Customer Rating:  
Summary: Breaks Easily
Comment: The idea is great, but the product has some major flaws. I've been through 3 of these in less than 1-year. The brushes take forever to clean. I use a screwdriver, letter cutter, and scissor to remove the hair from the brush ends. If I fail to do so, it doesn't work very well. Once it gets tangled on a cord, it makes a grinding noise and doesn't work as well.
For a 1900 square foot home, I'm forced to clean the brushes 8 times in one-week and each cleaning takes about 20 minutes due to the hair that wraps around like a bobbin on the brush ends.
For the price, I expect a quality product that wouldn't break so easily.
This product is made in China.
It's too bad that it's become increasingly difficult to find products made in the USA today.
In my opinion, this product just doesn't cut it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Almost worthless
Comment: I strongly recommend against buying this product, especially if you live in a home with rugs or flooring that are dark, stairs, hinged doors that can't be fastened open, or power cords, and all people and pets living with you aren't bald. An older model may work better for you.
My wife and I owned a previous version of Roomba, and it worked pretty well. It's main drawback was that it couldn't clean dark rugs because it can't tell the difference between them and stairs, and so it backed away every time it got close. Another drawback was that it was too loud, but that's easily avoidable by scheduling it to clean when you're out of the house. A few months after the warranty expired, it stopped charging the battery. We tried everything, but couldn't revive it. All things considered, it worked rather well.
Even though the old one lasted only about a year, we were quite excited about upgrading to a new version. Unfortunately, the only improvement in this model over previous ones is that it's quieter, which really wasn't an issue in the first place. It picks up about the same amount of dirt, but is worse in every other respect. Not only have they not improved the stair detection so that the unit will clean dark surfaces, but the stair detection ability no longer responds properly. The unit will not consistently back away from stairs, and gets stuck with one wheel dangling over the edge. iRobot claims it is better at disentangling itself from power cords. Whereas the previous unit would press on if it got tangled in a cord, the new one will go back and forth a bit before stopping completely and giving you an error. Whether that's an improvement or not is a matter of opinion, but I've never witnessed it disentangle itself; if I haven't removed all cords from the floor, it will get stuck.
This newer model apparently has a new pattern which it follows when cleaning. In short, it is a bit more persistent at cleaning near walls, and will often follow them closely, turning sharply around corners. However, this now means that if you happen to have doors in your home, it will close them behind itself and trap itself in rooms. This is especially irritating with closets or rooms where the door opens inward, where the unit will shut the door behind itself and spend its entire run time cleaning a tiny area.
The unit we originally had was quite good at not leaving scuff marks on baseboards, door, and furniture. I have white doors and baseboards, and the new unit has left black streaks on many of them. This may be because the Roomba no longer jerks backwards when it runs into a wall, but backs up a tiny bit and turns, often not backing up far enough and smearing a back streak along the wall as it turns.
The final irritation is that iRobot has made the bushes and sweeper much worse as far as cleaning them goes. Our last Rooba could sometimes go for a few runs around the house before the brushes needed cleaning. Now, after every run they need cleaning and it will sometimes even stop in the middle of a cleaning cycle, and I find the task itself much more difficult. If you try to get lazy and schedule it to run without having cleaned it after the last cycle, it will usually just sit on its base and not run again until you clean it. Nothing has changed in our home, and neither my wife, my pet rabbit, nor I are balding or shedding, yet I have to spend 5-10 minutes cutting junk out of the brushes. The ends of the brushes and sweeper are especially good at winding hair into a really tight knot and getting under the endcaps. It is also slightly taller now and wont clean under a cabinet that the last one would squeeze under.
It still works if you don't mind incessantly cleaning it, fastening all of your doors in the open position, cleaning up all power cords from the floor, and littering your house with virtual walls. But at that point, why not just pick up a vacuum and do it yourself?
Customer Rating:
Summary: The next household timesaver!
Comment: I have had the iRoomba for 6 months now, it is nothing short of wonderful. My floors are now cleaner than ever and cleaned nearly every day. What I find most remarkable is its ability to find dust, even when it starts out on a what looks like a clean floor it always fills its dust catcher.
The operation of the machine is very simple, simply press the button.
We did need to do a little work making the room roomba proof, for example organizing power cords underneath cabinets and making the kids pick up the toys they love to leave lying around.
I have found that the brushes require some maintenance and at least on a monthly basis you should give them a very thought clean.
Customer Rating:
Summary: nice helper
Comment: A little loud, but works great. Even the Cat likes it! It does have a hard time finding the base every now and then, but worth it to not having to vacuum weekly
Customer Rating:
Summary: Excellent Performance
Comment: The Roomba 560 was a gift for my son. He is a neat freak at his condo. A great housekeeper. The Roomba was able to demonstrate a deeper cleaning along walls than he was able to do. The fact that his unit is so automatic and does a complete cleaning of his 2300 square foot warehouse condo on the battery charge is really amazing. With my son's busy schedule and lifestyle, this was a perfect gift to free up some time he would have otherwise spent doing, routine cleaning. I will be buying one for myself since they work so well.
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