Roomba 510 Review
Friday, April 11, 2008
To help out with cleaning and occasionally child-rearing duties, we bought an iRobot (not Will Smith) Roomba 510 off of Woot. It is the lowest end model of the 500 series and is being discontinued, hence it availability from woot (and not reconditioned). For more Roomba info click here or on how it works.
I charged it overnight and unleashed it on Friday. After 25 minutes it told me "Your house if full of Lulu hair and so am I - clean my brushes." Ok maybe just the last part. So I emptied the collection bin, the dust/filter tray, removed the brushes and tracking wheel and cleaned of the hair. It was all easy to do and takes about 3 minutes. Then I let her rip again for another 30 minutes before I had to repeat the cleaning process. So the Roomba isn't without proper maintenance but its easy to do. Three minutes of my time for 30-90 minutes of hands-free cleaning action is worthwhile. We used it on Saturday and Sunday some as well, and it finally needed to be charged on Sunday afternoon.
Tasks completed: clean living room (twice thanks to Lulu), kitchen, family room, hallway, office, and master bedroom - all hard floors with one Lulu-hair-infused area rug.
Brush Cleanings performed: 5
What seemed inefficient: Running around tight areas multiple times, loosing some hair while transitioning from area rug to tile, blows some hair around the backside due to the vaccuum discharge.
What was impressive: Battery run time, intelligence regarding needing to be cleaned, cleaning under beds and couches, not getting stuck anywhere, navigating narrow furniture legs. It has a spot clean mode, detects dirtier areas and spends more time there, and has a demo mode (haven't tried yet...)
The only remaining question is how long it will last. I figure if it lasts one year, the $150 price tags will be well worth it.
Here's a photo of RoOmba in child-rearing mode:
Posted by Mark and Sinziana 8:51 AM
