Customer Reviews

iRobot Roomba 530 Vacuum Cleaning Robot - Model# 72-94530

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The Roomba is fun. The 530 model doesn't use half of the owner's manual stuff (no special "lighthouses" to get it to do multiple rooms in series, no remote control, no scheduling function so it works while you are away), but it does clean. It can get out of any area it can get into unless it did it by moving shoes and jammed them up. Mine didn't get caught under the dining room table, but it spent a long time there hunting and pecking. It moved some slip on sandals to get under and then as it kept trying to get out they kept sliding in the way, but it eventually kept nudging them until it could get out.

It went under the cabinet where I store my flip flops to clean and ended up pushing them all over the room in different direction.

Don't sweat when it doesn't pick up "big stuff" like sweetener packets, the actual vacuuming area is smaller than the robot, so stuff gets nudged until it rides right over it in its pathing. (Does dropping stuff in front of the robot to make it clean more count as abusive harassment? :lol)

The wall/corner side brush does work well to pick up the junk along baseboards and corners, it also feeds it directly into the pickup area (it is the off side that has a problem with shoving small debris out of the way).

It can end up leaving little piles of debris if you let it range over a large area, the pathing algorithm would end up getting it, but when it moves out of the kitchen into the hall, gets excited about the front door rug, tries out the way to the kid's room, gets excited again about the front door run, then trundles back into the living room area, then finds the hall to the computer room and the computer room itself, it just doesn't make the full sweep.

It follow odd shapes it considers "wall" very well. It looks like it is missing bits, but the side sweeper brush is hitting the tight corner areas.

When you first start cleaning with it, unless you have just done a spring cleaning type of thing, check the debris box often, it isn't that big.

Open the debris box over the trash can and fiddle with the emptying, dirt/dust can hang by the filter tray hinge and dribble. Mainly empty away from the hinge while holding it sideways.

We have a Rainbow and it seriously would kick this little bugger's arse any day of the week for cleaning, but it is a lot bigger pain to set up to hit the high traffic areas only. This looks like it will be great for day to day maintenance of picking up hair. I'd have said pet hair (which was the first thing I noticed from both my long hair dogs), but after it worked the little corners around my computer chair and desk, I noticed that the majority of the hair was mine. I had picked up and stacked some of the various boxes of supplies, equipment and parts out of the way, so it had more access to areas that haven't been vacuumed in a while.

Not enough data, but it seems to have an issue where a wall to wall carpet meets a tile area. The little lip edging isn't enough to stop it, which means it doesn't sit and dig right there where dirt accumulates. It did quite a bit, but it was spending time with one wheel on the carpet and one on the tile and never could bring the side brush into play. That is a coding issue, but it probably would take more expensive discrimination circuits.

Another issue is that it can manage to get stuck under furniture that is just the "right" height if it hits it wrong. Did that under one of the wingback chairs, it turned under it where the bumper sensor wasn't, picked it up enough to jam itself.

If let it roam too widely, then when it loses charge it cannot find its docking station. Easy enough fix, I pick it up and take it where I want it to work and let it go, then check back on it and return it to the dock if it needs a charge.

Looks like it needs regular maintenance to keep it cleaning well. No big deal, everything pops out, cleans easily (need good pointy scissors to clear wrapped up hair) and goes right back together. I'd say at least after every second cleaning cycle when you first start up with it. Tip: the big wheels on the end of the big roller brush pop off so you can slide the brush cleaner thingy right over the roller after you have cut and pulled all the stuff wrapped around it off.

It is light enough to pick up and walk around with, so it looks like it is easy enough to just pick up the obstacles in a room, but it in there, shut the door and let it go when you leave the house. If you put the docking station in with it, you should get back to find it charged and ready for the next room that evening. I'll test that. Then just cycle it around the house doing a room or three every day and you should be good.

Overall a great little widget to keep the general level of dirt/hair/debris down between heavier duty cleanings. Bonus to that should be easier "heavy" cleanings without you having to do anything but move it and hit a button.

This thing is way cool- when it works- which is probably 6 months of the last 13.

Like many others here I have had repeated problems with the side brush falling off- I have replaced the module once and have just ordered another one.

I have also replaced the power supply, the virtual wall, the main brush module- which is not working again as I write, the bushingless gear bearing holes having worn themselves too big for their gears to contact each other. I have just ordered another.

Each of these problems has resulted in a 4-12 week wait for new parts. Routine wear parts such as filters and brushes come with the same delay.

My 15 year old Eureka works perfectly. It has needed a new part every 3-4 years and each time I have found the part I needed in stock at the local vauum store for less than $15.

I purchased my Roomba when I constructed a new home instead of installing a central vacuum system. BIG mistake. If it worked as well as it did the first week I would have rated this 5 stars. As it is would rather have the central vacuum.

I have owned two of the Roomba Sage models over the last several years and both were great. They lasted as long as I expected with medium to heavy use.
This 530 was a different story though, it cost more than my others ($299.00 vs $199.00) and I returned it. Everything it sucked up just got spat right back out. It really unloaded the dust bunnies on the edges of my area rugs and the battery had a relatively short life. I tried running it twice before I returned it. I was very disappointed(!) since my "Sages" were fantastic. The worst part was, when my last Sage died the day before expecting out of town house guests I ran out and bought this one (530) at target. I ran it two hours before they were to arrive and my great room area was dirtier than before I ran it. It blew dust and grit everywhere! It took the whole family to re-clean in time for the guests.

