Case and color may vary based on manufacturer's choosing. All units (including units with Discovery cases) include Scheduler technology.
Robotic, battery-powered floor vacuum and remote scheduling device
Remote scheduler sets and changes vacuuming times and zones
On-board artificial intelligence navigate between walls and furniture legs and self-adjusts for carpet, tile, and wood floors.
Remanufactured to "like-new" condition; may contain minor cosmetic blemishes. 90 day manufacturer's warranty.Great for pet owners with wood or tile floors and throw rugs
Review Date: September 1, 2006Reviewer: Lisa Chu, CA
I love love love our Roomba!!!!
Roomba is perfect for our situation. We own 3 cats -- indoor/outdoor -- and before Roomba, we'd have to vacuum every day to pick up all the cat hair and dirt they drop or track in. We have all hardwood floors with a few throw rugs (some are taped down, some aren't, Roomba cleans them all no problem). Roomba handles floor-level changes like they aren't even there, cleans under the couch and tables and chairs, and so far has completely cleaned our floors without once scratching or marking our brand-new furniture. In the far corners there may be a few grains of dirt she couldn't reach, but overall we are ecstatically happy, and our hardwood gleams.
We schedule Roomba to run around every day we're at work. Every day we come home, and Roomba is back on her charger and full of cat hair. It's awesome.
Once Roomba got stuck under a couch, or so we thought, but it turned out she wasn't stuck at all -- just automatically shut down because she was so packed with cat hair, she couldn't even make it back to the charger. There was a lot of cat hair under the couch. :) Now I watch when she goes under the couch, and she never gets stuck, so I am 99% sure it was the cat hair (1st time cleaning).
If we had bought an IntelliBin, Roomba would tell us when the chamber needs cleaning. But we opted for the Scheduler ($199 refurbished), and just clean the bin once every time Roomba cleans. Cleaning the bin is done in one simple motion and is MUCH easier than big vacuum chambers.
On the pet side, our cats didn't freak out as much as we thought they would, in fact 2 out of 3 just ignore it, unless it comes straight at them. The third one just sits and stares at it with the evil eye whenever it's on.
This is the best purchase we have ever made. Picks up all the cat hair our three cats leave everywhere! That's all we wanted!
Lemon
Review Date: August 25, 2006Reviewer: Mort Guffman, Florida
I bought a Roomba 4230 "remanufactured" vacuum robot from Amazon last week. I was really excited to get it. Plugged it in, charged her up, and pushed the Clean button. Dang.
It said Uh-Oh. E-mailed IRobot tech support. That was over a week ago. Still waiting for their response. I called tech support last Friday. They told me the same thing that I read on their website. The cliff sensors think they are obstructed. Roomba uses cliff sensors to keep it from falling down the stairs. Tech support suggested spraying compressed air into the sensors, and sent me RMA forms, knowing the air thing would never work.
Surprisingly, the compressed air worked. Roomba worked for 5 minutes. It was a beautiful thing. But then it quit and said Uh-Oh. More air. It ran a while longer. More air, it ran even longer. Emptied the dirt out several times. It ran out of juice, found its home base and parked on it for a refill. Amazing and wonderful and cute. It did a decent job cleaning too.
After it recharged I put it in my bedroom and pushed the button. It ran about 10 minutes and died. No amount of compressed air would revive it. Rather than pay to ship this lemon back to IRobot, I sent it back to Amazon postage paid. I miss it already, even though it never ran more than 10 minutes without needing some kind of attention.
After reading a bunch of postings in the Roomba forums I learned that it's not unusual to go thru 3 or 4 of these units before getting a good one.
My suggestion: Don't buy a remanufactured Roomba. Your chances of getting a lemon are much higher than with a new unit.
