iRobot 560 Roomba Vacuuming Robot, Black and Silver
by iRobot
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Tools and Hardware Reviews of iRobot 560 Roomba Vacuuming Robot, Black and Silver
Customer Review: Worth it
Summary: 5 Stars
I was doubtful about the effectiveness of Roomba machines since they came out, because I figured, "What could a "fan on wheels" really vacuum?" That is because the Roomba is not meant to replace your real vacuum -- it's not going to agitate deep dust and pollen in a shag carpet like a powerful vacuum. Those vacuums are heavy and loud for a reason.
But if you let Roomba work regularly, you have to use the big vacuum a LOT less. I bought this model last year for our new house, so that it could crawl around on our hard wood floor on the first floor at night and clean up after my 2 year old and 4 year old. IT WORKS. My wife is not ordinarily a huge fan of cool techie devices but she LOVES this thing. You know if you've got a winner if you can buy a boy-toy that your wife loves you for.
Here are the pros and cons:
PROS
1) You can set an automatic schedule and it vacuums by itself. It starts up, it vacuums, it returns to its charging station by itself. All you have to do is empty the dust. (And it picks up a lot!)
2) It charges itself!
3) It comes with cones which can be either "lighthouses" (to tell the Roomba to vacuum only a certain area) or "virtual walls" to create invisible barriers to prevent Roomba from vacuuming certain rooms. I found the virtual walls useful to keep the Roomba from vacuuming the dining room while we aren't using it.
4) Being short, it can vacuum under tables and even some sitting furniture.
5) It scoops up dirt in crevasses near walls, yet it knows how to avoid power cables.
6) You can put your own colored plate on the top to customize it.
7) Has a convenient carry-handle built onto the top.
8) It has a set of easy buttons to start or stop it when you want.
9) It's also easy to replace its various moving parts and brushes and filters. And it's very easy to empty.
CONS
1) It does require some regular maintenance. There is a little red spider-like whirling brush that is made of some kind of material that breaks somewhat easily. The arms eventually break off one by one, and Roomba will sometimes cannibalize them. The replacement arms come in packs and won't break the bank, but you should stock up on them. I usually wait until Roomba has broken all but one arm before replacing the brush, which takes up to about 1 month if you use it daily.
2) Roomba does get up on area rugs sometimes, but not always. Sometimes it bumps into a thick area rug and goes around it, or sometimes gets trapped. Given a chance every night, it will eventually clean the area rugs.
3) Pick up small objects such as toys and clothes before Roomba works. It will either snag on a sock or suck up a child's action figure, which isn't good for either Roomba or the object. We have a routine whereby the kids have to clean up the floor every evening or Roomba will eat all their toys. (It works, and it's not a lie!)
4) Be careful about the size of the area Roomba has to clean. Ours cleans the entire first floor, including the kitchen and back door leading into the garage, but some of these areas are quite some distance from its base station. If Roomba gets too far from its base station, it gets lost, and when its battery is low it can't find its way back through the "maze" of your house to the station. You have to keep the base station somewhat central if you can, and keep Roomba's cleaning area somewhat simple and not more than several normal sized rooms. Also Roomba can bump around under dining room tables where there are lots of chair legs for a long time. It can find its own way out, and if you use your dining room regularly, this actually increases its efficiency at picking up dropped food, but if you don't use the dining room that often, I would keep Roomba out of there, it'll waste a lot of time.
5) It's fairly easy to set a schedule, but a couple of times I had to remind myself how to erase a schedule. They could have made this a little more intuitive.
6) It's a vacuum, so it does make noise. You may not want to run it in your bedroom at 3 am.
7) It does get trapped on certain furniture. For example we have an area rug next to an entertainment center, and the entertainment center has a large "foot" that is just a little higher than the rug. Roomba sometimes crawls across the rug and up onto the foot, bumps, but can't turn around because it gets tilted. You have to do some mild "rearranging" to make sure Roomba doesn't get stuck. When it can't free itself after a minute, it shuts off with a depressed beep.
