Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Latest Update 4 June 2021 Failing to dock is the current headache for this unit. See the video. We have tried cleaning all the sensors and sometimes, not always, that seems to help for a while, and then it goes back to failing to dock. As seen in the video, it will attempt to reposition itself until it finally runs out of battery. I can place the unit on the doc and have all the lights come on to show that it is charging and then it will back off the dock and try to reposition itself. I really want this to work, but it can be quite frustrating to keep running. ------ Well, over the last 3 months (Today is March 28, 2021), the unit has required more and more maintenance. The most common problem is claiming, "Empty the bin" when the Roomba would mate with the base unit and NOT do this automatically. Did some searching online and found some suggestions on what to clean since the bin was NOT full or near full. That has helped. However, the Roomba is now failing to charge when it mates with the base unit and that is a real problem. We have tried cleaning the contacts and that doesn't seem to really help. This has gone from a run and forget robot vacuum to a constant maintenance issue. We will tr to resolve the issues of charging... --------- Original post below... Okay, got the iRobot Roomba i3+, unboxed it and set it up according to the instructions. Good news, physical 'assembly' was almost non-existent. Bad news, we had a heck of a time getting set up with wifi and then getting the robot recognized. We started over several times and completely started over (including unplugging/resetting/powering everything. Once that was done, things have been pretty amazing. We have both carpeting and hardwood floors, but mostly carpeting. The unit came fully charged or nearly fully charged and went to work almost right away. We chose this unit specifically because it said it was good with pet hair. We have a 80+ lb shepherd, a 40 lb brown mix, a 90+ lb great Pyrenees/retriever mix (long haired), and a cat. WE HAVE A PET HAIR PROBLEM, plus all the dirt the dogs track in from the back yard. We probably should have vacuumed fully before starting the Roomba, but said, "What the heck. Let's see what it can do." The first many trips to and from the charger involved vacuuming and mapping our house. Because of the level of pet hair and such, it was going back to the base unit very regularly. The base unit has a bag into which the Roomba self empties. We have replaced/emptied the bag multiple times because of the sheer amount of pet hair being collected. COOL! What we had was overwhelming for the Roomba, however, and some really long hair that apparently doesn't get sucked up well tends to ball up under the Roomba and then is just left behind as a fur-doodle. As these were mostly white, I blame the great Pyrenees mix, LOL. The fur-doodles get left on the carpeting, not the hardwood, so I suspect the carpeting is hampering some fur collection. However, fur is being collected in huge amounts and is mostly what is filly the base unit bag. After some 15 hours of work time over a couple of days, the Roomba had the area of the house mapped to which we allowed it access. It assessed our house size as 2700 sq feet and that we had it accessing about 1000 of that. Our house is actually 2815 sq ft, but I was impressed with the estimate given we limited where it would clean. We do not have it doing one large room (sunken), the bathrooms, closets, and it cannot go under the appliances, cabinets, some furnture, etc. We now run the Roomba for 1-2 hours each day and let it do its thing and it is doing a very good job. We are quite pleased with the result. We do have a sunken room with a carpeted step. For whatever reason, the Roomba keeps trying to drive into the sunken room and gets stuck and sounds the alarm for us to rescue it. As of yet, we have not figured out how to tell it to not go there, but my wife says she thinks that is in the directions. The directions also include instructions on how to tell it to clean certain areas. We have not figured that out yet. I will report back when we do. A couple of times the Roomba has sounded the alarm when it realized it did not have enough juice to make it back to the charger and we had to rescue it and put is on the charger. NOISE - I don't think I had realistic expectations as to what to expect. However, the noise of the basic operation isn't bad at all. No problem being in the same room with it and watching TV. When the Roomba returns to the base and empties, it does sound like a jet aircraft taking off for a few seconds, and then things are quiet again. I will be honest with you. I never considered actually buying one of these because I figured it probably would not work all that well and not be a good value for the money. I don't believe the Roomba will replace a typical home vacuum cleaner for a deeper clean of carpeting, but as a general maintenance cleaning aid, the Roomba is outstanding. One must keep in mind that it may not clean everything perfectly well with a single pass (nor does your home vacuum cleaner), but works through repetition. It took a couple of days to get our house mapped and 'under control.' Areas of the house were covered by the Roomba multiple times during that period. So now we send it out for an hour or two each day and things stay looking nice. So while originally I didn't think this was something that would be all that great, now I am thinking this would be a great gift for those who don't like or who can't do regular/timely floor cleaning. I am impressed. --------- We have now had to do our first maintenance on the Roomba to remove hair that had become wrapped around the rollers and spinner. Did I mention we have big dogs? LOL. The rollers come out easily for servicing. It little side spinner detaches via a single screw. It was all easy peezy.