iRobot 560 Roomba Vacuuming Robot, Black and Silver

Comment: I can only say one thing about purchasing the Roomba. Don't. I purchased the IRobot 560 and within 2 weeks it wasn't working. I was so disappointed.

Comment: I originally bought the Roomba 560 for my mother who's getting older and having a hard time vacuuming. Long story short, it does a really great job of sucking up dirt and dust on all floor types, and does a good job transitioning from hardwood to carpet, or hardwood to rugs (even with fringe). And it can also handle very large rooms (>500sqft). HOWEVER, it will NOT cross onto a rug that has a black boarder. My mother's kitchen has 3 rugs, all with black boarders and black squares throughout, and for whatever reason the Roomba interprets black as a dip in the floor surface (akin to it not falling down stairs). It would vacuum all around the rugs, and climb onto rugs in the dining room that are cream-colored, and hall rugs that are dark red with patterns, but it won't cross a black line. So since it didn't serve my parent's needs, I brought it back to my apartment and it works like a charm, covering about 1100sqft in 45 minutes. I have it set to 3pm and every day it auto starts at 3pm sharp and cleans everything and returns to the base to recharge. It's fascinating to watch! It's fuzzy logic is incredible!

Some of the other reviews said it takes a while to clean out the dirt tray & filter, but it takes us less than 1 minute to slide out the tray, dump that, and then slide open the hinged filter and dump the second area. I suppose you could wash out the filter every time, but it really doesn't need that. We also don't empty the dirt tray every day (as some other reviews said was necessary), but we don't have kids or pets so we're not generating too much that needs to be vacuumed on a daily basis.

Bottom line; if you don't have rugs with black edges, I most certainly would suggest buying this thing -- it takes care of business. And it's really nice to have one less thing to do.

Comment: I have to admit, I had my doubts after reading some of the reviews but after having my iRobot 560 for about 3 weeks now, my floors are spotless and I'm a very happy customer. I have it scheduled to clean daily when I'm not home and clean out the bin every few days (which only takes just a few seconds - they made it very simple). Just hoping it lasts over a year since the warranty ends at that time.

Comment: I wanted to alert potential buyers to the fact that iRobot treats their customers with open contempt.

I tried to buy a Roomba from iRobot website, but my purchase was rejected due to iRobot error. So I complained.

iRobot's reply was breathtaking:

"Once again our selection system proved flawless. We keep avoiding the pain in the a** customers."

This is no joke but an actual response to my complaint by iRobot's customer service. This is no malware either, as I checked, using WhoIs, that the website ([...]) actually belongs to iRobot.

This is an actual response from iRobot (Roomba manufacturers) service people, to a query in which I complained that my purchase had been rudely and groundlessly rejected. [Note: I have flawless credit history and all my credit cards work perfectly]

My message to any potential buyers is: BEWARE! These would be the people who you actually would have to deal with, should you ever require support for your Roomba. My experience makes me happy that my purchase was rejected, however erroneously.

P.S. After this experience I purchased Neato XV-11. I am very happy with this choice, and Neato went out of their way to assist the purchase process.

Comment: I WAS an IRobot fan. My first Roomba mas model 410, even though it was the cheapest model it worked fabulously well. Then I got a Scooba 380 and in the course of a year it broke 4 times. It kept going into the drying mode before completing the cleaning cycle. Every single replacement worked well for around 2 months and then it would break. In the final exchange I was so enraged for having paid $500 for this that I wanted instead of a replacement for another Scooba that would break, a Roomba. And guess what? In less than 6 months the Roomba 560 broke! It started to give the "Remove and Clean the Brushes" message. Brushes were clean, everything was checked and it kept on going with the same problem again and again. Nothing worked! End of story: These robots are a wonderful idea that doesn't work well.
Expensive toys that don't last long!
I WILL NEVER EVER AGAIN BUY ANOTHER IROBOT PRODUCT.