| | |  | Automotive | Home » » iRobot 500 Series Roomba Vacuum-Cleaning Robot with On-Board Scheduling | | | | | | | Description: | | The 500 series Roomba cleans routinely… so you don’t have to. 500 Series robots offers the latest innovations from iRobot with unprecedented efficiency, coverage and cleaning performance. Roomba navigates and cleans rooms systematically, then returns to its Home Baseââ€Â¢ to recharge. Roomba efficiently vacuums the entire floor, under and around furniture and along walls and automatically adjusts from carpets to hard floors. Virtual Wallââ€Â¢ Lighthouses confine and guide Roomba from room to room, then direct it to the Home Base to dock and recharge between cleanings. | | | Features: | |
• Vacuum-cleaning robot with on-board scheduling for all floor surfaces
• 2 high-speed, counter-rotating brushes; anti-tangle technology; side brushes
• Gentle-touch bumper; dirt sensor; built-in cliff sensors; self-charging Home Base
• Includes bumper extension, cleaning tool, power adapter, rechargeable battery, 3 extra filters, 2 Virtual Walls, and batteries
• Measures approximately 13 by 13 by 4 inches; 1-year limited warranty
| | | Product Details: | | | Product Length:
| 17.5 inches | | Product Width:
| 5.5 inches | | Product Height:
| 20.0 inches | | Package Length:
| 20.0 inches | | Package Width:
| 17.5 inches | | Package Height:
| 5.8 inches | | Package Weight:
| 13.0 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 133 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
 ( 133 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
199 of 200 found the following review helpful:
 Generally competent, but it has its foiblesNov 24, 2008
By W. Fisher
"Burns"
First let me say that I agree with people who say that the robot does a competent job of cleaning. You should SEE the dust bin after vacuuming! I am also in awe etc etc, but I'm going to try to focus on things that others have not mentioned.
My 550 (560 actually, I think...it came with a few more odds and ends in the box) is actually my second Roomba. The first was the Discovery SE, one of the 400 series. The 400 was pretty good with two exceptions: 1) It would not work on rug fringe. It gets hopelessly tangled in less time that it takes to say "Wait!" The second problem with the older 400 series is that the battery dies fairly quickly if you do not use it VERY frequently. I use it once/week and by second battery is showing its age.
In any case, the 500 series is advertised to be able to deal with rug fringe, and indeed it does so reasonably well. It is also supposed to be able to do 4 rooms using these "lighthouses" that have been previously mentioned. To summarize, these are little gadgets that put out an IR (UV?) beam that the robot can see; it generally will not cross the beam, so you can use the beam to mark off rooms. After a certain amount of time, the robot sends out an RF signal to the lighthouse, and the LH lets it through into the next room. Repeat for 4 rooms if desired. Then the robot knows how to find its way back to where it started to plug itself back in to recharge. Cool.
Here are the problems with the lighthouse scheme: First, the beam gets wider very quickly. So there is a fan-shaped area in front of each lighthouse that never gets cleaned. In other words, when moving between the two rooms, the beam gets shut off but when cleaning either side, the robot will not enter the fan shaped area that the beam covers.
The second lighthouse problem is that the robot seems to use time rather than room size or complexity to decide when to move from one room to the other. In other words, for larger or more complex rooms, it simply does not cover the room before moving on to the next.
A non-lighthouse problem that you should know about with the 500 series is that I think they must be lower-slung than the 400 series. My 500 robot is not NEARLY as good is climbing up onto a rung as the 400. The 400 got stuck in fringe, but without fringe, it is nearly flawless. The 500 tends to push the rug around, bunch it up, and even get caught if it bunches up the rug in a corner that it has not way to get out of without getting back over the rug.
You MUST be sure there are no cords on the floor. For example, a floor lamp, a computer power cord, etc. My robot has gotten caught when I forget, and nearly pulled down a few items with dangling cords.
And finally, I have one room with hardwood floor and a rug about 6 or 8 inches smaller than one dimension of the room. So there is a 6+ inch "valley" between the rug and the wall. The 500 series does not clean the 6+ inch valley well at all. It goes along it, but does not pick up dirt well. I think it is probably that the brush is on the rug on one side and on the floor on the other, but is touching nothing in the middle. I end up taking a dry mop and going along the valley and pulling dirt out into an open area where the robot can get it.
Given all that, though, the robot saves a LOT of work. If there is something special happening, I would probably bring out the hand vac and get all the little corners and fans and valleys that the Roomba does not reach, but for every-day/week vacuuming, it is way easier than doing it by hand despite its problems.
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Update 3/24/2009: I've had two problems, both fixed/replaced under warranty. First, it refused to dock. It would nose up to the dock and keep pushing and pushing; then finally back up and try again. Repeat forever. Used email support (I think). After doing a bunch of tests that they requested, they sent me a new dock. All ok now.
Second, the robot started spinning in circles. Even if I used the remote to try to make it go straight, it would turn. Sounds like a drive motor on one wheel died or something. In any case, I think I phoned this time. After a bunch of tests, they had me return the robot (minus dust bin and top insert) and they replaced it.