I will try another model now (I am going to choose from the $199.00 models) and hope that I do not get another lemon. I got both my Sage models with the self docking system and two eyes at Sam's Club but they no longer carry any Roombas. I'm hoping to find a good deal here on Amazon but all the reviews are very mixed.

Although the Roombas I have had before have not lasted more than a little over 3 years, I look at it this way - If I don't have to vacuum for 3+ years for the cost of $199.00, I feel I have gotten my money's worth...math is not my strong suite but roughly speaking it cost about 22 CENTS a VACUUM! Almost slave labor :). Please wish me luck on an other model...

I think my Roomba really helps me keep my 525-square-foot apartment clean in a variety of ways, and it actually does clean the carpet well. It's not perfect, but I almost feel like vacuuming is not a chore that I have to deal with anymore, which makes it worth the $100 I spent on it used. Would I buy it again? Under $200, yeah. Over $200 or have a bigger apartment? I'd wait for a better model.

The good:

It cleans my apartment. Whenever I use my Roomba, I find about two cups full of cat hair and litter that it's pulled out of the carpet and off the linoleum. Even if I vacuum twice in one day, it'll still get that out. Which is pretty good. I have nice clean lines in my carpet (even if they are zig zags instead of parallel lines), and the floor feels "crunchy" when I walk on it afterward, as though the carpet is not as compressed as it was before.

It's easy. You only have to press one button, but you'll probably end up sitting to watch it and positioning it exactly where you want it to clean. It's times like that when I think I'm actually spending more time than using a real vacuum, but that's because I want to micromanage my Roomba. Another easy point is cleaning the brushes. They're color- and shape-coded, so you will always know which brush goes where. And emptying the bin is as easy as pulling it out and dumping it into the trash.

It really gets in there. The Roomba goes where no vacuum cleaner has gone before. It spends just as much time underneath my sofa and bed as it does cleaning the carpet in the living room (which could be a bad thing if you care more about the living room or if the battery is running low.) I know that even if a lot of cat hair collects underneath the bed, it's still going to get clean.

It's fun to watch. I've had it for three months now, and watching it make it's way around the apartment is probably still more of an "event" than it should be. It's fun wondering which way it will go and if it will ever cover a certain spot.

It motivates me to pick up clutter. Because the Roomba gets caught on clutter (cat toys, cords, etc.), I end up keeping the floor free to be vacuumed. And I move other clutter like boxes and clothes out of the way too, because even though the Roomba won't necessarily get caught on it, I don't want any of my floor to go un-vacuumed. The result is an apartment whose floor is usually very clean and tidy. Also, with some light objects (like the cats' bowls), it'll push them into the corner and free up my floor space.

The bad:

It gets "stuck" a lot. I just had to get up from writing this because it tried to go underneath the entertainment center, even though it knows it's not going to be able to get out. About 60% of the time I use it, it either get stuck or gets something bad stuck in the brushes, which means I have to play doctor a lot pulling cat toys and random plastic litter out of its brushes. This is not a complete minus, though, because sometimes this litter is something that would have had to be cleaned up anyway at some point.

Its dirt detector seems off. There's a blue light that comes on whenever it's found a particularly dirty spot, and then it stays in that general area until it thinks it's clean. My dirt detector, however, is off because its light will go off after it's LEFT the dirty spot, and it'll clean the wrong spot over and over again.

Bad for curtains and cords. I have some curtains that touch the floor and a few cords running around my room, and the stress that Roomba causes has made me use the included virtual walls (come in handy) to block off this zone of my apartment. Otherwise, cords and my beautiful curtains are aggressively pulled on, and they end up stuck in the Roomba. It's a shame this zone of my apartment can never be vacuumed.

Battery life. I live in a 525-square-foot apartment (primarily just a living room and bedroom), and Roomba can BARELY cover the whole apartment before it's battery dies. The box says it covers three rooms with a single charge, and it does, but it cuts it close. I know that technically it hits each spot at least once, but it seems like it will hit one corner (under my bed) five times, hit everywhere else once, and then the battery dies. One reason I bought it was because my apartment is so small, but it turns out that the battery life is small too. Sometimes I just close off my bedroom so it can focus on the living room, since the living room is seen more.

Not great at navigating home. Every now and then when I come home, the Roomba has made it back to it's charging base. More often, however, I find it sitting in the bathroom or in the middle of the bedroom. Why? Because either it got stuck or because the battery died before it could find it's way home. If I put the Roomba three feet in front of the base (which defeats the purpose), I know that EVENTUALLY it'll find the base, but it really is only a handful of times that it has returned to the base from a regular vacuuming situation.

The ugly:

Cat hair. I have two cats, and even though they are short-haired, they still produce enough hair and kitty litter for the Roomba to pick up two cups of hair per battery life. The hair gets caught in the brushes, and it gets spun around so many times in the "hinges" of the brushes that it's almost spun into a thick yarn that's a little difficult to remove. I probably should have gotten one of the "pet models," even though I don't know how it's any different.

I hate to clean but love a clean house; I like to go barefoot on hardwood floors but don't like the feeling of grit underfoot. The Roomba picks up an amazing amount of dirt every time. Cleaning the dirt cup isn't an onerous task, just pop it out and dump it. I have a 2-bedroom apartment, no critters. It does the whole place in 45 minutes, then finds its way home, docks itself, and goes to sleep to recharge. This little guy works while I do other things, and I love it. It's only problem is it interprets a black rug as a "cliff" and won't go on it, so I'll either have to keep vacuuming the entryway rug with a regular vac or get a different rug; small price to pay for happiness. I recommend being pro-active and getting several side-brush and filter replacements when you buy it, so you'll have them when needed.