8) Roomba doesn't get every spec of dust all the time. It tries to find and get all the dust it can, but it doesn't vacuum like a human does. It doesn't see the a pile of dirt a few feet away -- sometimes it just runs right past it and vacuums elsewhere... But you need to be patient with it. It will find its way back and most of the time it will get that pile of dust. If it doesn't this time, it will next time. It detects heavy dirt as it passes over and will circle around and spot-clean for a moment. But if you're in a rush -- like if you have guests coming over, you need to resort to the traditional manual vacuuming.
9) Don't use Roomba on stairs. At the top of the stairs it will detect a drop off and not tumble, but the stairs have to be vacuumed with a manual vacuum, unfortunately you just can't automate that.
ADVICE
Keep Roomba away from kids and pets. That is to say, don't let them mistake it for a chew toy, a skateboard, a giant robot made for wrecking building-block cities, a flying saucer to fly around the room, or anything else. Teach the family to respect Roomba and keep the base station somewhere that kids and pets will not mess with it.
I would recommend supplementing Roomba with a SHARK VX3 CORDLESS SWEEPER if you're in a rush to clean something (such as when guests come over, or the kids spilled dry cereal all over the floor).
If you use Roomba on a heavy shag carpet, don't think you can throw away your heavy vacuum. At least once a month you need to vacuum up that pollen and dander etc that settles deep into the carpet with something that really works it over.
All-in-all, Roomba has really increased the quality of our life and is a welcome member of our family!
Customer Review: Best Home Tool Since Automatic Clothes Washing Machines!
Summary: 5 Stars
We moved in to a new condo with 3 times the square feet of our old apartment, 3 levels with carpets and hard floors. We have cats and I have allergies (not to cats but to mold, dust etc) so having carpet kept clean was a big concern to me. We have a Dyson canister vac which works great but it is a hassle and often my husband and I get too busy and tired and don't get around to vacuuming. Then, before we knew it 2 weeks would go by and cat hair tumble weeds would be blowing around and we'd be tracking grit on our feet into bed!
I was very skeptical of Roomba before buying, thinking it would probably not work as advertised... especially after trying out so many other gadgets that failed to deliver, like auto-clean cat litter boxes. But once we moved into the new place I decided to order a Roomba and give it a try, through a website that offers a lifetime no questions asked warranty.
Well, we've been using Roomba for about a month now and we LOVE it! Every day we run it on one floor of the condo as we leave in the morning we just press "clean" and we come home to a freshly swept floor. Our Roomba has had no problem putting itself to bed back on the charger after cleaning, every time. When we get home from work, we dump the dust bin (usually about 1/4 full when run every 3-4 days on that level of the condo) and clean the brushes - this is necessary because I have long hair and my hairs get wrapped around the brush ends and if not cleaned off after each run the Roomba will stop and tell us to clean the brushes. Fortunately, the design is excellent, cleaning the brushes takes about 30 seconds and no effort, using the tool they provide with the machine. With this routine we have not had any problems with the operation of the Roomba.
We have not yet used the scheduled cleaning or the light house features, since we have an open floor plan and 3 levels in our condo it seems easier to just set it going on one floor each day.
Also I remember reading something about it not working well on some floor types. Well I can't imagine that since we have several floor types ranging from dark and light mixed tone hardwood to light stone tile to carpet. In our bathrooms we have some very thick rugs on the stone tile floor, Roomba does manage to get up on them and back down on the tile without getting tangles (if it catches an edge it reverses the brushes and then goes diagonally to climb up on the rug). It's so nice to have the towel lint and hairs cleaned up so regularly in the bathroom!
For those who said they had to empty the dirt cup every 10 minutes, well I can only say that your floors must have been *filthy* before!! Maybe if you have dirty carpet going over it once with a big vac and then running Roomba every day to prevent it from building up to that degree would be a good idea.
