Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I have wanted a Roomba for years but it wasn’t until my wife and I bought a new colonial where the downstairs was all wood floors that I finally was able to convince my wife to get one. Am I glad that I did! Our Roomba is awesome. I bought the 650 series, which is the pet version. We have a Jack Russell terrier which seems to shed non-stop, so there is little white hairs everywhere. The Roomba picks up the hair like it is its….well… job. Positives: The Roomba goes around in its random little pattern and does a great job picking up all the hair and dirt bits on our first floor which is roughly 1000 square feet. It negotiates furniture to include a kitchen island and dining room table. It picks up around 98% of the dirt and hair that is on the floor (more on the 2% in the negative section). It gets under our baseboard heating with its outside sweeper and really does an excellent job. With that being said, the majority of the area that it cleans is hard wood floors, with the occasion area rug. We have carpet upstairs but we don’t use it on that so I can’t really comment too much on how it does on large carpeted areas. If you look at the photos I have uploaded, you can see what it grabbed on one run and then the following day run. After each run it backs itself up into its docking station and recharges itself for the next run. I would use the timer and do it at night but I enjoy watching it go around and go through its process. Does it make noise? Yes. Is it loud like some people have stated. No. I don’t know how you could say that this is loud, it is not even close as loud as a large vacuum. I would compare it to a little 9v lithium battery hand drill that I have. It makes a noise, but you could watch tv as it travels by you with maybe one increase in the volume button. Negatives: (minor negatives) You need to think for it. We have to pick up our dining room chairs and the kitchen island bar stool and put them on the table so it can go around the table and kitchen island. If you have the chairs there, it might not be able to get under the table since it will bounce around on the chair legs and have a hard time negotiating the table and chair legs. I also have to block off an opening that is alongside of my recliner because the Roomba will go behind it and get kind of stuck back there for 5 minutes or so trying to get out. It did get out but I feel it is wasting time back there so I put some of my daughters toys in the way so it can’t get back there. I also close the door to my downstairs bathroom because of another person’s review that it sometimes closes a door and locks itself in their bathroom. I avoid that by just closing the door and keeping it from going in. I also have to pick up the floor for anything that would normally get caught up in a regular vacuum. Cords, shoes (and shoe laces) and other items that it will get wrapped up in. It is a vacuum and it has the negatives of any large vacuums, the only difference is you aren’t there to bring it back over the areas that it might have missed. The 2% that I feel it doesn’t pick up isn’t because it “missed it,” it is because it is usually in a transition area where the vacuum lifts up. If I have a bit of dirt along the edge of an area rug it will miss it because it is lifting up in the front to go over the rug. We also have a thick tread “mud hog” matt at our side entry that grabs dirt clumps upon entering the side door. The Roomba doesn’t do that great of a job on the deep crevices but I just normally pick the matt up and shake it outside…all better. Overall: If you take two minutes to pick up your area and plan ahead for you Roomba, your Roomba will make quick work of the dirt in the house. For the 2% that it misses, I grab a broom and a dust pan and sweep it up in 30 seconds. It is much quicker to grab that little 2% than to sweep my entire downstairs or do it all by hand with my other vacuum. Overall, I love the Roomba. It’s fun to watch, great to help out around the house to clean for us and really saves us time so we can have one less thing to do when it comes to cleaning up the house. If you follow the simple directions that come with the Roomba you won’t have an issue. It cleans and saves you time. So why would you not buy this? Other people have said: People have said its too loud – that’s crazy. It makes noise, but it is a machine and it’s a vacuum. The sound it makes is fine. Someone said they didn’t like picking up their dining room chairs – I don’t know how you would clean around them with a regular vacuum. You’d have to move them to do that anyway. Help you’re Roomba out. Don’t be mad at it because you don’t want to help your Roomba succeed. Someone said that they have to pick up their Roomba and put it manually back on the charging station – you didn’t follow the directions that say have the charging station in an open area so the IR signal can be seen by your Roomba to return. They even have a photo in the instruction manual that shows where to put the charging station so the Roomba can find it. Follow the directions. If you have a pile of dirt and some of it is a fine powder on the floor it doesn’t get it all - Neither will a large vacuum. It won’t clean up mud either. It’s a vacuum, not a mop. It can’t get everything. It only does one room then it has to recharge – I have an open concept Colonial that is around 1000 square feet in the downstairs. It does the entire downstairs (minus my bathroom, I close the door). If it can only do one small area before it has to recharge, you didn’t follow the directions, which states to let it charge overnight before its first use or the battery might not work properly. Their expensive – Yup, so is a nice vacuum, like a Dyson, a vacuum that actually works, not the crap you find at Walmart for $75. And it is a robot. Good vacuum and robot = not free. It doesn’t get the grit in the cracks and seems in the floors – First off, why do you have cracks in your floors? Secondly, in the natural small divots that are formed between the hardwood floor planks it picks up dirt just fine. In fact my wife just said “the floors look good.” She was the biggest skeptic of the Roomba due the cost and the expectations she had of it.