Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #190227 in Kitchen & Housewares
• Brand: iRobot
• Model: 02001
• Dimensions: 4.10" h x 15.70" w x 21.60" l, 6.61 pounds

Features

• Automatically cleans your floors while you enjoy life
• Safely and quietly sweeps and vacuums hard wood, carpet, and tile floors
• Great on pet hair and all kinds of dirt and debris
• Rechargable battery and charger included along with Virtual Wall and Smart Sensors to keep Roomba cleaning where you want it
• 8.82 pounds, 3.63-H, 13.4-W, 13.4-D

Amazon.com Review
Early Adopters Pick: March 2003. The first automatic vacuum available in the U.S.; introduced by iRobot, pioneers of artificial intelligence.

Roomba, the first automatic vacuum available in the U.S., is an intelligent vacuum that uses robotic technology to deliver both clean floors and personal time. Roomba uses artificial intelligence algorithms to clean efficiently and was introduced by iRobot, pioneers in artificial intelligence who have built numerous products for the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. military, and toy and energy companies. Thirteen inches in diameter and lighter than your average bowling ball, this innovative vacuum roams the room devouring dust, dirt, and tidbits left behind from everyday living.

Setting up your Roomba for its first sashay through the living room is fairly easy. You'll want to move any clothing, papers, cords, and fragile items off the floor before you start. You may choose to set up the Virtual Wall unit, which emits a beam to redirect the Roomba, keeping it out of unwanted areas. Make sure the rechargeable battery is fired up by checking the indicator light, set the Roomba in the center of the room, and press the corresponding button for a small (10 by 12 feet), medium (14 by 16 feet), or large (15 by 20 feet) room. When Roomba starts cleaning, it travels around the floor in a spiral pattern. When its bumper touches a wall, Roomba follows the wall for a short time, utilizing its spinning side brush to move objects away from the wall and into the vacuum's path. Then Roomba crosses the room in straight lines. It repeats this pattern until its cleaning time has elapsed, providing maximum cleaning coverage.

Although it may look more like a Frisbee than a vacuum, the Roomba cleans carpet, wood, linoleum, and tile, and comes with many of the usual vacuum accoutrements. The agitator brush roll picks up large debris, sucking it into the removable particle bin with filter. An edge-cleaning brush helps get into corners and angular areas. All the brushes and compartments can be removed for regular cleaning maintenance, and the unit comes with two replacement filters. Additional Virtual Wall units, battery packs, and a rapid charger can be purchased separately. The Roomba is covered by a 90-day parts and labor warranty. --Rhonda Langdon

From the Manufacturer
Roomba is the original robotic vacuum cleaner from iRobot. The first of its kind in the US, Roomba has won a number of awards, and has won the praise of thousands of users across the globe. It uses intelligent navigation technology to automatically clean nearly all household floor surfaces without human direction, so there's nothing to push.

Roomba is easy to use. Place it in the middle of the room to be cleaned, turn it on, push a button, and walk away. Since Roomba can clean under your beds and other places regular vacuums can't reach, Roomba cleans more of your floor. Its spinning side brush and two counter rotating brushes, along with a unique squeegee vacuum system, pick up more of your household debris, including pet hair, dust, dirt and other debris.

Roomba is great for anyone who either doesn't want to push a vacuum or can't push a vacuum - as well as anyone who wants more time to do other things with their lives. And because you don't have to push it, you can use Roomba to keep your floors barefoot clean every day.

Roomba uses four brushes (the spinning side brush, two counter rotating brushes and side brush) to sweep up debris and direct fine particles to the compact, effective squeegee vacuum. Its non-marring smart bumper allows Roomba to gently contact walls and furniture and navigate around them. Roomba also has special sensors that allow it to follow walls and furniture without touching them, and other sensors that allow it to detect and avoid stairs or other steep edges.

All of these high-tech components are made even more powerful by Roomba's smarts. It uses artificial intelligence algorithms to help ensure that it covers the entire surface of your floor in each cleaning. And, since its compact profile means Roomba gets where upright vacuums can't - under beds, couches, chairs and tables - Roomba keeps more of your house cleaner than you could before. It even cleans effectively under kitchen counters.

Roomba has special safety features that make it safe around children and pets. It automatically pauses cleaning when it's picked up, so fingers can't get caught in any moving parts. And its automatic cliff sensing system prevents Roomba from falling down stairs.

Roomba's Edge Cleaning Side Brush is made of non-marring bristles mounted to soft, flexible brush heads that are reinforced for strength and durability. As it spins, it reaches out from underneath Roomba to grab particles from along walls and into corners, as well as around furniture legs. The particles are swept into Roomba's main cleaning path, to be picked up by its two counter-rotating brushes and high-efficiency Squeegee Vacuum.