As many have pointed out the Roomba is more of a sweeper than a vacuum, the vacuum mostly serves to direct dust into the collection cup from the brushes not to actually suck it up out of the carpet. That is OK, sweeping is actually a very effective cleaning method, especially if you are removing surface dirt and lint frequently so it doesn't get tracked in deep into the carpet! If you have deep pile carpet and a lot of foot traffic, kids and pets you will probably still want to use a big vac regularly, but in our home (we remove shoes at the door and have medium pile carpet and hard floors) we don't forsee the need to use the big vac ever again!
No it can't do stairs. Just get a small handheld for that. No it doesn't clean itself, but cleaning off the brushes and emptying the dirt cup is VERY easy and takes less than 1 minute to do.
I love coming home to a nice vacuumed carpet! We had friends over last night and served food in the living room - there were crumbs everywhere. After the guests left, out came Roomba and bye bye party mess!
As for pets, our cats were not at all scared of the Roomba, and they were alarmed by the big vac. The Roomba they watch suspiciously and move out of the way if it comes toward them but they do not get frightened at all and will sleep n the same room. Roomba is running in the room with me as I type this - it makes about as much noise as a hairdryer on low, and nothing is more relaxing than kicking back while a robot cleans your house :)
UPDATE Sept 1, 2010
I am still loving my Roomba! But I wanted to add some vital information. Once complaint you will see very often is that the Roomba works great until it dies after a few months. Well, after examining my own, and doing some research, I found that this is due to the plastic parts used in the cleaning head module. The bearings that drive the brushes are unsealed plastic, and eventually they start to wear and form a gap that hair and dust can enter into the gearbox. Obviously, that is a bad thing! This is a major design flaw in all Roomba models.
Fortunately, there is a solution if you don't mind spending a little more money. What you need to do is replace the plastic bearings on your NEW Roomba yourself, you will have to do a search on a robot review forum for directions (Amazon doesn't allow links) - or for a fee there is a guy who will do it for you, do some web searches and you will find it. You need to modify the unused Roomba, because once you start to use it the plastic wears and it can't be properly modified. Or you can look on eBay for a replacement "modded" cleaning head module (green for the 562) and simply replace the whole module. It is easy to unscrew the original and replace it with the modified version.
With sealed metal bearings, there will be no wear in this area and no dirt or debris can enter into the gearbox and ruin your Roomba! Then all you have to do is clean the brushes to keep your Roomba running smoothly.
To me, this is a major design flaw and I feel that iRobot really needs to incorporate this modification into the product that they sell. But, I'm not sending my roomba back in protest because I love it way too much!
It is amazing how much dirt, pet hair and lint is picked up by my Roomba even though I run it every single day! It's appalling to think of that all being ground in each day while it waits for me to vacuum on the weekend (or maybe the next weekend...).
Customer Review: buying 4th Roomba
Summary: 5 Stars
I am here today (11/14/2010) to order my 4th Roomba as a gift...
First a little history:
I bought my first Roomba (Scheduler) about 4 years ago; to help cut down on my wife's vacuuming time. Our 1st floor consists of a Den, Kitchen, and Dining Room with hardwood floors and a Living Room with carpeting (approx. 1200 sq. ft). My wife vacuumed twice a week and all is quite clean, We let the scheduler take off on it's maiden run and after an hour, the bin was filled with hair, cheerios, pretzels, and a few small toy parts. I was so impressed, we orders the Discovery model the next day. They ran twice a week. Each unit takes cares of 2 rooms and we couldn't be happier. The Discovery died after about 2 ½ years and we "struggled" with only 1 unit running. We decided to dump the Discovery, and buy a replacement when the new models came out. My wife's vacuuming is down to once a year.
Now the review:
I purchased the 560 on 12/13/09 from amazon, so I can give a review for the past years usage. I like it even better than the Scheduler, (which is still running like a charm!). The 560 slows down its speed before bumping into a wall, unlike the older unit that just bumps and runs. Also the 560 docks perfectly every time. The Scheduler bumps the dock 4 or 5 times before it is seated correctly. And best of all, if the dog bumps into the 560 and knocks it off its docking station, the 560 will redock itself automatically. With the recent addition of the dog to our family (a Pug), we now run the Roomba's 4 times a week. The Pug sheds like mad, year round. (Think of him as a fur-spewing volcano). Thankfully his hair is short, so it's not getting wrapped around the brushes. We empty the bins every second run. Also, I found that the dog hair likes to pack itself around the front wheel and hinder its ability to spin. That's o.k. the wheel just pulls out for an easy cleaning.