Good intelligent robotic sweeper but not perfect
Review Date: July 27, 2006Reviewer: Benja S. Sariwatta, Lewis Center, OH United States
I just got my roomba 4230 package from Amazon. The Roomba 4230 works great cleaning my house and is intelligent enough to navigate around an obstacle course I call a home. It picks up alot of dirt and debris. I definitely recommend it.
I only have a few gripes about it:
-The debris bin is not big enough so it has to be emptied often, maybe once per day.
-It does not pickup bigger pieces of debris like a quarter size piece of paper.
-It will get tangled up on adapter cords if it runs across them
-It has trouble finding its recharging base when sweeping is complete.
I'm waiting for my iRobot Scooba to arrive and see if can really mop my floors. This is cheaper than the $25 dollars per hour the maid services are charging.Better than expected
Review Date: July 27, 2006Reviewer: J. Decker,
I was worried about a reconditioned product but when you open it up it's in perfect condition. I've scheduled a cleaning between two rooms every day while I'm at work and it's been amazing. You have to pick up any cords it might run into, and anything else that it might snag on. Just really takes some common sense and watching it run for the first few times. Now it makes it back to it's charging base ever time.
The only thing I didn't expect was the cleaing of the brushes. I have a cat so the hair gets spun around the brushes. Not that big of deal though since it only takes 2 minutes a few times a week. Before Roomba I came home to clumps of hair and dust on the carpet that was blown from all over the house. Now I come home to a completely clean floor and carpet every day. Oh, and you have to empty the bin EVERY DAY! It's small...don't forget.
If you expect to open the box and have it running perfectly within 10 minutes it's not for you. With a little trouble shooting and common sense it's amazing. Highly recommended! Dead within first day, support lacking
Review Date: October 12, 2006Reviewer: HTLuke,
While the lure of a robotic vacuum may be strong, after our experience with the remanufactured product (as well as iRobot support) we're returning the 4230 and have decided not to buy another iRobot product.
The unit we received was nicely packaged, all pieces were present. The actual plastic housing of the robot was fairly heavily scuffed but this was not surprising considering it's remanufactured, and the brushes and filters looked new.
After charging the unit fully, we ran the robot twice. The first time, the robot ran about one cleaning cycle but the battery died before it found its way home. It charged fully again and we sent it off to clean. It managed to do a fairly good job and find its way home again this time.
One impressive aspect of the robot is its ability to keep from getting stuck; the little guy refused to get stuck amid table and chair legs, crossed a fairly rough carpet/linoleum boundary multiple times, and did a good job getting into most every nook and cranny.
Of course, it did take it 60 minutes to accomplish what would otherwise take 5 minutes with a broom and vacuum, and it's fairly noisy; think dustbuster mounted to radio-controlled car noisy. Yet we were content thinking that the Roomba would do this daily without fail, and we could trigger it as we walked out the door to run errands (or put on headphones).
But then it DID fail. Upon parking itself at its home base the second time, all lights went out in the base and the robot. After some troubleshooting it appears the AC power supply had died. Not very encouraging, considering similar problems people have had with the remanufactured versions.
Instead of just starting the Amazon return/exchange process as we should have, we followed the request in the manual and contacted iRobot directly for help. They agreed that the power supply was likely the culprit but wanted us to send everything back just to be sure, and we'd get a replacement. In four to six weeks. Only after they received this one. On our dime. After a significant amount of arguement, they finally agreed to send a UPS label to pick it up, but all this would still be done UPS Ground (sadly cross-country) and there'd be around two weeks of processing once they received it.
Unfortunately the combination of a painful exchange policy, previous owners' testimonies on horrible customer service experiences, and our own abrupt and inflexible CC experience has soured us considerably on iRobot products. We'd rather not risk having to be without our vacuum for over a month any time a problem arises with the unit.
If the above factors are acceptable to you and you're still intent on buying an iRobot product, you may want to think twice about choosing the remanufactured version over one of the brand new ones.The technology is *almost* there
Review Date: April 29, 2007Reviewer: Marc Bourassa, Atlanta, GA USA
I've had my eye on these robots for a while now. It arrived on Friday (4/27/2007) and I put it through its paces.
