iRobot - Roomba 650 Self-Charging Robot Vacuum - Black

I got the 650 rather than the 770 due to reading reviews like this one and I am not disappointed at all. The 650 does not use a HEPA system like the 770, nor does it come with the remote control and second lighthouse. So the 770 costs more, but the additional cost is easily offset just by the additional lighthouse and remote ... about $80 aftermarket cost to purchase. Also, HEPA filtration would be nice to have; however, the 770 has had complaints about getting into areas and opening up the lint/debris disposal tray. The 650 requires a very deliberate opening of this tray and I think they tried to make it a little easier for people to do with one hand and sort of created a minor flaw, although it appears the 770 has to get into a very specific situation to open the disposal tray on its own. Due to the fact that I wanted to program my unit to run while I wasn't home, I did not want to worry with it shutting itself off after it accidentally opened the lint/debris tray. So for the 650 review... it's awesome. I have had a cleaning lady who came to my house every other week for 7 years. I decided that I wasn't getting my money's worth so I let her go and got this device. It has been a few months now and I haven't regretted my decision. The unit is scheduled to run at 5am on Wednesday mornings (you can schedule for any time and any day, but only once a day). It can clean a very large area (1000 sq. ft.), in 2 hours and does a better job at base boards than any human. You will read about people Roomba proofing their homes, but I haven't had to change much. It will eat cords, curtains and other things, but has refused everything I have seen it vacuum up that it shouldn't have vacummed up and sort of runs away from it. Also, it seems to pick up on these areas and slows down the next time it proceeds towards them as to reduce the need to reverse and run away. Trust me, you will find yourself watching this thing work and be amazed each time you empty the "lint tray" .. this is the only thing I can find it being called. I have a large home, over 4000 sq. ft. and I allow the unit to clean half of it at 5am on Wednesdays and use the lighthouse; you get "1" lighthouse with the 650, to block off the other half of the house... the lighthouse is also an amazing device. It docks itself back into its charging station and once I get home I put it into the back portion of the downstairs. It makes noise, but if it's on another level or within a room or down a hallway it doesn't interfere with conversation, work or entertainment. Again I get amusement by watching the thing half the time, which drives the rest of my family crazy. I put it into the other half of the house during the afternoon and up stairs usually on a Saturday or Sunday morning during breakfast. The unit will not fall down stairs. I would suggest running the unit over the entire house two to three times the first week you get it, then once a week thereafter. The unit will more than likely get stuck somewhere during that first week; for me it was under a dresser that had space for the Roomba to move under, but had an arched bottom board where the Roomba managed to wedge itself under the low portion of the arch...again it seemed to learn what not to do and it hasn't done it since. It also works well on both carpet and hard surfaces; however, we have a rug it doesn't like. It is a very shaggy style of rug and almost too thick for it, so if you have shag carpet or even the newer sort of medium looking shag type you might want to try and borrow a unit or somehow otherwise allow yourself to verify that it will work for your house. Just remember, plan to put a week into allowing the unit to learn the house and clean the entire house well. Don't give up on the unit too quickly, it will learn. Be prepared to make a few minor adjustments to curtain heights, cord placements ... etc., it won't require you doing a lot. You will be amazed at how well it works and how well it keeps the dust down also. Anyway, my next purchase will be the Scooba 390.