Some thoughts:
Tie up any electrical cords and the pull-strings from your window's blinds. If you have the type of couch (with legs) that the Roomba will fit under, take a look under the couch and make sure there are no electrical cords on the floor at the back of the couch.
Remove any throw rugs that have strings or tassels on them
I found that the initial battery lasts about 2 years. At that point the battery life will be down to about 30 minutes.
A lot of people complained that the side brushes break and replacements are hard to get. I replaced the brush only once on my Scheduler, and have had no other problems. I'd guess that some people must have a slight space between their floor moldings and the floor itself, and the brush hairs must be getting stuck in them as it spins and tears them off.
I clean the brushes every 4 to 6 weeks. It seems some people have to clean them every week. We all have short hair in this household, so maybe that is a factor.
As tempting as it may be, do NOT stand on it to go for a ride... and yes, that goes for the kids as well.
There are two sensors (about the size of a quarter) under the brushes that need to be cleaned when you pull out the rollers. Use a little windex on them.
The Roomba is a sweeper (hence the rollers) and a vacuum (that little yellow filter on the hinged door of the dustbin) DO NOT WASH THE DUSTBIN IN WATER! There is a little vacuum motor inside the bin itself. To clean the yellow filter, I just snap my finger on the back of it and the dust drops right off.
I have white doors and floor moldings, and there are no scuff marks.
Keep the area if front of they charging station clear for about 8 feet. If you have it pointing under the dining room table, the bot will go nuts trying to find its base. Also keep the base in the center of the cleaning area. Don't park the base at the far end of the house, as it will have a hard time finding it.
I don't know how true this is, but I guess it is plausible... If your dog is not housebroken, do not run the Roomba unless your pet is caged. I have heard stories that Roomba's have found dog piles, and proceeded to paint the floors and carpeting with poop.
Read all the reviews here before you buy, but read between the lines. People complain over the stupid things that are their own fault, and not the fault of the product::
1: "It's noisy and I have to raise the TV volume when it runs." DUH it's a vacuum, it will make noise. A regular vacuum makes noise too. (It isn't that loud and it is even more quiet on carpet.)
2: (this was actually a complaint) "I have to empty the dustbin every ten minutes" That's because your house is very dirty and the Roomba is doing its job. It found filth and picked it up. That means it's working!!
3: One lengthy reviewer bought the 560 in Sept of 07 and gave it a 4 star rating. Then in Nov of 09 (over two years later!) stated they want to change the rating to 3 stars? Apparently a piece broke. They ran the unit "every other day" (at 182 days of cleaning per year, that's 364 days over two years) o.k. A piece broke. It wasn't going to run forever. I wish my car ran for two years without something breaking.
4: One person complained that iRobot customer support would not help them even though they admitted it was over a year old and out of warranty.
5: Another complained that he let it loose in a "freshly vacuumed room" but it ended up stopping and giving error codes with "dog hair jammed in its brushes". This happened several times in a row. Guess the room wasn't that clean after all. You can't point the Roomba to a mountain of hair and expect it to clean it up. That's like jamming your washing machine full of clothes and then complain that the clothes aren't clean.
6: Another reviewer bought it for their elderly parents. They live in a 3 story home, but returned it since it can only clean one floor at a time. Did they actually expect the Roomba to stand up and walk up and down steps as well?
Customer Review: Surprisingly powerful!
Summary: 5 Stars
SO I tend to be an 'early adopter' of technology and if I end up really using 10% of the things I buy it'd be a 'good' month... However I stayed clear of the Roomba's for years which is surprising considering how much I despise vacuuming. I mean really, I had an apartment with wall to wall carpet for almost 5 years... I used my full sized vacuum cleaner 7 times... that's right, 7 times over 4.8 years - I guess I'm just not that dirty of a person... after I bought my house I ended up vacuuming a lot more often but probably should still do more.
