Have this model in my bedroom. Absolutely loved it for the 1st year then the battery pooped out on me. I got the battery replaced and I am now happy again with it. It does a great job spot cleaning.

TONS of reviews (4.0 out of 5.0) over at amazon

http://www.amazon.com/iRobot-530-Roomba-Vacuuming-Robot/dp/B000UU7TZE

Maybe I'm not seeing the difference, but it seems like the price has really climbed on this. I bought one of these from woot three years ago at $135.

Gotta say I love it though. I have hardwood floors and no pets, so I rarely vacuum manually. I've had a few minor issues, but it still runs great to this day.

I have a new place and it will be fairly empty next couple of months as furniture and other items are ordered, made and shipped. Hopefully it can keep the place to where I wont need to do much vacuuming.

lynx44 wrote:Maybe I'm not seeing the difference, but it seems like the price has really climbed on this. I bought one of these from woot three years ago at $135.

Gotta say I love it though. I have hardwood floors and no pets, so I rarely vacuum manually. I've had a few minor issues, but it still runs great to this day.

The older models were in that price range. I've got several, all of which are now dead. Wish they'd dig up a few of the old ones, because this is too expensive for me and I've got an injury that makes vacuuming pretty painful.

lynx44 wrote:Maybe I'm not seeing the difference, but it seems like the price has really climbed on this. I bought one of these from woot three years ago at $135.

Gotta say I love it though. I have hardwood floors and no pets, so I rarely vacuum manually. I've had a few minor issues, but it still runs great to this day.

real quick:
1. yes, price has gone up
2009 $129.99
http://www.woot.com/Forums/ViewPost.aspx?PostID=3154076
2010 $139.99
http://www.woot.com/Forums/ViewPost.aspx?PostID=3948182
2012 $159.99
http://home.woot.com/forums/viewpost.aspx?postid=5053053
I think this is the 19th sale, at $189.99 now

THus, a few dug up old posts

[MOD: Deleted Scooba info]

and CowboyDann's stuff, hoping he doesn't mind:

CowboyDann wrote:"Where's CowboyDann? I need my video Demonstrations" said nobody.

Here they are anyways.

Here's the 530 In action. Homemade video.


Here is a professional commercial pitch.


Here he is scaring animals (PG-13 language)



Time Lapse image of Cleaning Path.

CowboyDann wrote:Lastly But not leastly
Here is the Manual for Roomba 500 Series 530 Is in here.

As Always Uploaded to Google.Docs for easy viewing.

Here it is on the iRobot Site where you can compare models, read the FAQ, and read a few reviews and watch some videos I may have missed.

If I remember correctly this model does not do so well with pet hair and you might want to buy a Roomba Pet model if you have a lot of furry critters in your house.

I'm running on 2.5 hours sleep now and need my rest. Someone else can confirm my suspicions on animal hair, but I'm pretty sure that's right.
----------

Edit:

Finally Made it over to Deals.woot before goin to bed. Moofi Has the 555 if you want to spend a little more money for a roomba that's a little bit better.

bye


bye

Seen the price on spare parts for these machines?
I'm tempted to buy one and threaten it with dissection should my 560 ever go wrong again.

(Mine was recovered through replacing it's brush assembly.)

Once I had a new assembly, I actually had the courage to operate on the old one, and now have two functioning brush units. It simply got clogged with pet hair right inside the gears. Beyond simple to fix. Yanked it out and put some gear grease in there (vaseline, I think they call it) :D

In a hap-hazard way I'm happy anyway, as I replaced it with a 700 series brush assembly, which is quieter and has covered bearings, so needs cleaning slightly less than the original.

http://store.irobot.com/product/index.jsp?productId=11358364&cp=3744764.11500505&s=A-ProductAge&parentPage=family
(they do fit, as do the updated aerovac bins, should you want to convert yours to the equivalent of the pet model).
Again, they fit with no modification and outperform the old ones.

In regards to the battery, the system will actually give you a battery error after 1 year even if the battery is functional. You need to open up the bottom plate, then disconnect and reconnect the battery. It will presume you replaced it and off it goes again.
Providing the battery wasn't actually dead that is

I was very impressed with how well the roomba is designed, internally.
It really is built to be maintained and replaced piece by piece as parts fail. Every module pulls out with minimal fuss. Many simply plug and play.
Can't very often say that for many things in these disposable times.

These things are tougher than people give them credit for. They tend to be abandoned as soon as they stall. Roomba has the slightly suspect attitude of re-badging a now very old design and calling it new, but as I mentioned, most parts are interchangeable on most models.

In my experience they're not done if they falter at the first hurdle. In fact they're so tough that IRobot seemed to stop selling the old units as people became wise to the backwards compatibility of the older machines. They even started to pull the lighthouse capability from the 500's as they refurbed them so only the older 500's and higher model 6 and 700's could do it.
Essentially they're all the same machine.

One last thing. Newegg sells almost all the spare parts that IRobot does, only for usually less and with free shipping.
In fact now, now I look again, Now IRobot has discontinued the 500 and lower, they stock more parts than IRobot does too.

oops, my bad above, sorry TT.

