UPDATE: Four months after this original post about the Roomba 560 Vacuum Cleaner you see below, the brushes stopped working. Read about my call to iRobot support and what I discovered in the process that will help extend the life of the vacuum.

Now that I’ve owned a Roomba Vacuum Cleaner for a couple months now, it’s time I shared my experience and whether it was a good purchase.  I know this review is a bit involved, but if you’re really considering buying one, this should be very helpful info.

My scenario:
I live here with my girlfriend and two cats in a 1,000 square foot apartment that was never occupied before me.  I have 2 bedrooms, a bathroom, a small hallway, a small dining area, kitchen and a living room.  The two bedrooms are carpeted.

The best assessment I can give is to compare my experiences with what you see in iRobot’s official video. Check my time stamps below the video as I elaborate on the selling points:

At 0:27: When the Roomba Vacuum Cleaner runs over the spilled corn flakes, you don’t see the carpet after Roomba runs over it. That’s because it won’t pick it all up on the first sweep.  It usually takes about 3 rotations to really get all those chips.

At 0:44: It does remove dirt, dust and pet hair very well, if all those are dry.  Imagine the nice orange streak it leaves when trying to clean up cat vomit.

At 0:53: It’s great for getting the dust bunnies under the couch and the bed. That’s very true.

At 0:58: The Roomba Vacuum Cleaner does a great job getting the dirtier areas. A blue light turns on to let you know it’s deep cleaning. Two thumbs up on that feature.

At 1:08: I’ve never seen the Roomba clean along wall edges that straight, which explains the slo-mo. That may have been one or two second money shot along the wall. The spinning side brushes are better for throwing dirt around to break up something that may be partially stuck to the carpet,  They are not very powerful…at all, and sometimes don’t spin around at all. I had to loosen the screw on it to make it spin better.

At 1:24: It has gotten stuck on bathroom floor rugs–the kind that are usually thicker and have the rubbery matting. After a couple attempts at trying to get unstuck, it stops and makes a sound until you fix it.

At 1:28: Onboard scheduling is awesome! Mine starts up at 8:30pm each night, although you can set it for different times on different days of the week.

At 1:43: The simulation of it cleaning 4 rooms is very misleading.

• First of all, that’s not the typical 4-room scenario.  Two doors with no furniture?  I don’t think it’s even on carpet, that looks like tile.
• Sometimes it will finish one room, start the second, then come back to the first and never get to the other rooms before it dies an untimely death.
• That entire simulation would take about 1 1/2 hours to complete on a full charge.

At 1:51: 5 out of 10 times it makes it back to the base.  Either the brushes are clogged and it stops or it runs out of battery.

At 1:57: She says it will be ready to go next time you vacuum.  That’s if you pull it off the charger and clean it.  Seriously, this thing needs cleaning each and every day.

Cleaning the Roomba is the most inconvenient part of this purchase.  It takes a couple minutes to do it. Check out this picture of the cleaning brushes after one cleaning.

I’ve owned it for a couple months, and already I have to replace the rubber brush you see in that pic.  The ends got so hot, the plastic warped and the yellow cap fell off.

Other observations:

• It’s great when you see freshly clean carpet streaks in a room. That’s how I really know it’s done its job.  But after several weeks, those marks look more permanent especially in very low traffic areas.  Not a big deal, but it changes the carpet landscape.
• It will leave marks on your wall sometimes. It doesn’t always recognize a wall is there and slows down.  One day, it pulled an Exorcist on me and spun around like crazy and slammed into walls as fast as it could. I just shut it off and hoped it fixed itself.  Apparently it did.
• It’s quieter that you’d expect.
• I don’t have stairs, so I don’t know if it takes a fall when nearing the edge.
• It doesn’t deep clean. You still need your regular vacuum to get the good stuff.
• It does not have any HEPA filters.  I originally purchased this because I thought it would help my allergies. I DO think vacuuming every day is keeping the cat hair away, which offsets the lack of a HEPA filter (since I’m allergic to cats/cat dander).
• The cats are used to it by now. They do kinda follow it around, and if it’s dead, the cat will approach it and swat at the spinning side brushes.  But they don’t jump on it like you see in other YouTube videos.
• The pattern is chaotic. I don’t understand it. And the lighthouses seem to confuse it. Maybe it’s just me, and I’m paying too much attention to it.

Overall:
It’s nice to say “Hey I bought a robot!”, and I’m glad I made the purchase, but if you have wet dirt, you’re destined for more work than you bargained for when you try to clean up the mess it made.  You’ll end up cleaning the floor AND the innards of the Roomba.  And while it “does the work for you”, you have to clean it every day otherwise it’ll stop working until you do.

I bought it on a killer sale for under $300, but I think the price was low because new models were coming out.  If it wasn’t for the sale, I would have passed.  Also, I’m not sure how much the parts are, but I wasn’t expecting it to need new parts this early.

Please let me know if this review was helpful!

Web extras:
Roomba’s official web site
Check Roomba Vacuum prices online.