Home > Consumer Reviews > iRobot Roomba Pro Intelligent Floorvac Robotic Vacuum

It's usefulness depends on a few issues. I have a rapid charger so that helps. I do not depend on this to do my deep cleaning, but it's great for surface stuff. It's also GREAT if you're back is killing you or some other handicap prevents you from using a real vacuum. Mine runs forever and picks up a lot of dog hair, though not ground-in hair. I cannot leave the house and come back and expect it to be done, 'cause it's always getting caught on something (a throw rug or piece of furniture), but works out great if I'm at home doing other chores. It saves no time due to the fact I must spend 15 minutes cleaning out the dog hair once it's finished. But I use it when I'm lazy or hurting and save the cleaning out part for when I'm up too it.

Initially, the Roomba product worked well for a month and a half. There were a few cases from daily use where Roomba got stuck on a bathroom floor mat by accident. This altered one of the back wheels calibration.

The product is a tri wheel. The 2 back wheels are motorized and do the turning. The front wheel is fixed and unmotorized. Some how their calibration got off on the back wheels. The roomba would no longer go in a straightline. It would always arc over a long distance. Cleaning then became irradic. Particularly in spin mode. The roomba would spin correctly going clockwise. But when roomba would spin counter clockwise it would spin endlessly with no increase in the radius from the initial spin point. It would work fine along the walls and under furniture. Roomba appears to traverse in a polar coordinate system. So, the fact that it could not go in a straight path forward really caused it some heart burn.

I think the product needs some more toughening. Particularly with its two motor drive system. Perhaps having 2 motors is more compicated and can lead to issues if one of the motors is damaged by prolong use. Having one motor and using the front wheel to turn would be a more reliable system in the customers opinion.

Also, the inside of the robot gets filled with dust. I think this will lead to eventual electronic malfunction.

During the first months of operation roomba fulfilled it promise. But again the product has some durability issues.

In addition, it is difficult to determine how much of the room the product has actually cleaned.

This little guy does the job, gets in under furniture that you can't reach on your own. Very decent vaccuuming job, as evident by how quickly it fills up the waste bin. Just make sure you don't have tassled rugs. Cords and furniture don't bother it, unless it happens to get stuck in a small dead end. The on board computer is actually pretty decently smart. One thing, for everyone's information, is that there is a charging problem with this model (PRO), where the battery can be drained prematurely if you leave it plugged in and charging > 12 hours. Which of course, we all do. On the flip side, they called me to tell me of the problem, and are shipping out an adapter to fix the problem. Great proactive customer service, if you ask me.

Update to my previous review, below: The second Roomba died just as the first did, only sooner. After a good deal of consultation with Roomba customer service it is running again. Turns out that some judicious disassembly and cleaning rug fuzz and dog hair from around the axle for the spinning brush returned it to health. Better instructions on what to clean might have helped, as would letting users know the beep codes that identify problem areas when Roomba shuts down. Roomba is still an item for the involved early adopter, I think, although perhaps the new generation machines are superior.

Original Review:
I'm now on my second RoombaPro. The first died just under warranty even though I was assiduous about cleaning it between uses. It was cheerfully replaced via mail by IRobot--no questions asked.

That said, I'm a Roomba fan. Since the machine cycles over the floor again and again, it gets things a lot cleaner than I do while vacuuming by hand. It's especially impressive at picking up Golden Retriever fur and dust from our bare floors and berber carpeting. I can vacuum by hand and then immediately get better results with Roomba.

If you have pile carpeting, avoid it, since battery power gives it limited abilities to deal with the greater resistance of deeper piles.

Consumer Reports recently ran a largely negative review that failed to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the product. (Typical CR: trash whatever is unusual.) If you're an "early adopter" willing to do the upkeep on the machine, if you're interested in watching the Roomba at work and figuring out its cleaning algorithm, if you'd rather not spend time vacuuming--get a Roomba. If you're not a little "handy," if you have deeper pile rugs, don't bother.

I recommend that any prospective purchaser read all the Amazon reviews before purchasing.

By the way, the Roomba is perfect for cleaning pool tables!

Hi,

The battery in my iRobot Roomba Pro Intelligent Floorvac died after eight months of using it twice a week on hardwood floors. I might consider buying a new battery, but to spend $60 to keep the little guy working just isn't worth it because it won't clean my carpets.

I was very disappointed when I first got the vacuum. It just did not have the traction to keep moving on my carpet. It would go about ten feet and die. I have a plush carpet that is somewhat thick. I had heard that the vacuum did not work well on heavy carpet, but I thought they meant that it didn't do deep cleaning. I didn't realize that it would not work at all. I wasn't worried about the lack of deep cleaning. I just wanted it to handle the surface dirt and planned to do deeper cleaning using my regular vacuum.

I must say it worked fine on my hardwood floors and I used it weekly for them. It also seemed to work OK on rugs left on the hardwood floors--even those that were quite thick.

I'm giving it an overall rating of 2, but the breakdown would be:

4: hard surface
0: carpet