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

I love everything about this little dynamo because I hate everything about vacuuming! It's so cute, and even beeps when it is finished. I love how you can use the guides to keep it contained in one area. The only con is that it doesn't do windows! ;)

The product does what it claims. Once your rooms are Roomba Friendly you can leave it unattended and return to a clean floor.

The cleaning capability is surprising and very satisfactory the only draw back is that the particular bin is very small.. quite simply the remedy for that problem is doing the autovacuuming more often. It takes longer than a 'human' counterpart would take to clean a room.. but WHO CARES! As long as I don't have to do it :-)

If there is ever a irobot that can do windows, laundry and cooking... I'll be first in line....I just gotta get me one of those too ;-)

For those of us who hate housework but can't stand a house littered with cathair, dust, grit and crumbs, this bot is great! Charge it up, hit its button and away it goes scouring your floors and doing an incredibly good job of clean up. Okay, it knocks over any chatchkes you leave lying about and it eats rug tassels if you forget to tuck them under. But when it gets tangled up or flumoxed by an obstacle, it simply calls for help and you go rescue it. It doesn't fall off stairs and if you set up a virtual wall it won't go where it's forbidden (although mine just loves to go explore the bathroom if I forget to close the door.) It's quieter than my big industrial duty vaccuum cleaner so I can write while it is cleaning. If you use it regularly you can get by with a "real" vaccum cleaning every few weeks. My only complaint is that it cannot handle my medium pile carpet (although it keeps trying to). But since I mostly have hardwood floors this is not a major failing. I figure I've already amortized its price, when you take into account that I don't need to pay social security, medicare or workers comp for it.

Now bring on the ironing bot, iRobot!

Two words: It works. I think what I like best is how it keeps the wood floors "barefoot clean". It also does carpets well and since it has a beater bar also leaves that "vacuumed" look in the form of tracks on the carpet, although they are random patterns reminiscent of a Pollack painting.

At first it won't save you any time, because you'll spend a lot of time just watching it work because it's fun. After a while though you'll get a big kick out of turning it on and leaving the house and then finding the job done when you get back.

A couple of tips:

1. Buy an extra battery and definitely the quick charger. This way you can have one charging while the other is in the robot, vacuuming away.

2. Learn to prepare the rooms. You'll have to watch the robot the first time it does each room or area, just to get a feel for where to put the virtual walls and how to move the furniture around.

3. At a minimum, buy the pro model with the "spot" mode. You'll use it a lot.

4. You'll need to deep vacuum your carpets at least once every two weeks.

That's it. It is worth every penny. I will probably buy another one for the upstairs.

Roomba is simply incredible! My floors now get vacuumed 2-3 times a week rather than 2-3 times a month as when I had to it myself. It cleans so well and so thoroughly, you have to see the dust bin FULL of yucky crud to believe it. (Where does all that dirt come from in just two days?) The best part is that Roomba vacuums under the furniture! The only pieces in my apartment that it can't get under are the nightstands, due to their insufficient width. BUT, I did have significant problems getting a unit that didn't have anything wrong with it. I bought the first one -- a Pro Elite -- at the Sharper Image in Dallas, TX. It turned out to be a "return" and was DOA when I got it home. That sucked! Roomba #2 lasted about 3 months and then stopped picking up -- it turned out that the main brush wouldn't spin anymore because its attachment doodads on the ends had been stripped. I don't know if it's because I didn't put the brush back in properly after a cleaning or not. . . Roomba #3 seemed fine except it seemed to crap out after a relatively short period of time. . . after clocking it twice at only 35 minutes, I returned it for Roomba #4, which seems to be fine after two months use. I did pay I think $50 for a 3-year replacement warranty -- which I won't be surprised if I have to use -- but it's worth it!