Customer Reviews

iRobot 530 Roomba Vacuuming Robot, White

5 star:		(187)
4 star:		(93)
3 star:		(19)
2 star:		(30)
1 star:		(38)

 

 

If you are new to Roomba, you will wonder if it is worthwhile. The answer is clearly YES, since anything it cleans is that much less for you to clean. However, which is better, the old (and cheaper) Roomba, or the new models like the 530?

First, the 530 comes with the charging/base station, and this is very useful. I have placed this in the entranceway which leads into the livingroom, the kitchen or the bedroom. Using the virtual walls (included), I block off rooms so that it can only do the entranceway + 1 other room. I simply press the "Clean" button, and it backs itself off the charging stand and then spends the next 2 hours cleaning, finally returning to the charging stand. Nice!

Should you upgrade from an older model Roomba (I now use my old Roomba upstairs)? It depends on your situation. By-the-way, the old virtual walls do NOT work with the new Roomba.

New Roomba:
Fall down stairs? Never
Climb onto thick throw rugs? Sometimes
Effectiveness on hard floors? Excellent
Effectiveness on carpets? Good
Trap itself in electrical cords? No
Trap itself in carpet fringes? No
# rooms it can do at once? 2
Ease of emptying dirt? Fairly good
Scare cats and dogs? No
Clean under low furniture? Yes
Quietness? Fairly

Old Roomba:
Fall down stairs? Never
Climb onto thick throw rugs? Rarely
Effectiveness on hard floors? Excellent
Effectiveness on carpets? Good
Trap itself in electrical cords? Usually
Trap itself in carpet fringes? Always
# rooms it can do at once? 2
Ease of emptying dirt? Fair
Scare cats and dogs? No
Clean under low furniture? Yes
Quietness? Fairly

Edit: 1/8/10
Roomba DIED! Nine beeps. Can't say I am happy. I called iRobot and they say the issue is due to a defective bumper which is NOT fixable. Since my warranty is expired, they offered me a somewhat discount price on a new Roomba. I am not sure what I will do.

Edit: 5/7/10
There directions for a cheap (although complicated) repair for this problem in the posts below.

Awesome. This new generation fixes all the problems of the previous. Much smarter, much bigger dust bin, much better in every way. Great that it self-docks when tired. Maintanence is a snap...really could not be easier/faster. There are some negatives - how could there not be? - but this thing has such a contagious personality that it starts feeling like your pet, and you're inclined to forgive, and even find the faults charming.

You have to prep the room (cords up and out of the way, no papers or clutter on the floor, move small items out of the room and learn which objects present problems and get them out of the way). Performance varies on throw rugs (it's great on rug/carpet surfaces themselves, but Roomba can get caught up as it travels over edges of throw rugs that don't have much weight or cling). It's good at slowing down and banging objects gently, but less so on narrow vertical objects (e.g. piano legs), which it really clunks (not enough to damage, but it will make you wince). In terms of results, it's a notch below a stout top-end British maid with her sturdy Hoover, but several notches above what mere mortals can achieve, and it's especially good on edgework, under baseboards and furniture, and other spots most people would miss.Yes, it gets corners fine, in spite of its round shape. It's got a whirling brush that ably gets at them.

Most of all, if you're someone who's non-meticulous about keeping up housekeeping cycles (even if not, like, a total slob), it's hard to describe the satisfaction of ALWAYS having spotless floors. Since, per above, you'll develop at least some degree of affection for your Roomba, it's the ideal pet...it vastly contributes to the household, yet its needs are few (I pull hairs out of its brushes with the affection of a dog owner checking his dalmation for tics).

I have a fairly large house, and one unit is more than enough. Every other day, I bring her upstairs to work, that's all.

Oh, and it's extraordinarily entertaining to watch. The drama of whether it'll ever get to this hairball or that crumb is downright fraught. In spite of its seemingly random pattern, it does somehow get everything in the end.

One nice side effect: the act of prepping a room for vacuuming - i.e. getting clutter off the floor - is itself a life-changing improvement. I find it much easier to organize books, papers, etc, when it's for an immediate purpose than as a general habit. So the house isn't just cleaner, floor-wise....it's also generally better kept-up. Love my Roomba. Buy one now.

With two dogs in the house we could not live without our Roomba. The 530 is a vast improvement from earlier models. It seems to pick up more dirt, the battery life is longer, the fast-charge is about 33% more rapid than its Discovery predecessors and it is generally more quiet.