The technology is not perfect yet but it is now impressively close. Its NiMH batteries are MUCH better than the old NiCd ones (as anybody who ever owned an early generation video camera can attest). But not as good as the newer Li-ion batteries in terms of power density and recharge cycles.
I have to say that I'm pretty impressed. It won't replace the need to do a thorough occasional vacuuming, but it sure looks like it's going to do a good job at keeping the dust bunnies at bay. This model is schedulable, it will activate itself at some time that you determine (a different time each day if you choose), do its business and then dock itself when it starts to run low on power so that it can recharge. The default cleaning cycle is an hour and the battery in this remanufactured model is quite up to that task.
The description on Amazon indicates that 4 "AA" batteries are required but you really need 2 "AA" batteries (for the remote) and 4 "D" Cells (2 for each of the 2 virtual walls). After the initial charge (they say it will take 16 hours but the unit indicated it was ready to go after only a couple of hours) I manually initiated a "clean" cycle to watch it and see what, if any, problems it would encounter. I used the virtual walls to keep it away from the one area rug that we have out (while in the midst of our renovations) so that the unit would not get tangled up on tassels. This is something I see folks warning about in all the Internet postings that I've seen. I let the unit travel across our linoleum laundry room floor, our ceramic tile dining room and kitchen and then down the carpeted (low pile) hallway to the gym. The unit transitions between all of these surfaces surprisingly well.
The only three things that it has issues with are:
* Area Rugs - as long as the Roomba hits these at some kind of angle (which it eventually will) it can cross the edge of these just fine. If it hits the edge at 90 degrees it will catch the carpet and temporarily jam. The Roomba is very good at figuring this out and shifting itself around to unstick itself. It will even go so far as to turn off its brushes and move away from the problem object if necessary. So this isn't really an issue per se but it is disconcerting to hear it struggle when it does get caught on the carpet edge.
* Power cords - I have a power cord for my treadmill that I haven't yet neatly tucked away yet. It is bunched up and then rises off the floor a couple of inches to disappear into a cord-hider that I have mounted on the gym wall. The Roomba can get itself raised up on the coil of cord and then stuck where the cord rises. I suspect that, if I left it long enough, the unit might even figure its way off of that little trap but I didn't like watching it struggle and picked it off of the coil after about 45 seconds of struggling. The solution here is simple, I need to just properly stow the cable. It looks bad where it is anyway. Again not a really "normal" issue.
* Shoelaces - This is a real issue. One of the laces of a pair of shoes that I normally leave on the floor in our laundry room got caught up in the brushes and, for some reason, did not jam them. The Roomba is more than strong enough to drag the shoe around behind it and that's exactly what it did. New rule - pick up shoes and put them in closet. Ah well...
The unit is about as effective as a good floor sweeper (if you remember those little units from the 20th century). Meaning it does a great job on floors and a good job on carpets. Those bits of yard debris and pet hair are picked up very well. It even picks up a goodly amount of pollen which we, in the South, have in spades in early April. When I inspect the debris bin I see that dust bunnies will rue the day that iRobot invaded the house.
My home is about 2,500 square feet, I think it's realistic that the Roomba can handle about a third of that. This translates to roughly 3 or 4 rooms. More than that and there simply isn't enough time in a cleaning cycle for it to cover the area enough to be effective. Depending on how this unit fares, I may consider at least one more unit for another part of my house.
Another thing to note, if you have allergies you may not wish to hang around while the little guy does its job. While it does sport a little filter for the exhaust air it will not be mistaken for a HEPA filter. When I use my Dyson 07, which has such a filter, the air is almost fresh coming out of it. The Roomba cannot make this claim. But this is a minor point - the scheduler means that the unit has done its job and any dust has settled long before I get home from work.