Now it works well, and guess what? The new robot can get up on rugs much better than the old one. I don't know if there was a hardware or software change, or if my old one was defective in some subtle way that I did not know about. I guess I might give this new unit an extra star if I could.
Interestingly, my 400-series also had to be replaced once, but it has worked fine ever since. I hope that will be the case with this one as well.
146 of 149 found the following review helpful:
 I am amazed by the 550 Roomba!Oct 21, 2007
By Wade Fulp
I purchased one of these from Costco. Two days later I bought a second for the upstairs since I was so impressed with it. I couldn't believe how well it picked things up, especially cat hair. I love the fact I can schedule it to clean our downstairs everyday at 3am and it's quiet enough now to disturb our sleep. I can come down in the morning to find crumbs from the kids gone, cat litter that spilled out of the litter box gone, etc. It only takes a minute to dump the bin and clean the rollers. The first view runs it was packed with cat hair, etc, but since it's been running daily it has less in it and it's obvious to see why when you look around the house and see how clean everything is.
Another plus is the unit returns to it's charging base when it's done, or if it needs to recharge during it's cleaning cycle. I was blown away by how well it gets around my place. I was prepared to return it when I bought it thinking it would have trouble getting from room to room as we are in an older home and there are un-even door jams, area rugs, etc. This thing makes it over everything. I was impressed again today when our upstairs unit made it over a marble door jam that I thought might be a bit too high, but it wasn't. Then I was impressed again when it went over our thick bathroom mats and dealt with them with robotic prescision. :) Also the fact that it won't go down the stairs is nice as you don't have to worry about blocking the stairs with something, it goes up to the edge and sees the drop, and stops and goes the other way.
I will still probably bring out the big vacuum, but I won't have to vacuum as frequently. It's nice to know bits of food from the kids, and cat hair from the pets, will be taken care of daily! This is such a time saver.
85 of 86 found the following review helpful:
5th gen Cylon, they have a planNov 28, 2007
By C. V. Woods
This is our second Roomba, we had a Disco series (biglots $149, we got it on sale for $109) before this for two years. After over 600+ uses our R2 unit decided to join the angels :(
We love the roombas and they have been very useful in our house.
The 500 series irobots are about 50% as loud(not very loud) as the 400 series (discovery)and have a few cool new features. Examples are: better suction, better main brush, digital display, onboard scheduling... and a talking lady that actually tells you what the error might be, such as "please clean the main brushes". FYI, the older robots worked off "beeps" (e.g. - 1 beep after the uh-oh beep meant to clean the brushes). It should be noted that the Disco we had got stuck from time to time and could not dock with the charging station 99% of the time, however the 500 series (550 - from Costco $269) seems to always find its home and amazingly has never gotten stuck! The future is now.(har d har)
For those people who have never had a roomba, YES they really do work and no I don't have stock in the company (hmmm, are they publicly traded?). However it should be noted that our house is 80% hardwood and really does not have alot of obstacles.
Lastly, I tell you this... our robot runs everyday and still manages to find all sorts of dust bunnies and debris... it's actually kind of gross.
C & N
40 of 41 found the following review helpful:
Roomba is totally awesome!Oct 26, 2007
By Konstantin Gredeskoul
This is our first Roomba, I understand that this is a fifth generation so I can't comment on how this version differs from previous ones.
Overall it works great, cleans and returns back to it's base as described. There are only a few small pitfalls we've discovered:
- Documentation is a little sparse on how roomba actually works. For example, what if you leave roomba cleaning a locked/closed room? In our experiment it just kept on going for over 1 hour and wouldn't stop. Had to stop it by hand. Maybe we didn't wait long enough for it to consider the room clean who knows.
- we have a rug that Roomba does not go over. It's about half inch thick, but Roomba would not go on it, and once placed on top of the rug would not go off the rug. So we have to clean the rug first, then clean the rest. Only slightly annoying considering that marketing materials and other reviewers claim that it goes over their rugs.
- You really have to clean it after each cleaning to get the most effectiveness. Manual says after every third cleaning, but our house packs Roomba's dust compartment after each cleaning. The good news is that cleaning it is extremely easy. Remove the main dust compartment, then pull the lever inside to open a secondary dust enclosure.
Finally, our cats find Roomba extremely amusing. So it's a great cat entertainment as well :)
43 of 45 found the following review helpful:
 Can no longer recommend the RoombaJun 05, 2008
By Eva J. Philipps
"Hans and Eva"
We bought our first Roomba two years ago and needed replacement parts after seven months. It broke down completely after another five months and then was replaced under the warranty. This replacement lasted less than a year and then was no longer under warranty. When the 500 series came out we were assured that improvements were made and we bought a new Roomba in January 2008. It broke down in February and we received new wheels and a new cleaning head module. By April the arms of the side brush had disintegrated and we were told that no replacement brushes were available. The Roomba kept working till May when the cleaning brushes would no longer turn and the Roomba moved with a loud knock. Customer service now asked us to return the Roomba minus faceplate, battery and all other accessories and at our expense. They said they would send a replacement unit only after receipt of the faulty machine leaving us without a Roomba for who knows how long. If we do get that replacement the warranty will not go beyond the original period and it is not clear whether the replacement is new or merely a rebuild of another customer's return. We will not buy a Roomba again.
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