I can't tell you how much I want to love this purchase. I'm a bachelor who keeps a fairly need house, but doesn't do things like sweep/vacuum as much as I should. I work a fairly consistent schedule which means I can program my Roomba to run when I'm not there so I don't even have to be disturbed while it does it's job. Seems like a perfect fit. And yet I'm struggling to fully endorse this product. Does it clean well? Yes...when it actually cleans. I have a mix of hardwood and carpet in my home and it does a great job on both. It gets under furniture. I'm always amazed when I watch it navigate the tangle of table/chair legs in my kitchen where it does an impressive job of keeping my floors spotless. It even does a decent job on the rug in my bathroom. So what's the problem? My Roomba gets stuck/confused and shuts itself down waaaaaaay to easily and waaaaay too frequently. At first it kept getting stuck on a rug with long tassels on the end. Understandable and not a problem...I've needed an excuse to replace that rug anyway. Then it kept getting hung up on a corner of my large living room rug where it would get boxed in between the rug, a wall, and my couch. So I rearranged my furniture a bit to keep the rug closer to the wall so the Roomba wouldn't be able to squeeze in that area. Problem solved I thought. That's when the fun really started. My Roomba is scheduled to run every morning after I leave the house Monday-Friday. In the last two weeks (10 weekdays) it has made it back to the charger on it's own exactly...one time. Every day I come home and play "Find the Roomba" to see what it's managed to get stuck on so it could quit cleaning. A couple times it was stuck under a night stand that it has to hit it straight on in order to get under it, but then can't seem to find it's way out. It still finds new ways to get stuck on the other corners of my living room rug. And my new favorite: I've come home multiple times to find it just sitting at the stop of a staircase. The thing that frustrates me is that when I find it stuck I simply move it and inch or two and restart it and it seems to behave just fine; it completes its cleaning cycle and returns to the charger. I've watched it navigate those same obstacles numerous times without issue, yet when I'm not here it seems to get confused way too easily. I honestly sometimes feel like my Roomba is a child: with supervision it does exactly what it's supposed to do. Without supervision, it seems like it gets distracted quits working. Another child-like quality: I keep trying to remove the things that are preventing it from behaving (like problematic rugs), yet it just keeps finding new creative ways to get in trouble again. While I do love the fact that my Roomba does in fact do a great job of cleaning my floors without me having to physically vacuum or sweep, I'm just really frustrated that it can't seem to do it consistently during its scheduled times. That was a big selling point for me: being able to run it when I'm not here. Instead I find myself having to listen to it and dodge it for the first 45 minutes every day when I get home from work. And the thing is, my house is VERY easy to navigate. Clutter and pet-free, mostly hardwood floors, a handful of furniture pieces, and a one large/high-pile rug to avoid. Yet it gets stuck over 80% of the time it runs. So I'll give it three stars for it's cleaning abilities, but that's the best I can do given it's poor track record with cleaning without manual intervention. If I could reverse the ratio and only have to give it assitance once every ten times it ran - heck, even once every five - I would give this product five stars. Unfortunately at this point I'm just too sick of finding it stranded in random parts of my house.

Not sure where to start. This thing's amazing! I'm a single mom who works a full time job and goes to school at night. I have a 4 bedroom, 2,500sf home, that is almost entirely carpeting, and I have a dog that is on the "worst shedding" list of dog breeds. I just bought the Roomba 650 last week, expecting to be unimpressed and returning it. This was a major purchase for me; expensive by my standards, and there's no way I would return it! It has changed my life. I run it every night, overnight, and the room I ran it in is spotless in the morning. I run it every day when I'm at work in the main living area, and the carpeting looks like it was professionally cleaned when I come home. I'm a good housekeeper, but this thing put me to shame the first few runs per room. The stuff it picks up - INCREDIBLE! And it goes under the bed, which never gets vacuumed because the vacuum won't fit under my beds. What it extracted from the carpeting under my bed was just plain embarrassing, but oh so impressive. You do need to empty the bin and clean the brushes and filter after each cleaning, but it's a 3 minute process, literally. It's no big deal, and so worth it. And it's quiet, I think. Maybe the sound of a hair dryer. It bumps walls and doors and furniture very gently, but if you're trying to sleep, you will likely hear it bump your closed bedroom door. So overnight, I run it in a part of the house where no one will hear it, like the kitchen and foyer. It easily goes from the bathroom tile to the bathroom rugs, it never falls down the stairs, I've never had it get tangled up in cords, but I've read other reviews saying it does do that. I'm telling you, I got a puppy about 6 weeks ago and was just beside myself with the dog hair. I kept thinking that I'd just vacuum EVERY SINGLE night after work and school, but I'd get home and just be too tired. Now my carpeting is vacuumed every single day, without me even being home! Over the weekend, I set it loose while I was doing homework. It's the greatest thing in the world to be able to do one chore, while the vacuuming chore is being handled by Roomba! It also has found all sorts of treasures. It pushed out papers and a long-forgotten bracelet from under beds #it didn't eat them, just pushed them out - neat!#, and it vacuumed up a few coins which I removed from the bin. Now that it has run three times in every room, the bin often isn't full. It was just the first few runs in each room that produced full bins, but now that it's thoroughly cleaned all rooms, it's all just maintenance now. It runs for about an hour and fifteen minutes per charge, and takes three hours to charge. I do wish it would charge faster, that way I could get more rooms done per day, but that's alright. I've kinda got a schedule down at this point. I do run it every single day. I run it twice a day Mon-Friday, and I run it probably four times on Saturdays and Sundays. Let me tell you, my floors are CLEAN! It's the best thing in the world, seriously!! I wish I could afford a second one to clean two rooms simultaneously, but I have to survive with just the one for now. If you're someone who needs an extra hand to get chores done like me, get this thing! Vacuuming is now permanently off of my to do list!!