In case you're wondering how the cats are dealing with the Roomba. Maverick just watches it from a distance, preferably from a higher vantage point such as a couch or an ottoman. If the Roomba approaches him when he's on the ground, he waits until it gets a little too close and then prances out of the way. Phoebe seems to regard the Roomba as her next great conquest. She follows it around looking for weakness. She often will crouch down and when the Roomba is retreating she'll pounce. So for her this is just another great toy. She follows it around from room to room.Remanufactured? No Thanks.
Review Date: November 9, 2006Reviewer: keen on clean, Sarasota, FL USA
Love those Irobot products and everything they're capable of doing. In fact, this was my third purchase, but my first remanufactured product. What a headache! The product worked correctly just three times, then died. Both technical support and customer service from Irobot were helpful and prompt, but still took weeks to resolve the issues. I tried a different way of recharging, which didn't work. Then they replaced the battery, but that still didn't solve the problem. Ultimately I had to send the product back, then waited more than a month for a replacement, which was on backorder. Finally, they substituted a different model, and which works just as advertised. I'd never buy another remanufactured model. But I still believe in Irobot. Can't live without it or I don't want to
Review Date: January 20, 2007Reviewer: Lexi Genoa, Southwest, KS
I can't say enough good things about my little guy. He frees me to do other things. I don't use the scheduling feature because I move him around quite a bit. I've ordered three more--one for each of my daughters--who have also reported loving them and an extra for myself. I clean him after each run with canned air, a damp papertowel, and make sure he has a clean filter. The filters are easy to wash out and then dry for the next run. I have several and rotate two until one is too far gone and then get another new one. He reaches places I can't get to with my huge cannister electrolux or my self-drive Kirby. I cleaned for hours before starting the first run to give the little guy a good shot. He managed to find some dust and a moth's wing. Where I can't imagine. I like that he goes over the surface many times and picks up the nap of the carpet. With him around my floors are debris free. I've even rearranged furniture so that he can reach every little place--something I've never done so that I could vacuum the area. The only thing I caution is if you have some furniture that hangs a little too low and he gets kinda stuck--I don't think that's good for him. It might spring his wheels. I live in Southwest Kansas and so far he's managed to pick up sand, gravel, dust, string, hair, and bug parts. Some would say Roomba's nothing but a glorified carpet flick. I'd say, "so what?" At least he can get along the baseboards whereas every other vac I have leaves that tell-tale 2 inches of dust along every edge--my little guy doesn't! He also makes sure that while I'm doing the dusting because of unexpected guests--he's doing the floors. GET ONE--you won't regret it. Oh, and customer service is fantastic. Just call them and they'll help quickly with any problem or question.Great Idea But Didn't Work for Me
Review Date: January 11, 2007Reviewer: Electronic Gadgetphile, St. Paul, MN
I really wanted a Roomba and have been following the ads, news, blogs and other media on this incredible device for some time. When I saw the price being offered on the Remanufactured Roomba Remote Scheduler I jumped at the opportunity and bought one for my wife's Christmas present:>) It arrived in great shape and we charged it up for 24 hours to make certain it worked optimally. After the 24 hour charge we fired it up only to discover that it was jammed and would not move. The brush guard had broken at the hinge and needed to be replaced. A call to Roomba's 800 number resulted in a very quick and painless delivery of a new guard. We popped that in and the Roomba was now in action. This lasted for about 5 minutes as it had a tendency to bump into a wall, stop, bump into it again and then die. Picking it up and putting it down again would start the process all over again. I assumed that it did not like travertine tile so I moved it to the bedroom which has low cut pile carpeting. It did much better here, scurrying around the carpet, brushing up cat hair, hit a wall and died. This time it died hard and no amount of power cycling, recharging or brush and trap cleaning would bring it back to life. Sadly, I returned it to Amazon for a refund. I really looked forward to using it but it just didn't seem to be robust enough to look like a keeper.Get remanufactured instead of a new Roomba, which is also a futuristic dust pan
Review Date: November 13, 2006Reviewer: Karl Becker, Fargo, ND USA
My remanufactured Roomba is good as new. Your results may vary, but mine had no blemishes, has plenty of battery charge, and leaves my carpet feeling clean. Its first trip around my apartment filled its bin, which I believed to be a good sign. After the first few vacuums the bin will be much less full - since you are now cleaning your floors more often!