The new sensors that prevent the robot from "speed-bumping" into furniture are a very nice touch, but beware if the robot is in a tight area, it may appear sluggish -- the sensors are working to continually slow it down. It's a feature I like, but need to get used to.

My only concern with this robot is the high cost of parts. The bot itself is cheaper than earlier models but the components most prone to breakage or wear-out are twice the cost so the lifetime operation costs may be higher. Replacement batteries are nearly $100. Earlier models were $50.

ONE MONTH LATER ....

This is a slight amend to my review above. Having used it for a month a couple points of note:

1) All of the new 5-Series Roombas lack the "Max Mode" that was common on earlier models. I miss this. I can no longer let it go util the battery runs out. It goes until it "thinks" it's finshed. Well, sometimes we disagree. And I'm usually right. It simply doesn't cover as much ground as I need it too in the standard clean mode. I'd have to mark it down a full star for this -- I can't count on it to do the whole house when I'm at work anymore.

2) The folks I know who have these encountered problems with the side cleaning bushes breaking off. After a month's use, I lost all but one. I'm sure this is high on their list of fixes.

I love the Roomba 530. There's one big problem with user experience for me right now. The side brush (one that has 5 or 6 legs sticking out) started to shed legs. After a month, I am down to two legs!

I tried iRobot online store and the replacement side brush is on back order. I called customer support and they offer to send replacement, except they don't have any!

So, if I use the Roomba 530 a lot now, it'll shed all the side legs. The side brush is very important because it sweeps trash to the front of the robot.

It seems iRobot didn't anticipate this. Lots of people are unable to get this critical part for replacement. Plus, it shouldn't break this easily anyway.

OK, I really give this 2-3 stars, but am only listing 1 star in hopes of more people getting to and finding this review. Just spent over 8 hours on the irobot.com and roombareview.com forums and i am exhausted from weighing all the pros/cons of whether to keep this. But here's the verdict: it's too new and you need to wait a year given the various bugs/design flaws that are all over the discussion boards, especially with the defective side brush issue that either (1) loses arms due to material flaws and/or (2) gets stripped and comes completely off due to poor plastic being mated with metal screw design. And don't waste time on these Amazon forums where most just seem so excited by the concept of having this little thing running around and give it 4-5 stars without pointing out any offsetting costs (yes, we were all real excited at first too). The forums I mention above are where the hardcore multi-unit owners participate. Read them. Read about these new 5th gen. issues. Anyway, we have had ours for about only 24 hours and although we WANT to keep it, we realize we can't and it will have to go back. Yes, it does many wonders like all these 4-5 star posts state, and yes it is cute, and yes it does 95% of what it is supposed to . . . but it is that last 5% that is so critical. We have already experienced both of the problems with the side brush that I mention above (trust me, will happoen to you too like it is for eveyone else), but the big hassle is that it does NOT go up small area rugs without that sidebrush getting caught under the rug and torquing at the rug and causing the unit to not climb it as a result) . Our whole house is hardwoods (where it works fine), but the front foyer rug and two simple kitchen rugs (all of which are high traffic areas needing daily cleaning) all experience the same problem with this problem side brush. We contemplated keeping the unit and simply unattaching the side brush (which keeps fallign off anyway due to the plastic screw hole), but I am not going to pay this much money and would rather wait for a fix to the materials and screw design of this all-important brush (i.e., the side brush gets all the crumbs that accummulate along the baseboards). Other than that, I would probably keep the unit . . . provided you don't have antique furniture (despite reviews, it DOES hit table/furniture legs and anything skinny VERY HARD becaused the sensor that is supposed to slow it down can't see these things . . . actually left white plastic residue on all the furniture). But, still, I would have tolerated this (we have kids and don't have high end furniture) if the other design flaws weren't there. Again, read the forums if you don't think I am being accurate or honest. Clearly I am not a paid poster and am just frustrated from the ordeal. The concept is so great and it really did do well on the bare hardwoods, but I am not ready to get rid of or remove all my rugs, and I got tired of the brush problem/breaking, so at this point I will wait and buy a year from now. Again, they are 95% of the way there with this. But not for this much $$ and aggravation. Good luck to all! P.S. They alos need a better manual as it contains very little on how to set everything up and you instead spend hours on the forums with other users to get the real ins and outs.

Worked fine at first. Pet owners beware. Cat and Dog hair jams gear drive. not serviceable. Poor automated phone service. No replies to internet complaints.
Requires frequent cleaning and emptying. Hair fouls brushes easily and frequently. Misses virtual wall barriers. Front windows scarred from frequent contact with furniture. Intend to ask for full refund.

