We bought our first iRobot 'Roomba' a few months ago, and I can honestly say we haven't looked back since!!
I will tell you a little more about the company that we bought our first 'Roomba' from…
iRobot is an American company which was founded in 1990. They supply robots for home use (such as the 'Roomba' Vacuum cleaner and the 'Scooba' floor washing robot) as well as supplying places like Iraq and Afghanistan for help with search missions through debris and rubble.
iRobot supply different robots for different uses, these are:Roomba: A
vacuum cleaner for the home.
Scooba: A floor washing robot for the home
Dirt Dog: A vacuum cleaner for the industrial floor
Verro: A pool cleaning robot for your swimming pool
Looj: A gutter cleaning robot
ConnectR: A communication robot, for talking to loved ones whilst you are away from home. (Being released early 2008)
This review is about the recently released iRobot 530.
I bought this Roomba from www.electricshopping.com for £199.00. Good value in my opinion and definitely money well spent.
I will list some of its many features here:
It is a grey circular robot, quite attractive with a circular button in the middle which lights up blue when pressed and emanates other colours depending on what it's doing i.e. charging etc. It has a front bumper, which is the same shape as the rest of Roomba and takes any pressure of it when it bumps into a wall.
There are 3 different cleaning settings.
1. Clean - When you press this button Roomba will sing its short little song to let you know it is on its way and sets off cleaning. Pressing clean means that Roomba will vacuum until the floor is clean or until it has filled up.
2. Spot - If there is a particularly dirty area of your floor then you can set Roomba to 'Spot' setting for it to concentrate on this particular place. Note, it does also do this on the other cleaning setting automatically when it finds particularly dirty area and will spin round in circles until it is clean.
3. Max: Roomba will clean continuously until it has run out of battery.
You are provided with a charging base which Roomba can navigate back to itself when it needs charging or has finished cleaning, or a plug in charger. It takes around three hours to fully charge Roomba.
Roomba has many intelligent features:
Cliff Sensors mean that it will never fall down the stairs or steps, and can clean right up to the edge.
Tassel Detection: This is the main reason we upgraded to this Roomba, because our old Roomba would get caught on the tassels of one of our rugs and would have to be rescued, this new feature means that we can now leave Roomba unattended in a room with a rug.
Roomba in my experience is extremely efficient, it has never damaged anything, and although it does bump in to the walls it is never hard enough to do any kind of damage.
It has spinning brushes which sweep any dust and dirt underneath it so that I can be sucked up, this means that when it goes alongside walls it doesn't miss any bits.
You are always provided with a virtual wall unit which means that you can prevent Roomba from going into a certain part of a room or place easily. You also get a remote control in case you need to use that to direct it. Roomba also comes with a number of brushed for cleaning it between uses.
Roomba can also talk to you!! I discovered this to my surprise when a ladies voice declared 'Please check and clean Roomba's wheels'. I quite like this feature as you know what is wrong with it (although personally I think my Roomba is a boy!! Haha!) I gave the wheels a quick clean and it was rearing to go again.
You can now schedule this Roomba to clean at certain times, either when you are you of the house, or think you may forget to do it.
My personal experience of Roomba:
Roomba has sadly enough become almost a part of the family!! It is so wonderful being able to leave the house and on your return for all the floors to be clean! Roomba isn't very loud, not silent but no where near as noisy as a normal vacuum, and can hold a surprising amount of dirt. Whenever you turn Roomba on, it starts cleaning or if it gets stuck it has a little tune that it plays, these tunes are different depending on which you pick, and when it gets stuck it plays a little sad tune which is very sweet!
Roomba is easily emptied, there are no bags you just hold it over the bin and tip it out. You may have to clean the brushes after every 3/4 uses depending on how dirty your floors are, and hair and bits can get caught in it.
Roomba is an absolute necessity to the working parent, and is incredible time saving, giving you the time to get twice the amount of work done than if you had to clean the floors!
If you have any more questions then please don't hesitate to ask!
Thanks for reading!
*In relation to an answer asked in one of the comments, it works on all types of flooring. We have we have wooden, carpeted and laminate flooring in our house and it works fab on all of them!*
by (14%):
by (5%):
17.05.2009 09:01
The majority of reviewers have only recently purchased one --- I have owned 3 over 4 years ( one replacement ) and know the problems they develop over time
17.05.2008 23:24
Sounds like a useful gadget. Very well written, informative review. Matt :-)
23.03.2008 21:28
brilliant review, very well written and informative.