When I looked at this a couple years back there were some horror stories about having to wait months for replacement parts so I didn't buy. About 2 months ago though my Mother told me should bought a less expensive model then this and was very happy with it- so I figured it was time to take the plunge.
I've had it almost a month now and have been extremely happy with it - if you're not sure it's doing anything all you have to do is empty the 'dust-bin' and you'll see all the dirt that used to be on your floor. Make no mistake about it, this vacuum is NOT efficient, but it doesn't need to be- it make make it over the same spot on the carpet 10 times and make it someplace else only once, but so what- it does its job and you shouldn't be watching it you should be going about your day doing something else- although it's hard not to watch the first few times.
I use it in a large combined 'living room / kitchen / dining room' scenario with lots of furniture and chairs and whatnot- I run it about about 3 or 4 days before I leave for work and clean & empty it when I get home, it hasn't gotten stuck and it always finds its way back to the charger.
A couple of times I've just dropped it in my bedrooms and basement and let it go about its business- always with excellent results. It gets under beds, behind furniture, between the legs of chairs- if there's even 1 extra inch it will 'fit' through it at some point.
It has a variety of sensors on it, a 'touch' sensor if it runs into something going forward, a 'cliff' sensor so it won't roll itself down stairs accidentally, and some sort of IR sensor to slow down before hitting into things at full speed. In practice it would do well with some sort of sensor on the top so it can detect when it might get trapped- the only place I've seen it stuck is occasionally under my bedroom dressers- they have an 'arch' shape on bottom and it can fit under it from the center but not from the ends, however it also doesn't bump into it so it kind of gets pushed down into the carpet as it moves under the arch and can't back itself out. It's not a big deal but a top sensor would probably fix that.
The biggest 'con' of this item is having to clean it fairly frequently- and since it's going under beds and whatnot it will come out very dusty- especially the first few times you use it. The dust pan and air filter must be emptied after each use and the rollers should be cleaned every handful of times to keep it running right- when you're running off a battery a few long strings caught in the rollers can really affect performance where it might not even be noticeable on a model you were pushing yourself.
It may freak out your pets but they should get used to it eventually.
It's not very loud, less then most other vacuums so you can let it do its thing and watch TV or even sleep in another room down the hall without hearing it.
It's a pricey tool but it does what it says... You can clean this in 4 or 5 minutes which is probably saving you at least 10 to 15 minutes if you break out your regular vacuum. I don't know that I would replace your upright but it supplements it very well. It takes about 35 minutes to do a 30ft x 25ft area with lots of obstacles... the less obstacles and the smaller the room the faster it would be- the manual says you should estimate about 25 minutes per average sized room.
This model comes with 2 'towers' that you can set each to be either a virtual 'wall' or a 'lighthouse' - as a 'wall' you put the tower down (each tower takes 2 C batteries) in or across a doorway/hallway/opening and the robot won't cross 'the line.' This worked well for me. You can also set the tower (1 or both) to be a 'lighthouse' - a lighthouse acts like a wall telling the robot that it's the end of the room, but instead of never crossing the line of the 'lighthouse' it will finish the room it's working on first, then cross the line and begin working on the second room- (and if you setup the second tower as a 'lighthouse' it will do a 3rd room) and finally it will find it's way back from lighthouse to lighthouse to the base station to charge.
You can buy additional walls, lighthouses, and a remote control (this model does NOT have a remote included but it will work if you buy one) from the company.
The manual doesn't promise how long the battery will last aside from 'at least 1 average sized room per charge' and it strongly recommends charging for 24 hours before the first use. I can say I've had it clean the whole house (main floor and basement) without recharging but I don't know if it will keep that performance up as it gets older. It re-charges to full after doing 1 room in less then an hour.
