iRobot Scooba 350 Floor-Washing Robot
by iRobot
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List Price: Category: Home See more product details |
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Tools and Hardware Reviews of iRobot Scooba 350 Floor-Washing Robot
Customer Review: Should have a charging dock.
Summary: 3 Stars
I am pleased with the overall operation and performance of the SCOOBA but my SCOOBA was not good at detecting a carpeted area and "wet on the rug" before it just stopped there. It only has one virtual wall and the ROOMBA virtual walls are not compatible with it, so it is difficult to keep it roped in with only one virtual wall. It would also be nice if they enhanced it to have a charging base and be able to return to it for charging like the ROOMBA does.Customer Review: Check your floors first....
Summary: 3 Stars
This is a great concept, but did not work for my floors. Product is not safe for laminate wood flooring, which is what I turned out to have. Also, my tile floors are white with deep white grout lines, and the dirty water tended to pool in the grout lines. However, I could see this being a great product for other types of hardwood and tile/linoleum floors - just not a great fit in my case.Customer Review: Not compatible with my floors
Summary: 3 Stars
I think this product is great - it just wasn't compatible with my floors. Unless you're a flooring expert, it would be difficult to determine compatibility from product description.Customer Review: Great concept, poor design
Summary: 2 Stars
I really hope the company looks at these reviews. I would give this product 5 stars were it not for the "small" but extremely annoying design issues. First of all it does get stuck in the least likely places such as between the legs of a chair. My guess is that there's nothing one can change to avoid that. If space openings roughly match the Scooba's width it'll likely get stuck there - unfortunately. This is not a huge issue. Once it gets stuck a couple of times you find ways to rearrange furniture to prevent the device from going there the next time.
Much more annoying is everything related to the tank design. Latches, handles, sensors are a nightmare. The pull-up release handle and the latch on the tank is in my lowly opinion the height of design incompetence. The latch would release on its own in the middle of cleaning causing Scooba to stop and complain that the tank is open. Ironically some time later the latch got stuck so I could not take out the tank. No amount of pulling on the handle did the trick. The flimsy handle finally broke off. I now have an invalid device that still works but looks like it fought in a war.
While it was still brand new it would frequently stop and signal for you to "check tank," while there were no obvious reasons for it - solution tank still full, dirty water tank still with plenty of capacity. This is by far my biggest problem with the device because what I was really hoping to accomplish is leave it cleaning when I depart the house in the morning and come back to clean floors when I return. Instead you come back and find this thing either stuck, with a popped tank, or just a bogus "check tank" signal and you realize that it didn't get even 5 minutes into its cleaning. You now have to "jiggle the handle" and listen for an hour to its - fairly loud - operation when you want to relax after work.
All of these issues are made all the more irritating since I took extra care to avoid them by thoroughly cleaning it on a regular basis.
I would still recommend it to anyone who likes clean floor, has a LOT of patience, but doesnt have time or energy to swiffer. If iRobot folks could put their heads together and fix these rather basic design issues I would be a much bigger proponent. Until then swipper the floors to avoid the frustration.
Customer Review: iRobot needs to redesign this product for less than glass-smooth floors
Summary: 2 Stars
Being the VERY happy owners of a Roomba 415 we excitedly bought a Scooba in order to eliminate this other most odious chore.
The promise was wonderful... better mopping than us mopping WITHOUT us mopping.
Unfortunatelly reality set in. While this device MAY work as advertised on wood floors, or perfectly smooth tile floors, it is a DISASTER on our Saltillo (mexican tile) floor. Roomba has no problems climbing up and down our kids' playmat which is about 1/2 inch thick ... scooba not only can't handle that... it can't even handle the natural unevenness of our floor. It keeps getting stuck and we have to restart it.
My guess is that iRobot designed Scooba this way in order to prevent it from climbing up on (and wetting) area rugs. If that's the case then iRobot should redesign the device so that the owner can push a button that reads "Climb everywhere" that allows scooba to operate on the same *terrain* as Roomba for people with uneven floors and no area rugs.
Most amazing, Scooba wasn't even able to operate on our kids' playmat... this is a rubber floor with very very minor bumps... no go. Scooba would slip and slide and get stuck there too.
I guess we'll wait for the next iteration.
WE DEFINITELLY RECOMMEND THE ROOMBA THOUGH!