Roomba has been shown to clean most home floor surfaces as well or better than most standard upright vacuums. Roomba excels at cleaning all hard floor surfaces, including hardwood, linoleum, tile, laminate, slate and other surfaces. Roomba is also superb on a wide variety of low- and medium-pile carpets. And since Roomba transitions between different floor surfaces automatically, you never need to worry where it's going. Roomba is not recommended for high-pile or shag carpets. Like standard upright vacuums, Roomba has trouble on rugs with long tassels or fringe, but there are simple ways for Roomba to work around these in your home. Unlike standard upright vacuums, many of which require their owner to manually change floor settings or add bulky attachments depending on the surface to be cleaned, Roomba's breakthrough cleaning system transitions between different floor surfaces automatically. That means Roomba can climb onto low- and medium-pile carpets from hard floors, and climb right off of them too - maintaining its cleaning effectiveness throughout your house. Roomba can climb over most raised doorway thresholds, so it can clean all the floors you want it to clean at the touch of a button.

Roomba's built-in intelligence means that it cleans without human intervention. Even if it doesn't vacuum the floor the way you might, it is smart enough to get your floors barefoot clean. When Roomba starts cleaning it first travels in a spiral pattern. Its Non-Marring Bumper will contact a wall, or it may try to find a wall after spiraling for a while. Roomba follows the wall for a little while, sweeping up dirt next to the wall with the Edge Cleaning Side Brush. After cleaning along a portion of the wall or other object, Roomba crisscrosses the room in straight lines. For most of Roomba's cleaning cycles, Roomba repeats this cleaning pattern until its cleaning time has elapsed, providing maximum coverage of the room.

One component of Roomba's Intelligent Navigation System is its ability to automatically follow walls. This feature enables Roomba to use its Spinning, Edge-Cleaning Side Brush to grab dirt and debris right up to the wall, following along the wall, scooping up particles in these edges and corners that standard upright vacuums can miss. Because Roomba's design is so ingeniously compact, it cleans effectively under kitchen counters and bathroom vanities.

The Virtual Wall Unit is designed to confine Roomba to one room or area without using a physical barrier. The Virtual Wall Unit uses a harmless, invisible beam of infrared light to create an invisible wall up to 13 feet wide that Roomba cannot pass. It is useful for large archways, rooms without doors, or for dividing a large room into smaller sections. It requires two "D" alkaline batteries, not included.

Roomba collects large particles as well as dirt, dust, lint, hair and other debris in its unique, removable Particle Bin. Push a button and the Particle Bin releases, and all the large debris can be easily emptied into the trash. Unclip the Air Filter Door on the Particle Bin and the dust and lint collected by the high-efficiency Squeegee Vacuum may be emptied out as well. Brush off the high-density Air Filter, snap the door back in place and the Particle Bin is ready for the next job. Like the lint trap in a clothes drier, the Particle Bin should be emptied after each use.

Customer Reviews

Things you might want to know before (or after) buying
Update: after about 2 years of varying use (sometimes 5 times in a month, sometimes once in 5 months) the battery is pretty much dead. The unit will run for about 10 minutes and then die, even if it's freshly charged.

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I've had my Roomba for a few weeks now and I generally like it a lot. I hate vacuuming, or cleaning in general. I tend to avoid being messy, but dust and lint tend to collect no matter how diligent I am. I got a Roomba because I've got 6 rooms with wood floors and it has made my house a cleaner place. Here's some observations:

- When you first open the box, the corner sweeper is covered by a piece of cardboard. This is tricky to get off without breaking the corner sweeper, so don't just rip it out.

- It's about as loud as a blowdryer on the "low" setting, or an empty blender on slow speed (remember that it's on the floor, not next to your head, so it seems quieter.) You can talk normally over it, but it's loud enough that you'll probably want to be in another room. It's certainly not as loud as a regular vacuum cleaner.

- The dustbin is somewhat messy to empty. That is, you're hands _will_ get dust on them and you have to be very careful to avoid spilling any when you pull it out. Also, if you don't push it in all the way it will fall out partway through the next cleaning--you've got to push it in so the curvature of the Roomba is uniform ... it also won't pull out unless you push the button.

- The dustbin also has two compartments: one for the "swept" dust and one for the vacuumed dust. You've got to unclip the filter to get to the vacuumed dust bin.

- Since the sensors work on infrared, it works better in the dark or in shadows rather than bright sunlight. I had mine stop after going too far over some steps because the sun was shining on the floor and it couldn't tell the steps were there. It didn't actually go over, it just automatically stopped and played it's "help me" tune. In general, sunlight will make it less effective.

- It comes with one "virtual wall" which is just a battery powered infrared emitter. It seems to spread the beam out further than I'd like, so I'm finding myself placing it several inches outside a door to make the Roomba go all the way to the thresshold of the entryway. It's also sensitive to height--the virtual wall emits right at the level of the sensor on the Roomba, so the virtual door can't be placed more than a carpets-height (0.25" or 0.5cm) higher or lower than the Roomba.

- iRobot suggests that you can tuck fringe under a carpet and the Roomba will go over it. I found it managed to suck the fringe back out and get it wound around the brushes underneath. I had to remove the area rug. It also has trouble with corners of an area rug even if it doesn't have fringe if the corners stick up more than about a quarter inch (0.5cm.)

- It's really quite small. It was able to go under the refrigerator door (I could even open it and it barely cleared the top of the Roomba.) It can also go around chairs and furniture pretty easily. Although it's just a little narrower than the head on a regular vacuum, it can turn in ways that would be impossible with a rigid hose attached, so the Roomba gets in places you wouldn't already think of.