I always thought of these as a gimmick. After 3+ years in our home, we never really settled into a groove on getting the floor vacuumed on a regular basis. As a family, we tried so hard to find a schedule that worked, but the floor just turned into something that depressed us and vacuuming something that we never got around to (at least not consistently). We bought this about a month ago. It took about a week for it to caught up on cleaning. I always wondered how good a job these could do and let's be honest: it is roughly equivalent to a mediocre to low-end vacuum. But, it's a mediocre vacuum that runs EVERY DAY like clockwork. It is about as noisy as a Dustbuster, which won't wake us. Every morning at 04:00 it gets up and goes through the house. Every morning when I wake, I empty the bin and tap out the filter to clean it. Every week or three, we set it loose in the home office or a bedroom. But, every day my house is clean. Once the price paid becomes a memory, you will decide you cannot live without this. Some cautions: * It gets stuck now and again. Every few mornings I find it wedged under the dishwasher door. Has it just started the cleaning cycle or was it near the end? I don't know, so I restart it. Sometimes it gets lodged under a chair in the living room; I don't know why. * Clean the bin and filter every cycle. Mine is picking up a lot of dust that clogs the filter. I suspect it is getting Oxiclean out of the carpet that we use to shampoo the carpet. I am getting better about rinsing that out of the carpet, but a clogged filter renders the machine useless. * I clean the rollers every week. At first, it picked up some longer hair wrapped around the brushes, but after a few weeks, the rollers are not too bad. * Keep stuff off the floor. Now and again, someone will leave out a USB charger. When I wake, I will notice the Roomba is missing from its base, so I wander the house until I find it, either stuck (see above), or in an error state with a USB cable wrapped in the brushes and the charger dangling behind the Roomba. Keep stuff off the floor. * I have read stories about these not lasting much longer than a year, so I bought the longest warranty I could find. You might consider doing the same. Get one now!

Just purchased Roomba yesterday and let it charge overnight. I pushed 'clean' and watched it go to work. I admit I followed it around the entire 30 minutes that I let it run. It stayed in my kitchen and breakfast room for 20 of the 30 minutes, finally finding its way into the living room. It seemed to find trouble spots - like the corner of the breakfast nook next to a chair. It would bump, bump, bump itself to turn around and head under the table, only to head right back to that same corner. I found myself talking to it to 'get outta there and go somewhere else'. Needless to say that area is the cleanest part of the room. It instinctively knows when it's about to approach a wall and it slows down and barely touches the wall, however, it does not approach chair or table legs that way. It bumps into them and then readjusts. It seems to find a favorite leg and it will circle around and around 3 or 4 times and then move along to somewhere else. I was impressed with the amount of dust and carpet fuzz it picked up. The bin was packed full when I opened it. I tried it again this afternoon in the master bedroom and shut the door so it would not leave. It again seems to find some trouble spots - the back corner of the bed post and the wall. It really liked that spot and went there frequently. I wonder if the lack of light has anything to do with it. It did seem to do better with bumping into things in the kitchen with the light on. I let it run for 15 minutes and again, very impressed with the amount of carpet fuzz - but that makes me wonder if it's damaging the carpet fibers with the brush. I'll revisit that theory at a later time. The first time I used it I pressed the dock button and let it find its way back, however it had a hard time. I think because our recliner is next to the docking station and it didn't seem to get a good read on where its home was. I picked it up, set it right in front of the station and it went home like a good boy. I did the same for the second use. I think I might need to move the docking station. I haven't decided if I'm keeping Roomba. I have 15 days. I'm having a hard time with its randomness. That was one of the things that I found attractive with Roomba's biggest competition - Neato. I know the kind of person I am and I think I would be less 'anxious' about the process if it was more methodical with the pattern. I don't know - I'm going to try to be open-minded for the next week or so. By the way, noise level is perfectly acceptable. Much quieter than folks have made it out to be. And my cats are not afraid - mostly curious. One follows it around, the other stays outta its way but watches it.

