Others say...

"Bait and Switch"
I've had my Romba Discovery for about a year, and its worked pretty well. Now the battery is dead, and Irobot won't replace it. They say the batteries are on back order, but offer a discount for a trade in. It's been 2 months since I ordered the battery and Irobot can't tell me when I can get this replacement part, but they can offer a good deal on a new unit. THIS IS CLEARLY A BAIT AND SWITCH AS WELL AS A DECEPTIVE BUSINESS PRACTICE. THIS UNETHICAL BEHAVIOR MEANS I WILL NEVER DO BUSISNESS WITH THIS COMPANY AND I ADVISE EVERYONE TO AVOID I-ROBOT.

DO NOT BUT THIS PRODUCT.

"Engineered to need periodic factory repair?"
The Roomba is a great floor sweep and outstanding robotics. However. when caught on tassels of rugs, builds up stress in the gear box that drives the brush and cracks the gear box cover. This plastic cover is unncessarily precut at three places full-length across the plate and each connected only by one flimsy plastic edge. One cut in particular crosses a screw-hole so that overtightening of the screw at the factory assures that the plate will crack with use. The company does not sell this piece of plastic and insists on factory repair. There is no apparent reason for the gear box cover to be precut except to get the Roomba back to factory periodically if they want it to.

"GREAT vaccuum, AWFUL customer service"
Roombas are brilliant, but iRobot's customer service is astoundingly bad in my experience. They took 2 months to ship most of my order, which was not listed as out of stock (but secretly was), then shipped it to the wrong address, incomplete. Once all these issues were solved, they shipped the last parts, again to the wrong address. Phone service that followed this was downright rude. If I were buying one again (and I might), I'd buy through a 3rd party, not directly from iRobot.

"Never Knew I needed this thing!"
When my husband bought me this item I can't say I was overjoyed. I was thinking how he bought it because it looked like a remote control car for him to play with! It took me a few times to really appreciate this baby.

How I use it:

I first lift the few throw rugs up off the floor, and then tuck the ends of the bigger rugs under so the Roomba doesn't drive up the rug. I turn on the Roomba and go upstairs. I found that I didn't have much sweeping on my own after the machine completed it's cycle. It was like having a "helper". My husband found this model on sale at a B&M store, so bought me 2 more. I now have 3 running at once, and have found the machines clean every square inch of the downstairs.

The machine is pretty heavy duty as well. My 3 year old will sit on the thing while it's running or place cups or other items on it to humor himself.

The only complaint I had was the battery life. The standard batteries that came with this model would not hold a charge after a while. We bought the new batteries for the units at Fry's for $49.99 each, and that fixed the problem.

What will they think of next??? Oh Yeah, the Scooba!

"Over-rated, Only Good for Minimal Furnished Bare Floor Apartment, Poor Customer Service"
As a consumer who does hours of research and reading reviews of everything I buy,(and don't mind spending money on appliances that are worth it's quality), this was my worst purchase so far.

If you're thinking that this high tech "vacuum" will leave you with cleaner floors and giving you more free time, then you'll be disappointed. That was my goal when I purchased this.

My house has your average low pile carpet,hardwood floors, regular height furniture (eg. sofa, coffee table, bed etc). I've found that the roomba gets "stuck" a lot, for one reason or another, the machine stops working after a while and you'll have to turn it back on. I've followed it as it cleans, and just can't seem to understand why it would stop all of a sudden, sometimes it stops as it's caught between the front bottom edge of the sofa and the floor, othertimes, it's caught between the legs of tables and chairs.

I've placed several strands of hair, rice, paperclips etc. on my floor, and the vacuum didn't pick any of that after the entire cleaning of my room. The vacuum is only good for bare floors (it should really be called a "broom") since it seems to not pick up anything on carpet, it does a little better on floors since the roomba's tiny brushes can push the dirt easier, less resistance than on carpet. Like any vacuum you'll need to move the furniture so that it's out of the way. But when I vacuum, I just move my furniture a few feet at the most, but with this machine and its "programmed" path of vacuuming, you'll have to essentially move everything out of the room that might trap this gadget since you won't know where it'll be heading and you're suppose to be able to "leave" the room.

After a few months of not using it, I've only used it a couple of times, I decided to give the machine another try, and of course, the tire tread on the machine fell off. It was made of rubber and like rubber band, this material gets brittle and hardens over time, so naturally, the tire tread broke off of my machine.

I called the company, and what do you know, their first option on thir customer service line was for the broken tire tread, that they'll replace it "free of charge". These machines should have been recalled (I'm not aware that they are anyways.). I waited 6 weeks, still no replacement.

Called back today, kept getting placed on hold and being transferred, finally talked to someone. They then asked for my serial number. Why didn't they ask for that the first time? Very disappointed with the quality and service of this whole machine.

My advice, if you want to try this technology, make sure you buy it at a place where you can return it if it doesn't work out for you.