It also works as a great dust pan. The Roomba does pretty good on hard floors, but the edges of the walls it just doesn't always clean perfectly. So occasionally I use my regular broom to sweep debris next to the wall into a little pile, then let Roomba suck up the pile. My dustbin is now a thing of the past. No more bending over to sweep dust into a little pan, yet still leaving behind that little line of dirt in front of the dustpan.
The scheduler works as expected, but two caveats:
* Scheduler does not automatically change for daylight savings time.
* Walls need D batteries (not included), which are neither easily nor cheaply found in rechargeable varieties. Wish they would switch to AA, and eliminate the little orange blinking (maybe that would save on battery?)
This Roomba is wonderful. It makes my floors, and my apartment, feel cleaner with minimal work. That's the robot's ultimate goal, and it succeeds. Totally recommended.THE ROOMBA SCHEDULER SUCKS! LITERALLY!
Review Date: August 27, 2006Reviewer: Timothy A. Porter, Bloomington, CA USA
Really impressed with the performance of the remanufactured Roomba Scheduler. I recently had my entire house done in ceramic tile (single story, about 2000 square feet), and fully swept it the day before the roomba arrived. After charging the unit, we set it off on its way, watched it for a while, and then let it do its own thing while we continued to straighten up and move furniture around. After a couple of hours, we heard it play a little tune, and found that it had returned to its charging dock. When we checked the dust bin, we were amazed at how much stuff we had missed when we swept up the day before. Very fine dust from the new tile grout, along with long black hair (my wife is chinese...), and loads of dust bunnies. Each time I watch this thing it amazes me. It navigates under the dining table, meticulously working around each chair. As it finds an object, it manages to find its edges and move along the edge, and when the virtual walls are set up, it hits the invisible barrier and moves off in another direction. It's a little noisy, but if there is a clutch mechanism inside that uses the powered rear wheels for steering, it is understandable that it would have the same coffee grinder sound that my Tamiya RC Tank makes. Regardless of the noise, it is nowhere near as noisy as an actual vacuum cleaner. It seems to have some issues with area rugs, and whatever you do, don't leave rubber bands lying around on the floor. They get wrapped around the beater bar and the brush unit and the unit aborts its mission.
Cleaning is really easy. Dump the bin each time after it cleans, and do a full cleaning once a week. If you use one of those rhino-razor letter openers (the kind with a rhino horn on it that conceals an integral razor blade) to cut through the long hairs that wrap around the brush, remove the small ball bearings from the end of the beater bar and brush, clean the hair and debris off the spindles, rinse the beater bar and brush (NOT THE BEARINGS!) and let them air dry. Remember that it is a tool, not a toy, and as such it requires some maintenance.
If you are generally good at keeping house, you will love this machine. If you have a lot of junk, newspapers, plastic bags, rubber bands, or other snags laying about, this little machine will get snagged, abort its mission and sit there beeping at you. Under these circumstances, you are probably better off hiring a maid.
You get what you pay for
Review Date: February 13, 2007Reviewer: L. Corey,
This is my second remanufactured Roomba. The first one arrived with a battery that overheated. This one arrived with a bashed-in screen. The people at Roomba were not particularly helpful and suggested I return the entire product to Amazon because of a $2.99 broken part. The second time I called, the woman in customer service informed me the part was out of stock when I tried to purchase it. The third time I called, the customer service rep. sent one out for free, no questions asked.
If you love the Roomba product, which I do, and are willing to go through the hassles of dealing with their customer service department, this is a good deal. I have two of these little machines, and they do a great job of picking up the dirt that my puppies track in.
