Roomba 560 - 4 days of ownership… a brief review

Well, I have had the Roomba 560 robotic vacuum by iRobot for 4 days now. Here is my initial review of the product.

Originally, I had thought of this as a luxury item. We have a regular vacuum and this was just something we thought would be ‘cool.’

We’ve just moved into a new condo building. Three new buildings are being built nearby and the net result is a lot of dust. The floors in here are hardwood, with carpet in two bedrooms. Every day we were sweeping up just to keep up with the dust and dirt. Top that off with a pet cockatoo who creates a lot of dust and is a virtual feather factory and you end up with a fair bit of dirt on the floors.

Started off with Roomba in the main living area. Pressed clean and off it went, moving around in a chaotic random fashion. But it seemed to do well, circling around on any areas it found particularly dusty. Very cool.

So now I thought we would try the scheduler. Programming it was easy. Press Schedule, choose the day and the time. Done. That was quick. The Roomba 560 comes with two ‘lighthouses’ that will keep Roomba in one room until it is clean and then let it move into the next room. This allowed me to set up three areas (kitchen/foyer, living room/dining room, master bedroom).

So far, I’m impressed. So is my wife. The cleaning so far has been fairly easy, but this unit does get pretty dirty. However, it’s easy enough to disassemble and cleanup is reasonably quick.

My concern is: Will it continue to clean effectively as it ages, or will a general level of ‘dirt and buildup’ cause it to slow down. How about when the batteries deplete enough that it can’t get to all three rooms anymore?

Until that time, it’s nice to come home to clean hardwood floors and carpets with little random vacuum tracks on them. Sure, it takes over an hour, but it’s an hour that I can do other work with (although it is fascinating to watch the robot at work).

My wife thinks its a great device too. It gets under the bed and the furniture in most places and does a fine job. When it is done, it goes back to its base and recharges itself. We hid the base underneath a bench at the front door, so with the exception of the little lighthouses, there is no evidence that we even have a roomba.

I’ve also heard that the spinning side brushes break easily. I hope not, as it seems very important to the process!

If you are making a decision between a regular vacuum and a roomba, get a regular vacuum. You can vacuum much faster and do furniture as well. However, for day to day maintenance, the roomba is a great choice.

Next question… should I get the Scooba - the floor scrubbing version? I’ll wait and see.

I’m also interested in writing another review of the Roomba in a few months time. We’ll see if I’m still impressed and what sort of problems I’ve encountered in that time.

Want to see some videos of it in action… Well, the visitors to YouTube have a pile of them on there. Click here to search for Roomba 560 Videos.