Few more things:

support page:
http://www.irobot.com/us/Support/For_Home/Roomba_500_Resources.aspx

video w/cat, because the internet doesn't have enough cats:


"official" type video:


10 minute review:


7 minute review:

This vacuum saved my marriage.

Does this incorporate the 500 series upgrade?

Roomba 500 series upgrade

If you get one and have an indoor animal, make sure that the animal doesn't go poop inside or you might have an issue like this:

We have a relatively large ranch house. Is there a way to tell the roomba to clean room A on Monday, room B on Tuesday and so on? I would imagine that the battery/bin are only large enough to clean a room at a time, right?

I saw this video on Break the other day :D
Dog Crap: The Roomba’s Only Known Weakness

My very first Woot! was almost five years ago (March 2008). It was the iRobot Roomba Scheduler 4260 w/ Intellibin and it was fantastic for a quite a few years. I liked it so much I even took a gamble and picked up a second one to do the basement from that on line auction site

One of the key reasons was the scheduling capability. These things are noisy and we set it to run while we were at work/school. Each day we'd come home to freshly swept and vacuumed floors. And to be truthful, these are more sweeper than vacuum, though they do have suction.

They were good little bots, though batteries had an average life of 7-9 months. After buying the OEM batteries a few times I found suitable replacements at the same on line auction site. The good news: they were less expensive and lasted longer.

Another need that adds up over time: those little spinning side brushes. They tend to break off and replacements aren’t cheap.

Like most pets, Roombas require constant grooming. Depending on your home, expect to spread papers out on the table and disassemble/clean them every two weeks. Even with this attention at some point they will begin to act quirky (see "circle dance" for one). After a while no amount of cleaning, tapping, jostling or spraying with compressed air will save them.

One issue I had with the Roomba: it will scratch/mar shoe molding, baseboards, furniture legs, etc. as it rubs up against them while cleaning. While some folks place a strip of the fuzzy half of Velcro across the front to act as a cushion, it doesn’t stop it from happening. It just softens those head-on collisions with objects. Be prepared to do paint touch-ups often.

I've moved on to another brand and feel it is superior, but it is pricier.

Even still, you never forget your first Roomba.

Bought one off Woot a while back and love it. Here are things people complain about and why they are wrong.
1) It takes up a lot of floor space! -- Keep it under a little table
2) It attacks my children and pets! -- Run it when you leave the house; your dogs and cats will deal.
3) It gets clogged up with hair/dust! -- So do regular vacuums. It takes 3 minutes after each run to clean out, which is much less time than to vacuum a large floor.
4) It doesn't pick up as much as X brand regular vacuum! -- Fair. But you can run it twice with less work.
5) I work for Dyson. -- Then prepare to Die, son!

lynx44 wrote:Maybe I'm not seeing the difference, but it seems like the price has really climbed on this. I bought one of these from woot three years ago at $135.

Gotta say I love it though. I have hardwood floors and no pets, so I rarely vacuum manually. I've had a few minor issues, but it still runs great to this day.

Yeah I noticed that too - I bought a 535 model that came with more accessories from Woot in 2009 for $155.

Also though we loved it - she worked great right up to the end (about 3 months ago she died and refused to be resuscitated). We plan on giving her a proper backyard burial once the ground thaws for all her wonderful years of service, clean carpets and entertainment for the children, dogs, and neighborhood friends. She will be missed.

Anybody know how effective these are with larger debris items on the floor? For example, we have three young children (the youngest is 1), thus food is ALWAYS on the floor under his high chair (and we have carpeted floors in the kitchen... ugh). Will this pick up bigger things like cereal, pieces of food, etc. that a normal vacuum would?

Granted, some of the things he throws off the high chair (a whole slice of apple) I know won't be picked up by any vacuum, but will this do a decent job of the other stuff or is it mostly for areas messy with smaller things just like day-to-day dust and dirt?

tpicklesimer wrote:Anybody know how effective these are with larger debris items on the floor? For example, we have three young children (the youngest is 1), thus food is ALWAYS on the floor under his high chair (and we have carpeted floors in the kitchen... ugh). Will this pick up bigger things like cereal, pieces of food, etc. that a normal vacuum would?

Granted, some of the things he throws off the high chair (a whole slice of apple) I know won't be picked up by any vacuum, but will this do a decent job of the other stuff or is it mostly for areas messy with smaller things just like day-to-day dust and dirt?

Yes probably.. I've found marbles, legos, cereal, and various other larger debris in my roomba over the years. I always enjoy separating the dust and dog hair from the legos.

Perfect, thanks for the info. Is it just a dust bin that you empty out, like any other bagless vacuum?

nullvalu wrote:Yes probably.. I've found marbles, legos, cereal, and various other larger debris in my roomba over the years. I always enjoy separating the dust and dog hair from the legos.

ThunderThighs wrote:Checked into buying a new battery? That's all my old sage one needed.