Customer Review: A Slice of R2D2... for your home
Summary: 5 Stars
Remember that scene in Star Wars IV: A New Hope when that little black robot is going down the hall and sees Chewbacca and lets out a little electronic yelp and starts heading the other way? That's was my first impression of the Roomba 560. When I got the package from Amazon, I couldn't wait to try this out, so I started a little spot clean before I let it get its first charge. The robot immediately started a spiral pattern which widened until it ran into me sitting on the floor, and then it backed up and started going the other way. It continued to amuse me until it ran out of juice, and I had to charge it like I was supposed to in the first place.
The thing that surprised me the most was the noise. Overall, I would consider it more quiet than any vacuum I've heard, but that may not be true in the strictest decibel sense. The main difference is in the quality of noise. While vacuums offer the high pitched whine of a rotary motor, Roomba offers a much more complicated noise which you really can't describe as anything other than "mechanical." This kind of sound is much less annoying to me, since the regular vacuum sounds way to much like "ringing" in your ears, especially if you run it for a long time. The noise of the Roomba you can avoid entirely by scheduling, or simply leaving the room.
I must admit I had some concerns about how Roomba would treat my hardwood floors. So far, after a few months, not a scratch. I also had some concerns about it finding its way back to recharge. Only once did this happen to me, and I consider it my fault. I will explain later...
So, there are several good reasons to buy this unit. The main reason is because you want a robot to clean your floors. This may seem over simplified, but this is the best product to do this job.
Secondly, this unit cleans your floors better than you can. I just don't know how anything, human or otherwise, could clean your floors better than Roomba. I used it after having tile removed put a fine coat of dust all over everything. This unit cleaned them until they shined. Amazing. I think the secret is that little side brush which rotates like a helicopter. Brilliant.
Thirdly, it has no major hang-ups. Things you think that would totally mess it up, like going over large thresholds, vacuuming over large rugs with tassels, etc don't confound it. It is well designed to handle these kinds of problems, and its software handles its job quite well.
On the caution side, there are a few things to point out. Namely open doors. If you want it to clean a little room, say like the water closet, you might have trouble. Leaving the door open (at least without a door stop) will give it fits. When it "hits" the door on either side, the door will swing, and no telling what the result will be. An open door that cannot be pushed completely against a wall does not work for Roomba.
Small rugs are another no no. Little rugs like bathroom rugs usually don't work, especially if they don't have a rubberized backing. Mine don't, and I have to remove my rugs, even my shower rug, since it doesn't have the no slip grip of rubber on the back. It is not that Roomba can't climb over the edge of the rugs, but it is that Roomba has a tendency to slide the rug around, which can "trap" the Roomba into a situation where it can't find it's way back to the base.
The only time Roomba hasn't found his base for me is when I left out sliding rugs and opened doors that can't press their whole width completely against a wall. If the door can be put against a wall, or held firm with a door stop then open doors might work. Some have reported Roomba not finding the base for no good reason at all. This hasn't happened to me yet.
Emptying Roomba involves lifting the little critter up by the handle (the black arch seen on the silver lid) and holding it over a waiting trash bag. Otherwise, you cannot open the tiny little dirt container without dumping out some on the floor. Then the filter must be changed, and the rollers and brushes cleaned with the provided yellow brush cleaning dilly. I do this every time, and I would recommend you do to. This is a bit of a pain, but considering my only job is to clean the machine, and it does the vacuuming, I don't mind. But still, it is something you don't have to do each time with a traditional vacuum, so it should be listed on the negative side.
The price some may consider prohibitive, but you can actually pay a lot more for vacuums than this, especially if you like European models like Sebo, or others. This really seems like a reasonable price to get a vacuum cleaner when you consider you are getting something to do the job by itself with no supervision.
Overall I would highly recommend this 'bot to anyone, especially anyone who loves technology anyway. If you love technology, you will instantly fall in love with this little robot, who diligently slaves away with merry electronic noise feedback. You have to admit, while some people find robotic dogs or dinosaurs endearing, I find it far more endearing to find a robot who takes away one of my chores and then happily let's me know he's done with some cheerful beeps. Sounds like a lifelong friend to me :)