Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Update March 2022: The i3 was my 2nd Roomba purchase and it will certainly be my last. Once again, a Roomba product has stopped working shortly after the 1yr warranty expired. This time either the battery or the charging station has failed as the unit will not charge (yes I cleaned the contacts and followed all of the troubleshooting steps.) Then Roomba has the audacity to charge $90 for a replacement battery (30% the cost of an entire new unit) which may or may not resolve the issue. Given Roomba's pedigree of low/poor quality (in my experience), why would I continue to invest money in a product that does not last? Here's the bottom line. For me, several hundred dollars is a lot of money to spend on a unit that is more or less disposable. Said another way, if I spend several hundred dollars on an appliance I expect to get YEARS of trouble-free use out of it, not months. If you want a reliable, long-lasting product I suggest you look elsewhere. December 2020: The i3 is my 2nd Roomba. My first experience was with a Roomba 690 which lasted about 16 months before it went in the trash. I HATED the 690 and am hoping to have a better experience with the i3. Take One - My first i3 would not connect to my 2.4 Ghz home network. After about 2 hours of trying and growing more and more frustrated I finally gave in and called Roomba tech support. For about 30 minutes the Roomba rep walked me through all of the troubleshooting steps I already completed but we still got the "Failed to Connect to Network" error message. I packed up the i3, drove to the UPS store and returned it. Amazon had a replacement i3 on my doorstep the next day (Thank you Amazon!) Take Two - The 2nd i3 connected to my home network within minutes. So we have confirmation that the first Roomba delivered was defective. This does not bode well for product durability or assuage my concerns about Roomba quality after my experience with the 690 model. Operation - My house is almost entirely hardwood floor and the i3 cleans vey well. I have 2 big dogs and the i3 does an excellent job picking up their hair. The i3 does not get trapped on my area rug either with the asinine "stuck near a cliff" error like the 690 did more or less everyday. Also, when I send the i3 home via the app it makes a beeline back to home base and doesn't continue to wander aimlessly around the house like the 690 did. The i3 is significantly quieter than the 690 and doesn't have that "grating" sound; it operates with more of a "smooth" sound if that makes sense. The tones and chimes on the i3 are much more pleasant as well. The i3 cleans in "straightish" lines but not perfectly straight; it drifts noticably as it crosses the room, but that's not a deal breaker for me. I did not opt for the self emptying bin base (the i3+ model.) One important thing to note is that the i3 bin is significantly smaller than the 690 bin. If you don't opt for the self emptying bin base, then expect to empty the bin manually after every cleaning as the i3 bin is very small, relatively speaking (see pic.) My final thought is so far so good, but only time will tell if this was a good purchase. If the i3 is still operating like this in 2-3 years I will upgrade to 4 stars.