I have always been skeptical of these devices not believing that they could work very well. To give it a fair test, I purchased a top of the line model, the Roomba 570. Cindy does work hard (we both do actually) to keep our house clean. However, our choice of pets, an Umbrella Cockatoo, does not share in that desire to live in a spotless environment. She is very bad about throwing seeds out of her cage so daily vacuuming WAS an absolute necessity. I found a "money back if you are not satisfied" offer and decided to try it. This little device is phenomenal. I program it to vacuum every day around the middle of the day while we are gone. We come home to perfectly vacuumed floors every day. It goes out and vacuums for about an hour and parks itself back in the charger docking station waiting for the next programmed session. It also has a remote control so that I can back it off the charger at any time and direct it to an area that needs attention. If you have ever thought about buying one of these, do so. They are fantastic!
Tom... did you pay the 399.00 list...or get a deal somewhere? My wife has been talking about one of these for years. How does it do in right angle corners and around furniture? Under furniture and beds? climbing over thresholds? How would one handle steps? joel
It will not handle steps. It does have a sensor to keep it from falling down stairs. Right angles are not a problem because of the rotating edge brush. You can see it as three little brushes in the link I provided. That is actually a six fingered rotating brush that pulls dirt from the edges and corners into the path of the vacuum. As far as under furniture goes, as long as it can get under it, it will clean under it. It's amazing watching it clean under our formal dining room table with six chairs. It goes in and around all the chair legs and cleans very well. I have no thresholds to test it on inside the house. All rooms have no more than a transition from carpet to ceramic tile... no thresholds. If you have rugs with long tassels like that shown in the link, that is not a problem either. If anything gets caught in the brushes, they will reverse direction to remove the tangle. There are some places that this unit cannot reach. It does reach more places than our regular vacuum can get to though. As for the price, there are units that are less expensive. They are not programmable. You would have to push a button on it each time you wanted it to clean. The battery is not as good so it will not clean as long without recharging. Some do not have the docking station to recharge the battery... you have to plug in a cord to the unit itself. I'm all for convenience. I am about to buy two more of them. One for my home office and one for my mother. As you can see, you can get $75 off the purchase of two.
Tom, we've had one for 2-3 years....greatly exceeded my expectations - both the performance and the company standing behind their product. Whenever we've had an issue, the company has provided a replacement , conveniently, at their expense, no questions asked. Great stuff.....I recommend it as well.
Joel, here is a good price on one if the auction does not skyrocket. less than 4 hours left. http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-iRobot-Roomba-560-Vacuum-Cleaning-Robot-More_W0QQitemZ300252349559QQcategoryZ124101QQcmdZViewItem
Just bought two more... If you look at the bidders, I would bet that you would know which one is me without knowing that I got two of them... I am IMAVOLTOO pronounced I'm a Vol too. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&item=300252349559