Customer Reviews

Virtual WallŽ LighthouseTM for RoombaŽ 500 Series

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The Virtual Wall Lighthouse is amazing, turning on and off with the Roomba 500 series via RF. I use a network of 5 of these to keep my Roomba out of the bathroom and to let it know which rooms are which.

Definitely get these over the plain old manually-activated virtual walls. You'll forget to turn them off and they eat batteries. Also, the lighthouse works with rechargeable batteries and the manual ones don't.

This item works in keeping your roomba in a contained space/rooom, just remember roomba will only work with 3 of these at a time. I did not know that until after I had purchased a total of 4 lighthouses.

I recently bought a 560 from Bed Bath and Beyond, and purchased these light houses on Ebay. The seller claimed, just like on here, that the light houses work with the 535 and above models. Unfortunately, that is not the case now. IT USE TO. Now the 500 series they have coming off the line no longer support the light houses, unless you purchase the 570 or above models. So my 560 will not work with these. :( And I cannot return the light houses either. Wish I had purchased the items from Amazon instead; they are so great with returns. I'm sure the product would have worked great......instead I have a Roomba that is just all over my lower floor.

These are worth having if your Roomba did not come with then or not with enough of them.

When set as a virtual wall, it will not allow Roomba to enter certain areas such as the bathroom.

When in Lighthouse mode, Roomba will pass through into another room and, after done with cleaning there, it will guide it back to the charging station.

Depending on how wide the passages you need to protect/signal, it can be set to 0-3ft., 4-7ft. or 8+ft.

It requires 2 C-cell batteries.

It seems to be 100% effective as a virtual wall when placed properly and close to 100% effective as a lighthouse.

Works just as it's supposed to. I have a petseries roomba and this worked just fine with it.

I ordered two 500 Series Virtual Wall Lighthouses through Amazon, and found they do not work with the new model #536. The Amazon ad states (in the Product Description) that the lighthouses work with models 535 and up. According to IRobot product support, this was true at one time, but not with the new 536 (and possibly other new models). The 536 will only work with Virtual Walls.

FYI, I could not rate the lighthouse, so my rating is for the 536.

Works well, contains and guides roomba effectively. Nice to have option of Lighthouse and virtual wall together.

But wish I could give it power off a wall socket, not just batteries. Then I could forget about it completely!

Product did not work as advertised. Unable to get useful responses from iRobot customer support. Concluded that either the product is misrepresented or I received a defective unit. Ended up abandoning them because iRobot did not respond effectively.

I really wish they had worked as shown in the videos, etc.

I'm not going to waste money on another set just hoping that I might get a couple that work. Your mileage may vary.

I have used two of these that came with my Roomba 500 series for slightly over a year. Both the virtual wall and lighthouse features worked well. I agree that it should plug into AC power. I think C sized batteries would be better than the D cells that it uses.

If I were only rating this item alone I would give it 4-5 stars. Unfortunately, I had to return the item because my 500 series Roomba failed just after the 1-year warranty. I had a 400 series that failed just after warranty due to the "circle dance". My 500 series failed because the two main brushes stopped turning with light use and thus it stopped cleaning. From what I have read this was due to a problem of an unsealed gear box with plastic gears. It seems hair would get in and cause the gear box to fail. It seems that the gear box has been re-designed but I do not think that there is any way to know which gear box one is getting when buying the product.

I find that iRobot makes a poorly designed product with very poor customer support. I do not see how they are staying in business. I think the only option to use this product would be with a lifetime warranty.

It's a lighthouse for Roomba 500 series and it simply does what it should do.