Ah, I wish. I've gotten new batteries, I've swiped cells from old battery packs and built new ones, and I've Frankensteined parts from dead Roombas to build a live one. Even that only goes so far.

I should probably be relieved that the last one has finally died. It might have turned on its creator and killed me in my sleep.

tpicklesimer wrote:Perfect, thanks for the info. Is it just a dust bin that you empty out, like any other bagless vacuum?

Sort of yes, kind of like a tray that you pull out and empty.. it collects larger particles in one section and hair, etc in another. Takes about 2 minutes to empty but you have to be religious about doing it every time it runs. Also if you have pets, you have to clean the hair from brush (mine came with a special round red tool for doing so, I don't see this model does).. Then about every 5 runs or so you need to do a more thorough cleaning (remove the front caster-like ball, clean out anything stuck in there, unscrew the side-spinny brush and remove anything twirled up in there. That's about a 5-minute job. Then about every 6 months or so I'd take the entire thing apart, remove the bottom plate and clean everything out inside, that was about a 20-minute job. So there's some maintenance, maybe a little more than a normal vacuum. But then again it's not you who's doing the actual vacuuming..

Bought one of these a couple years ago. It was a cool novelty at first but it wasn't very effective on carpet. Worked fine on hard floors. After about 6 months, it decided that it was always in "I'm running into a wall" mode and just did circles so I threw it out. It's amazing how much better my new vacuum is at vacuuming.

I hear you can use parts from older models on the newer ones and vice versa - does anyone know if the charger will work for an old - non-docking - model?

My old 100 or whatever did an OUTSTANDING job on carpet - I hear this is not as powerful? I know it doesn't do scheduling - is it still worth it over the scheduling models?

does anyone know how good this thing is with multiple shedding pets? I have 3 dogs that all shed quite a bit and am worried it might get clogged because of all the hair. I have to vaccuum constantly, so if this could work well it would be a huge time saver.

Hair, both human and pet was a big issue. I Wooted one back in 2009 ($129 back then). It cleaned great, but the beater was constantly getting hair wound around it. I had to clean it every time I used it.

After about 1.5 years of light use, my Roomba 440 started dragging it's butt around so the tines have too much friction to move on the carpet. The feet feel normal and sink in to the body the same amount as before.

So I am saying that long term reliability might not be that good.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hauw42qlwA

Also, make sure to take the battery out of the unit after it's done charging! With the Roomab 440 at least, the battery stays about 30 degrees above ambient even days after being fully recharged! It is a NiMH battery pack. So in other words it does not have the proper circuitry to prevent overcharging, so take that battery out after it's done charging.
Newer Roombas may be better at this, not sure.

got mine 2.5 years ago on woot for 135. hate to see the price so high.
the battery just died on me. company site is 70$. got a lithuim Hydride(better than NiCD) on ebay for 24$ delivered.. works like a charm. has saved me 100s of dollars in maid service bills. As soon as this dies. will buy another one

eggbertsc wrote:does anyone know how good this thing is with multiple shedding pets? I have 3 dogs that all shed quite a bit and am worried it might get clogged because of all the hair. I have to vaccuum constantly, so if this could work well it would be a huge time saver.

Add the AeroVac upgrade. I have two dogs of a breed legendary for shedding and no longer have problems with clogging.

I've bought three before from woot @ $165. After I got one for myself to help me with doggy dander, my mother and one of my aunts had to get one too. It really is a lifesaver if you have pets. Too bad it's 189 now, but I still picked up another one for a friend.

Wait, it's gone? I've been scrounging up money and now it's gone?

(*sigh*)

eggbertsc wrote:does anyone know how good this thing is with multiple shedding pets? I have 3 dogs that all shed quite a bit and am worried it might get clogged because of all the hair. I have to vaccuum constantly, so if this could work well it would be a huge time saver.

I have two large very hairy dogs with hardwood and an area rug. This thing picks up hair better than I can on the hardwood. I have to clean it out every time, but it goes fast and is easy, and totally worth it. This thing gets hair stuck to the bottom of the chair legs and under furniture. Seriously, I'm in love, I named her Sofia. I had my mom convinced for a week I had got a short white maid named Sofia that only vacuums, doesn't do dishes, and the dogs love her. Its awesome to press a button, leave the hairy house from a molting dog and come home to a clean house and recharged vacuum that takes me 2 minutes to clean out and have ready for the next day. It doesn't do so great on my area rug, so I'd recommend for hardwood mostly.

nvaine wrote:Wait, it's gone? I've been scrounging up money and now it's gone?

(*sigh*)

Not only gone, but another item is listed for today?

I call shenanigans!

Mine didn't come with the lovely matching white charger or that fancy adjustable virtual wall, all black accessories and the older vision of the virtual wall. Anyone else get this?

birdiegurl wrote:Mine didn't come with the lovely matching white charger or that fancy adjustable virtual wall, all black accessories and the older vision of the virtual wall. Anyone else get this?

Ditto! I tried to check compatibility of the virtual wall on the Irobot site, and the SKU number on the bottom of my Roomba is scratched off.