They do need a fair amount of maintenance though, so anyone who is not into taking things apart and putting them back together would probably not like this product. No good if you have longhaired pets
Review Date: September 28, 2006Reviewer: Online Buyer, California, USA
Have a longhaired pet friend? Forget this Roomba. The long hairs will get stuck in the brush, and more problematic, in the bearings. The bearing locks up and breaks. This is what happend to me 10 minutes into the first run. Now I have to service the bearing every 10-20 minutes.
Even if it doesn't break, you will probably end up spending more time cleaning your Roomba than it would take you to vacuum the floor with a good old vacuum cleaner anyway.
It does actually clean when it works, but I wish it had been a bit more gentle with the furniture. This Roomba is not a keeper.I bought two!!
Review Date: August 28, 2006Reviewer: Scott, Florida
I enjoy using the products from iRobot. The Roomba picks up an amazing amount of dust and pet hair from my carpets. I do have to supervise my Roomba in certain rooms of the house. Mine tries to "limbo" under some low furniture and get stuck. However, it does a great job under the bed and other areas that other vacuums cannot reach without extra tools. I have frieze carpet in one room which slows down the Roomba considerably.
I also have a Scooba which I do not use as often.
iRobot offers good product support. I have called three times with my Scooba and have had my questions resolved by telephone.
I liked my Roomba so much, I bought one for my brother and sister-in-law. I do not hesitate to recommend the Roomba.Roombas are fantastic... IF you can keep them running!
Review Date: September 26, 2007Reviewer: a reader, California
I love my Roomba. I really do. With two cats in a house with hardwood floors, daily sweeping or vacuuming is the only thing that keeps the floors clean of cat hair tumbleweeds and kitty litter. The Roomba is perfect for this task, and does a great job. When it's working, I use it every day, and my floor is clean as a whistle.
HOWEVER, this is without a doubt the most unreliable household appliance I've ever bought. I've had mine for 9 months now, and it breaks constantly. I have fully Roomba-proofed my house, and being that I've got a small apartment with hardwood floors, my house couldn't be more Roomba-friendly. Yet, I can't keep mine running without major repairs every 2-3 months. Unfortunately, I live overseas and haven't found a place to take mine in for repairs, so I've had to do the repairs myself. I've taken my Roomba apart so many times that I'm sure I qualify to teach an advanced course in Roomba repair at Roomba's remanufacturing facility.
Here's my history of breakage with this product:
Month 1 - The plastic tabs that hold the wire cage for the brushes broke off... all three of them. This happened multiple times until I finally got enough epoxy on them in the right places to keep them from breaking off. Clearly, these things weren't designed to be sturdy enough for the purpose intended.
Month 3 - Battery died, and the Roomba wouldn't run for more than 15 minutes. Yep, you guessed it... JUST after the 90-day remanufactured warranty expired. Tried all of the online tips for correcting the problem, but they didn't work. Had to buy a new one for $50.
Month 6 - One of the plastic arms holding the yellow brush chassis broke off, requiring me to tear apart the entire unit multiple times. More epoxy, clamps, and supports on parts that were poorly designed and just too weak to function for the purpose intended. Finally got it fixed after about 3 weeks.
Month 8 - The bearings on the little vacuum motor wore out, leaving the motor shaft loose and causing a shrieking, grinding noise when the unit is turned on. Unfortunately, I can't fix this one. Couldn't find a small motor of the same size and voltage, so replaced it with a smaller one. The Roomba works for a few minutes, and then dies. Guess I'll have another go at finding a repair facility...
If you buy this product, I strongly recommend the following:
1. Make sure you get AT LEAST a 12 month warranty. You'll need it.
2. Be prepared for the thing to break every 2 to 3 months if you use it every day.
It's a shame, really, that this thing is so unreliable. It is otherwise a fantastic product.
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