Broken Hive Mind

I’m surprised that it took me so long to write this post since I retired my Roomba over 6 months ago when the $90 battery (that was about a year old) only provided the pile of crap with about 5 minutes of power. When I first got my Roomba 560 I was impressed with it. We quickly Roomba proofed the small place (at the time we lived in a place that was less than 1000 square feet) and set it up to run automatically about 3 times a week. After 3 months of normal use the Roomba needed to have it’s side brush replaced. In fact this would happen 3 times over the year. It would eventually need everything except the main drive wheels, motor, and debris bin replaced even though it was being used normally. IRobot was very good about replacing these parts under warranty, but I would say that the Roomba was out of commission for about 2 months out of the year waiting for parts. Once the year was up one of the replacement parts that was replaced under warranty (and was less than 3 months old) the head unit in this case (holds the brushes) failed. IRobot assured me that the replacement parts carry the original warranty and not their own so this new head unit was not out of warranty since the Roomba was now out of warranty. That same month I confirmed that many Roomba owners had trouble with this blue head unit. Perhaps it was a defect, but IRobot still refused to replace it and I bought a green one since I was “out of warranty.” So the original one was red, the replacement which lasted 3 months was blue and failed quickly for many people, and then I had to buy a green one for about $50 bucks. Two weeks after that the $90 dollar battery failed. Take my advice on this one. It is not durable enough to make the high price tag worth it and that goes for convenience as well. Use the money on a self-propelled, good vacuum, like a Dyson Animal instead. Sure you have to push it a little bit, and might have to move some furniture from time to time, but IRobot makes their money off of making very modular robots that are easy to repair, and then selling you high failure rate parts. At least that was my experience.

I should note that there are some companies refurbishing batteries for about $60 now and that there is a Ni-Cad battery available for between $70 and $80 but of course the Ni-Cads performance is not what the original $90 NiMh’s performance is.

Also, when I spoke to customer service they accused me of abusing the Roomba. As I already mentioned we just used it normally and even prepped the house for it. There could not have been a better environment for it. We just used it like we should have been able to and it broke. Plus that’s just poor customer service on their part.