There was some talk of these at the last bay area meet. This is only $10 more than woot's price a few weeks ago.

From ben's bargains:
Amazon.com has the refurbished iRobot Roomba 4210 Discovery Floorvac Robotic Vacuum, White for $160 - $25 off $125 code JANCLEAR [Exp 1/31] = $135 with free shipping.

Matthew

Was Woot's price for a Discovery?
I thought the Discovery came with a home-station and two IR wall units. Mine did, at least.
Or maybe I'm thinking of Discovery SE? It's been a while since I've read about the packages and deals.
Mine was about $270 when they were introduced (over a year ago).
That looks like a good price!

Yup, virtual walls and all. Woot's was refurbished also, if that bothers you.

Matthew

I'd always wanted a Roomba, but couldn't justify QUITE that much money. The refurb thing plus the JANCLEAR code brought it down under my threshold. Thanks for the post. Ordered.

If I set loose a Roomba in my house, it would choak and die in 13 seconds or 4 feet, whichever came first. My 1970's Electrolux canister vac can barely contain the all the filth (from my two large dogs).

Nice picture I can't imagine the roomba having too much suction the guts of it look about like a dustbuster.

Apart from not being much of a "vacuum," they fixed what was otherwise problem number one: Auto recharging. But now the biggest problem is auto-unloading of the crap it picks up. Since the Roomba is pretty much a brusher I've read nothing but complaints about dumping and cleaning it.

I'd love a Dyson central vacuum (they don't make them) with a Roomba-type bot that self-charges and unloads its waste at a dock/inlet for the central system. Now THAT would be maintenance upkeep. 3 times per week with the current Rooomba means you're picking it up and emptying it out 3 times per week. I can't imagine that's a pleasant thing to do. Emptying out a dust-buster usually gets me considering chucking the whole thing any time I do it.

Of course I'd also have to keep the place a lot neater for something like the Roomba to navigate properly. As well as having at least 2 of them if I didn't want to keep moving a single one up and down the stairs on different days.

So for now it's just a Dyson DC11 for the most part. I've also got an unbearably big shop vac and that annoying dustbuster.

Bruno

Hm. I want to order one, but I don't need the virtual walls. Does the red version do the self docking trick or should I just buy the Discovery and try to sell the virtual walls?

- Jon

Yaye! I also have been corting a roomba for quite a while now. With the $25 discount, it puts it squarely in my "BUY NOW" mindset! Too bad you didn't include link that would earn you some payola... I just bought one now - thanks!!!!

-Sigh-
How could I pass this up? But wait! The January deadline is passed!
Oh, well...

But wait (again)!
There's another $25 offer for February!
Link to refurbished Roomba at Amazon

Quote:
Save $25.00 when you spend $125.00 or more on Kitchen & Housewares and Bed & Bath products offered by Amazon.com. Enter code VALENTIN at checkout.

...and with free shipping it's still $135! So, yah, couldn't pass it up.

/amassing my own vacuum army.
//current Roomba is sick- '8 beeps', gotta sort that out somehow.
///thanks, Matthew!

Can... no... longer... resist...

Ordering now.

heh, same here. Read some reviews, and apparently this version does do decently on cleaning up pet hair. Should help in my house, since my two long hair cats that like to play rough and the fur flies at times.

Just hope that it's not pieces of Roomba flying when the cats band together to play rough with that magic noisy UVO (Unidentified Vacuuming Object).

Since there are so many people jumping on this is it safe to assume we can see a few more reviews soon?

Bruno

I wanna see videos of the cats attacking the roomba

I'm told that the Roomba's best usage is as a cat terrorizer. I remember reading someone's Livejournal post about it, a couple years ago...

They need to add a randomly jumping around laser pointer then the cats would be conflicted.

They need to add a randomly jumping around laser pointer then the cats would be conflicted.


Does anyone know why cats (and dogs, too) go nuts over laser pointers, but completely ignore a narrow-beam flashlight?

tanstaafl.

During my 2 hour vaccuming of nearly my entire house, I thought of this thread and wondered:

How might three or four Roomba's play well together?

I'm not in a big house at all, but a dusty/hairy/dirty one. Maybe each Roomba could have its own "turf", likely dictated by the location of its charger (far from the others). But if they saw each other, they'd have to learn it's not a wall they are seeing, but one of their own.

Um, on second thought, that would tripple or quadruple their (1) human hunting (2) rampage of death.

Roombas dressed up as Farscape DRD's. Just a thought.

Gah. Just got mine, and it is acting as though one of its wheels is bad in one direction.

It worked for the first five minutes. I was having a ball watching it zip around. Then it started making continuous circles in one spot. Over and over again. I canceled its cleaning cycle and tried to control it directly with the remote. It now won't drive straight, nor will it rotate left correctly. It will only rotate right correctly.

I called their 800 number and spoke to someone in Ebonics, who when I said my name was "Tony" asked me if it was spelled T-O-N-E-Y. She took a message and promised that they'd get back to me in ... ... 72 hours? Gah.

Google for "Roomba circle dance".

Hm. Those indicate a problem with dirty optical sensors on the wheels.

I peeked at mine (it's possible to unscrew and pry up the wheel covers just enough to see, without fully disassembling the robot), and they are clean.

Somewhere I recently (could've been at the RoombaReview BBS) saw a repair procedure for a broken belt in one of the wheel enclosures. The belt failure caused such a 'circle' problem as well.
Also over there (again, somewhere) is a full diagnostic procedure. I haven't tried it yet.
Amazon has shipped mine, so I'll probably see it next weekend.

Edit:
good list of procedures

Hmm-
Regarding my current 8-beep problem, it seems to be a warning that concerns the vacuum motor. Some lists of 'beep translations' are incomplete and leave out the 7 and 8 beep error causes- mainly because these were disabled in versions later than mine, apparently.
The troubleshooting pages at iRobot has this to say about it:

Quote:
What do I do if my Roomba stops, says 'uh-oh', and beeps 8 times?

Make sure the Dust Bin is properly seated in the Roomba. You may want to try wiping off the metal contacts on the bin with a clean, dry cloth. You also should try popping the grate off the back of your Roomba and ensuring the vacuum is spinning freely. If this does not resolve the problem, please call Customer Support at 877-855-8593.

I haven't found any joy with those tips.
I've found that the problem is most prevalent when the battery is less than fully charged and the filter has seen some hours of use.
*sigh* I guess I'll be calling CS.

Well no videos of the cats attacking it yet, though they don't like it too much. I let it roam around a bit when I first got it till the battery died, and the cats were on edge a bit. I think they disliked my RoboRaptor more though, since it reacted to them trying to approach and smell it.

I'll have some fun with the cats later once the charger powers it back up again. And also once I get batteries for the virtual walls, as the roomba dove off my stairs when it when at them straight on. Seems the sensor caught the cliff slightly too late, as by the time it tried to stop, enough of it was off the stairs to cause it to slip. No major damage though (beyond a minor dent in the paint on the wall), just had to reassemble the brushes and filter.

Got mine a couple of days ago. So far it has worked flawlessly. Found the dock each time it need to charge. It seems to be doing a pretty good job. After the first use it was completely full of carpet fiber. After the second time it had much less. So far so good.