It must be at LEAST 7 units so far. In fact.. we had just gotten the one replaced from sears that had the broken beater bar, and the cashier hard-timed us on it. had to call the manager over. That darn bar shouldn't break in a few days... Also.. the little starfish 'corner sweeper'.. it's now longer and i see a potential problem that we have already had to have fixed.. That little starfish brush is long enough to get runover by it's own wheel. on our last unit.. we lost 2 arms off the starfish wheel in 3 days.. ( pitiful design if the wheel can run over it own arm!! ).
In any case.. we've run out of the extended warranty.. so.. I'm not sure what's going to happen when this one breaks in somewhere between 1 day and 2 months. As much trouble as I've had.. i think I'll prove a point and ask for my money back.. and if I get static.. I'll take the hassle of taking them to small claims court.. not for the $$.. but for the agravation.
The new unit we upgraded to is a 560 or 570 i guess ( I think).. has the lighthouse towers.. etc..
I'm not sure how we could be abusing it... we have no carpet or rugs, no stairs, no threshold humps between rooms.. house is 100% ceramin tile even in the bathroom and bedroom.. and we have no extension, power, tv, telephone cords across the floor. This should be an ideal environment for this little expensive science project of a vacume cleaner.
I do see the new ones now come with a self adhesive stick on rubber bumper so that as the unit runs down the wall continously beating into the base board, that it will at least leave 'some' paint on the basboard as it tries to 'turn' into the baseboard every 4 " or so.
I did see 1 good improvement Instead of ramming into things at full speed now, it actually slows down to med-slow speed before impacting a solid surface.. slows about 1/2" or so away from the wal.. then only has a low speed collission...
I also like the lift handle on it. Makes it handy since the thing either breaks down and / or gets lost and turns off so much.. makes it easier to carry back to the base.
I make a habit of emptying the dust receptical every time i walk by. I've never seen it 'full'.. so I'm not neglecting it. ironically.. it has a habit of vacuming up it's own parts now and then. have had the 'starfish' wheel come off a few times in models in the past.. and usually it gobble dup the screw, and then sucked the bruish into the beater bar.. thus killing it right then and there.
I noticed the thing talks now.. and has a more pleasent beeping tone. Good thing it talks.. cause it's always calling for help.
If I don't watch out, my cockatu is gonna start mimicing the rhoomba 'distress call' beep, as it gets to hear it daily.
Another nice feature is the removable front wheel.. makes it easier to clean.. etc.
Non.. I can't see how I would be abusing it.. it's an open floor plan house, single level.. etc.
Also... the aprt about it avoiding stairs.. well.. someone's fibbing there.
I opened the side door to water the plants in my 'florida' room, and left the side door open. now since this IS a door leading to a porch/room it DOES have a threshold.... no problem.. rhoomba zoomed right up, climbed the threshold, and then droppd off the 3" drop to the sliding glass door room and then promptly partially sucked up the 'dirt catcher' in front of the door.
GOOD JOB.. whatever high school student programmed the stairs avoidance part musta been absent that day in class! Glad I don't actually have stairs.. or I imagine it would ride them every day...
( edit: By the way.. we manually sweep the floor about 2x per week, and also mop the floor 1x per week.. so it's not like the rhoomba has a hard job.. my wife and I both work 2 jobs.. we are only inthe house and upright about 1-2 hrs a day... )
Soundguy
ragkar said:
Cottonhawk - three years on the original battery is pretty good.
Soundguy - Doesn't that make seven units in two years? Outside of the DOA it would be interesting to read the failure analysis. Are you sure that you aren't abusing it? Are you vacuuming twice a day or more?
I have the top model 570 with the lighthouse technology and scheduler. I've been using it quite a bit for the last ten weeks or so and it's working fine. Right now I carry it from area to area, but when the novelty wears off I'll be using the scheduler to have it working once a week at night.
My criteria for it's efficiency is how much trash is in the compartments. And so far it's doing fine.
I know two other people with earlier models - one for three years and the other a year and a half - and they have no complaints about theirs.