So... if it's a great little helper, why four stars? Let me explain. These machines are not intended to be full on replacements to conventional vacuum cleaners. If you buy it expecting Dyson levels of clean, you'll be sorely disappointed. I bought mine to help do touch ups for our house in between cleanings. The roomba does a good job picking up most debris items as it learns your house but it won't pick up everything. I've had the unit about a day to replace a defunct and prematurely failed Bobsweep unit. I decided to go iRobot/Roomba because I believed the build quality and overall construction would be better. Well... it's not any better. The quality of the parts feel a little more substantial but the units themselves behave very similar, have similar hardware and are noisy just the same. I'm hoping since iRobot has been around longer than other companies in the business that their product is a little more reliable and longer lasting (for reference, the Bobsweep lasted 6 months.) If you're debating getting a higher priced unit, here are some things to consider: 1) The multiroom feature of the higher priced units can be easily overcome by picking up and physically moving the 650 to another room. . It's not that big of a deal. The 650 will navigate larger spaces (i.e. dining room, living room etc...) without issue. 2) The suction of the 880 is advertised as 5x better than the 650. That is something that may feel is worth the extra money... that and the 'tangle free' brushes. 3) The price savings of the 650 was too good to pass up with Best Buy and some price matching. The $250 price difference was enough for me to forego whatever features the higher priced models offer for the simpler, no frills unit. I'd recommend the unit with reservations. Definitely set realistic expectations for the unit and you'll be a happy camper.

This is an exceptional product. We bought this after reading lots of reviews online and decided this model was exactly what we needed. Sparky (when you register this product it will ask for the name you gave your roomba - and you will) does a phenomenal job cleaning our floors. It takes a little while to figure out how to prepare a room/space for cleaning - look for chairs that it will barely fit into (dining room, etc.) and move them outside the cleaning area or else it will spend it's whole time trying to figure out how to get out which it will eventually, but burns up a lot of time trying to get out of a tiny space, look for small cords on the floors and not already elevated above the roomba and consider how big the space is. We have a 3100 sq ft house and have broken it up into 5 cleaning areas for Sparky on 3 different levels and he does great on all the floors. We have a mix of carpet, wood floors and rugs on our wood floors and he does great job on all of them. We do pick up our throw rugs in each space he cleans just to let him vacuum under the rugs and we shake them outside. For short nap rugs it is okay to leave them and it transitions from rug to wood floor without a problem! The instructions says that it "learns" the floor it is on which is true, once it hits a wall or furniture it does remember and then when it approaches the same obstruction it will slow down until it touches it - but it leans the space it is in each time it is in the room. What truly amazes us is that the amount of debris it picks up each time it goes over the same space each time. Using a typical vacuum (which you still need for corners, under short furniture - oh by the way it gets all the way under our bedroom furniture - you don't see how much stuff gets picked up. The easy cleaning system allows you to see exactly how much debris comes up each time. You do have to move the docking station to each space you want it to clean. It does come with one "tower" that the roomba cannot pass which we use to block off some areas and we actually bought another one to help limit the areas to clean and highly recommend you do the same for large areas. This is amazing - if you are considering this - BUY ONE and see for yourself!

I would classify the roomba as more of a sweeper than vacuum, while it can and does vacuum, and get a lot of stuff off of our carpeting/rugs, we have rugs that have high and low areas in the fabric, if something gets in the low areas, there is a good chance it won't get sucked up. It does get it sometimes though. The great thing about it though, is that you can run it quite often, much more than the average person would vacuum their house and sweep. This is the redeeming quality of the roomba. I have pets with white fur, I run this 3 times a week, it goes over hardwood, sweeps up all the tufts of hair and debris. It goes into rooms with carpet and picks up hair, now is it deep cleaning, no.. but if you run this regularly you don't need to deep clean because it isn't going deep into your carpeting. The side brush is great for getting all the edges, it will push debris in front of the roomba so it can pick it up and work well. Sometimes it will flick it across the room also but it has more success than failures. The biggest piece of advice is to be realistic. You are probably still going to vacuum, we do, I like my floors clean. The big thing about it is that my floors always look great. Before they used to have various levels of hair/debris before I had to break out the vacuum and do them all. The roomba does that for me, and does a good job at it until I get to my big vacuum session to get the stuff that it may miss. It can get areas though my vacuum can't. When it went under my bed the first time I laughed as it looked like it was running through the desert with all the dust that was getting kicked up. I felt better knowing that was out of my bedroom area. I would also get hair buildup at the bottom of my kitchen legs, the roomba brush gets that. It also reaches under the fridge a little and fits under the kick of my cabinets nicely. I'm happy with it, it has come up in conversations and I have met other roomba owners and they are happy with it also. Yes, it does require some maintenance, and forethought when you are running it, but it is worth it. After seeing the places it may hangup (which there aren't many places that hang it up) you just prep them and let roomba go!