- I have a couch whose bottom was ravaged by cats in the past, and the Roomba will get caught on the hanging fabric. I use the virtual wall to keep it out from under the couch.

- It tends to miss corners, leaving a crescent of dust that is about half an inch (1cm) wide. It does run right up against walls, though, but it will miss going under low doorstops.

- In general it seems to cover the whole floor ... you can tell it it's in the next size bigger room and it will run for longer, picking up more areas (I think that's all the room size buttons do--change the amount of time it runs.)

- It's "artificial intelligence" is pretty good. It seems to run in 4 modes: spiral out, go in a random direction straight, follow walls, and zig-zag to cover a floor. At first it looks like it's just a bump-and-go kind of thing, but it doesn't get stuck in corners like a bump-and-go car would. If you watch it, you'll want to tell it to go to a particular area, but somehow it seems to always make it to that area at some point. Its pattern seems random and ineffective, but it does seem to get most of the stuff off the floor.

- The bumping action is very gentle. You can get it to turn around by letting it bump into one finger. If you put an empty pint glass on the floor, odds are it won't knock it over, but it probably eventually will.

- It's very good about not going down stairs. Mine hasn't fallen yet. The one time it almost did was when the sun was lighting the stair below and it couldn't "see" the edge so it got one wheel partly over and shut down.

- You can use it in very small areas if you want. I put mine on a 4-foot by 4-foot landing (130cm square) and it worked fine.

- You can't have clutter. As others have said, it'll suck up phone cords and papers. So far I've "Roomba-safed" 4 rooms. In the bathroom, for instance, I have to move the climbing plant on the floor and remove the bathmats. I tend to like having things off the floor anyway, and this has helped me have a reason to keep things tidy.

- I was happy to have it go under the bed and get all the dust bunnies. The first time I had to empty the dustbin several times at first until it got it partly clean.

I've had it for about 4 months and I still use it
I like the roomba alot. I've had mine quite awhile now and still use it. In fact I used it today and was reminded of how cool it is.

I usually clean the house one room at a time, and let the roomba go at the room I just finished tidying up. As mentioned elsewhere, you have to "roomba-proof" the room before you let it rip- ie get cords up, etc. That can at times be a pain, and take away a bit of the effortlessness, but what can you do- this thing will go where no vaccum has gone. Anyway it usually takes like 10 seconds.

Its fun to finish up the next room and go back to the first room where roomba has finished vacuuming, leaving nice vaccum lines and spirals on the carpet. I find it gets up cat hair (i have 2) on the carpet quite well. I can run a damp hand across the carpet afterwards and not have any hair sticking to it.. thats pretty good.

Roomba is also great for a quick bathroom cleanup. I shake out my bath rugs, hang them over the counter and let roomba go at it with the door shut. When i return, no hair on the floor, no dust bunnies, no weird human sheddings.

All in all, I'm glad I have one. It comes in quite handy, quite often. Of course, those with very bumpy tile floors or lots of thick/fringey area rugs might have some trouble.

If you don't have much time for vacuuming, I'd get one. Especially if you have pets- it will really help keep the hair in check. The sound of my roomba running is the sound of CLEAN to me now :)

I can't wait for Roomba 2.0 whenever that arrives- this has been a pretty successful product- I have no doubt it will evolve into THE vaccuming device before long.

Why 4 stars and not 5? Just because there is some room for improvement- it would be nice to not have to go pick up every cord in its path. It gets stuck in the sliding door track, so i have to block it. It beeps nonstop when it is done- it should just turn off after awhile. A longer lasting battery would be nice. Perhaps more suction power. etc etc

One of the first useful robots, finally!
I've had my Roomba since October (and find it funny to see Amazon.com and Linens & Things selling it as a "new release" in May) and I love it to bits. It's truly useful.

Sure, there's room for improvements. This is a first-of-a-kind product. Its battery handling isn't great, in particular. But at the price you can't beat it. It'll save you its cost in time spent within the first few months, easily, and that's not even accounting for the cost of vacuum bags, chiropractic care for your back, or getting areas (like under the bed) clean that you've probably never cleaned before.

Three caveats. 1: read the manual and do the maintenance it suggests. We're all so used to products so simplified and familiar we don't have to read the manual and usually don't read it unless something goes wrong. But this is not just a new product, it's a new kind of product, and you won't get good use out of it unless you take a few simple steps to make it work for you. 2: Don't try to micromanage it or watch it closely. The whole principle of how it works is that it might not get that bit of dirt now, but it will get it eventually. So what that it takes a lot longer than you would have? It has nothing better to do with that extra time anyway, but YOU DO. So go do something else. 3: Be prepared for the first few times (or more) to pick up a lot of gunk and get its bin filled up quickly, because Roomba will be cleaning things you've never cleaned before. Once it's had a chance to do those areas a few times, things will settle down. Roomba works best if you let Roomba run regularly, rather than trying to use Roomba just before company comes over, so that you never get that buildup again. But your first few passes you'll have to deal with that buildup.