a few days the charge begins to fade away. Found out that is a...read full review
Update 06-27-09: Still kicking! Still have had no problems whatsoever. Have not had to buy any parts either. Same brushes, filters, etc. Still need to clean it thoroughly after every second run. Takes about 3 mins.
If the battery is charged 100% and left to sit for a few days the charge begins to fade away. Found out that is a characteristic of that type of battery. Not a problem. Normal. Still vacuum the floors with a good fullsized vacuum and then follow up in a day or two with the Roomba. Roomba always finishes with a full dustbin of additional debris that it finds under furniture that the fullsized vacuum can't get to. Feels good to know that all that additional dust, hair, and debris is picked up. Also have come to rely on the Roomba to do a better job cleaning in my kids' room that they would themselves. I ask them to clean and run the vacuum. Then we send "Hazel" (the Roomba) in to do another cleaning cycle and the dustbin is usually nearly full again.
Update May 20th:
Still kicking. Original brushes and supplies. No problems. Battery looses it's charge if it is not used for a week. There is still a charge, just not much. Accroding to reading I've done - this is normal for NiMH batteries like the Roomba has. We've bought a second invisible wall. Still enthusiastic about this robot.
Update: Jan 05
I can see where some of the Roomba's weaknesses are now. I'm interested to know if the higher priced models are made of better stuff or if they are made from the same parts bin.
I want this Roomba to last b/c it continues to do an impressive amount of work.
The average person is going to run this thing and dump out the debris. Occasionally the average person would clean the brushes. Then after a period of time dependent on the amount of use vs the amount of debris picked up it would stop working and all sorts of negative things would be said about the quality of the Roomba products. I want our robot to be the one that lasts 400,000 miles.
We had our first glitch. The Roomba like any piece of machinery large or small makes a certain sound when being used. When that sound changes there are reasons. Maybe the gears are broken in (run in) and doing their job better and quieter. Or maybe something is not working right.
Our Roomba's side brush quit working. I noticed the change in whirling noises last night.
I took the brush off and like the bottom brush bushings - there was hair wrapped around the motor shaft. The job required 1 screw driver and 2 mins. I cleaned it up and the Roomba is working again fine but I could not get all the hairs. I think I'll remove the whole motor assembly and use a hobby knife (X-acto type knife) to cut out all of the hairs.
Now ask yourself if you want to do things like this. Also I noticed a great deal of dust being pushed into the robot towards the front from the dust bin. This happens when the debris container is full and the Robot keeps working. Remains to be seen if this is a problem that will hurt it long term. Pulling the cover off to clean the side brush motor will also give me a chance to blow that out too.
Whenever any of the motors cease to spin the robot will stop and indicate a problem with a tone.
Anyhow my interest in this robot continues but I can see where another kind of person might begin to lose interest right about now. I think I'll start looking closely at the drive wheels to make sure they aren't starting to wrap hairs and threads around themselves as well. It might be that if everything is kept hair and thread free that the robot lasts a long, long time.
Update: (1 week later) - Hazel is still picking up a full load of debris and pet hair every time we use it. UGH! I had no idea there was so much pet hair in our house!!! No problems with Hazel and we continued to be fascinated by it. DO NOT watch a piece of dirt and wait for a Roomba to pick it up. It will make you crazy. "Hey you robot! You missed that piece of dirt by two inches! Come back here." If we leave the room or ignore the Roomba eventually that piece of dirt will go missing as intended.
The dog is slightly worried by the Roomba. Of course everything worries her a little if it rolls towards her dogbed. Remote control cars do the same. Our 1st cat rushes outside to avoid the "kitty grinder" and the 3rd cat (the smarter one) follows the Roomba around to watch it. The 2nd cat simply goes to higher ground and falls asleep.
Back to the original review...
Our youngest calls it R-T-Doot-One... (R2-D2)
I purchased our Roomba with a certain amount of trepidation after reading the user reviews. Lots of reviews from sorely disappointed folks and lots of reviews from elated Roomba owners.
Are the folks who are having troubles trying to pickup gravel with their Roomba? Are the people who are happy with their Roomba simply fascinated by their new toy? Would we in the end find any utility in the Roomba at our house? Stay tuned...
Our main goal is pet hair control. We've got an English Setter dog and three cats that are all inside/outside animals. Our house is fully carpeted but with materials already on hand we are transitioning to wood/tile flooring.