I have this model and the previous model (4100/4200) and there are some important differences people need to be aware of.

The new model, this one, the 530, is much more autonomous than the 4100/4200 series (the previous model) that means it won't get stuck as often on things like floor vents, cords or rugs with fringe. It is slightly taller than the previous model so if you want to use your older virtually walls you must put something under them about a half inch thick and they will work fine. The 530 does not clean as well as the 4100/4200 due to a less aggressive brush design. There are a lot fewer bristles, they are shorter and they do not go completely around the main brush since the brush alternated bristles with rubber flappers (like the secondary take up brush). The net result is cleaning is less aggressive especially when removing pet hair from carpets. The new brushes also have a design flaw the old brushes did not. Pet hair now routinely get into the gear drive housing (the square socket the brushes fit into) and prevents the brushes from rotating. This means it needs to be cleaned nearly every time it is used and it is hard to do because it really wedges itself in that area. Also, the way the brushes are now designed there are lots of areas fro hair to build up that are hard to completely clean. This is a real issue when you have pets.

If your primary concern is removing pet hair from carpets, you may be better off with the older model. If your primary concern is complete autonomy with maybe 90% the cleaning power, go with this new model.

I love the IRobot Roomba but have to flame them now like a jilted lover.
4 years ago I moved into a new house with a stunning black granite floor.
Little did I suspect that we'd soon adopt a white Lab puppy from the local shelter that would generate daily snow drifts of cute white fluff.
In desperation I bought a Roomba Discovery. Best purchase of my life, I told everyone who'd listen, I even bought one for my Mom. Worked great until the main drive gears wore out a week after the warrantee expired.

No Problem I thought, they could fix it. Nope, they have no options but to sell you a new one. Within a month my mom's has the same problem. That Cute lil puppy is now 95 lbs of shedding mayhem. So I purchase the Brand new Roomba 530. Top of the line. Well, guess what, they improved it so much it won't work on black tile. The Support staff had the nerve to tell me that because of the stair sensors, they never worked on black tile. At $300 wouldn't you expect the new one to say "IMPROVED BUT DOESNT WORK ON DARK SURFACES" so you could avoid the hassle or have a software mod for people with dark floors and no stairs? Come on guys, make a repair path and tell users the limitations on the box.

I received my Roomba 530 as a birthday gift and have been very impressed so far. My apartment was quite messy when I turned Roomba loose for the first time. I was astonished by how much dirt it picked up (I had to run it several times, emptying the dirt bin each time). It didn't get stuck on my carpet fringe (the reason I hadn't bought the prior generation Roomba), nor on any of the wires under furniture. The fact that it cleans under the bed and sofa so thoroughly is a big advantage over conventional cleaners.

As for downsides, it cannot efficiently clean multiple rooms in one shot (not a big deal because you can easily move it from room to room). Apparently even the lighthouse technology in the higher end models isn't a total solution to this problem. It can also get stuck in some situations. Mine can get stuck under my dresser, which is just slightly too short, and the Roomba can wedge itself underneath the front edge if it approaches from the correct direction. I plan to add some small shims under the legs to raise it slightly to avoid this.

Overall, it's a pretty amazing piece of technology that performs a useful function very effectively.

I didn't really want a Roomba, but my inner techie did, and so we ordered one. In the space of a few weeks and a few cleanings, Roomba has been transformed from "want" to "need." It's cute, it's high-tech, it's fun to watch (better than 90% of what's on TV), and it works. We live in the desert, which in some seasons coats our floors, our furniture, and ourselves with dust, some of it incredibly fine. And we have a Labrador retriever, who generously donates great quantities of hair wherever he goes. Some of his hair is no doubt on the space station. And we have brick floors, with a couple of oriental rugs and several Zapotec throw rugs. Roomba makes the floors shine, removing more dust, I swear it, than a mop; it negotiates the fringe on the orientals with aplomb. It does have difficulty with the throw rugs -- they're too light, so it tends to move them rather than crawl up onto them. Some double sided tape or velcro will probably fix that problem. We bought the 630 -- with invisible walls but no lighthouses and no scheduling -- because we don't need to clean floors in the whole house in one session, and we are home most of the time and don't need to schedule cleanings while we are away. Roomba picks up dog hair extremely well, it gets dust in places our vacuum cleaners can't easily reach, and it tells you when it is having a problem (not often) and what to do about it. It even tells you when it needs cleaning and what to clean. It may have a "plan," like the robots on Battlestar Gallactica, but I'm convinced it's for my own good.