Our Roomba quickly arrived and the kids were immediately fascinated. We had to wait until the battery was charged and just like Christmas Eve, that seemed like FOREVER. I gave in after about an hour and put our new Roomba "Hazel" to work. If we got to watch it for 10 mins we'd be satisfied. The kids were even eagerly helping pickup the toys and what-not so Hazel could do its thing. (update they continue to help pickup so "Hazel" can clean the carpets! Wow!)
After 15 mins we turned it off and were amazed at the animal hair "Hazel" found - somewhere. Our big upright vacuum does a good job (I thought) so where did all that hair come from? From under the furniture I suppose. I do move the furniture some times when I vacuum. The next day we sent "Hazel" throughout the house. I'm happy to report each time we checked it had gathered a full load of dirt and hair. On the other hand I'm embarrassed to report that there was so much hair to pickup. Having seen that we will always have a Roomba b/c obviously it's cleaning in places that the big vacuum cleaner is not.
"Hazel" has ingested a Matchbox car without any side effects. Also was easy to retrieve the toy unharmed. On two occasions "Hazel" tried to pickup two items it could not and it just turned off so we could rescue it. One was a dryer sheet and the other was a foam dart. We left "Hazel" running while we went to the store and when we got back the kids had great fun looking for it (we didn't get the charging station). It was in the dining room "getting some sun" with a low battery. Again more hair and dirt. You'd think I never vacuumed before "Hazel" came to live with us. The amount of hair and debris is starting to decrease after a few days of "Hazel" working hard. I especially like the "heavy cleaning" feature. It finds a dirty spot and will do circles until it gets the worst of the crumbs or dirt and then resumes it's rounds.
The Roomba does requires some maintenance. The kit comes with a "letter opener" tool that is used to easily cut the hair and threads wrapped around the rollers. It takes about 4-5 mins to get it all cleaned up and put back to together at it's worst. Be sure that you don't loose any of the roller bearings in the garbage can. They slide off and can be put on the counter or table while you clean the robot. I nearly lost one. It appears that if this isn't done every few uses it might put a strain on the motors accelerating the wear and tear. Your mileage may vary. The bushings seem easy to replace if they ever need it so I have high hopes that the Roomba will last. We are good to our stuff and always get long life out of them so I hope this still applies here. The battery is a concern b/c batteries wear out. It is a heavy thing but I was happy to see that the replacement isn't that expensive and the after market also can supply batteries. Like the Linux software community (free Microsoft Windows alternative) there is a large tinkerer following of the Roomba so expect some creative uses or upgrades.
We received one IR barrier that came with it. I want a second one. We've got several rooms that have two entrances. You can also make a small barrier with scrap wood that will lay across the doorway. The barrier works well but if used in tight quarters I found that some of the IR light can bounce off of a shiny door and confuse the Roomba. In my small laundry room it caused the Roomba to do circles. I aimed the barrier away from the wall directly across the doorway and the problem went away. In my son's room we switched from aiming it at the semi-gloss door to aiming it away from the door towards the door frame (switched sides of the door frame). It did a very good job of not getting hung up on wires and rugs. Once it got stuck. Every other time it would back away sometimes dragging the cords with it. My fault for not putting them out of reach.
This product has made us consider the purchase of a "Myrtle" in a few months (Scooba). I could even imagine a 2nd Roomba allowing us to clean multiple rooms at once perhaps. I'll update this review as the "Hazel" gets some more miles on it. Of course your opinion may vary depending on your expectations and patience for cleanup maintenance. We're thrilled. Even my wife who so patiently accepts my obsession with all gadgets needed or not is impressed. minimize
Roomba, October 22, 2008
After owning a Roomba, and correlating my experience with several other users, I believe all Roomba's can be summarized in one sentence, "Great while they last". Unfortunately, they rarely last much past their warranty period. I believe Roomba has created a huge brand problem for themselves as being low quality, and after all new users are dried ...read full review
After owning a Roomba, and correlating my experience with several other users, I believe all Roomba's can be summarized in one sentence, "Great while they last". Unfortunately, they rarely last much past their warranty period. I believe Roomba has created a huge brand problem for themselves as being low quality, and after all new users are dried up they will be in trouble. I hope another vacuum company is going to introduce a more reliable product sometime soon. minimize
Roomba highly rated but watch out what Amazon ships, June 4, 2009
Roomba 410 that ships from the manufacturer (Irobot) is the same price as Amazon 149.99. Amazon ships the standard blue battery and standard charger while Irobot includes the yellow Advance Power Supply (APS) Battery and APS Fast Charger. It's disingenuous of Amazon to pass this off as the same machine. Beware!
