We recently purchased the Roomba 530 iRobot from Amazon.com. Why Amazon? Well a year ago I was browsing for some books on Amazon and they were offering the Amazon Visa credit card with a $30.00 credit. Plus they were offering Amazon points for every $1 spent. Since my Sony Visa Card points had been recently depleting in scoring a 24″ HDTV LCD for free (after point use) I figured the Sony card had done its’ duty and it was time to see what Amazon could do for the Chennaults. So like a sack of hammers I dropped Sony and signed up for Amazon. Fast forward and one year later I am the proud owner of a Roomba 530 courtesy of Amazon and their points.
We unpacked the Roomba 530 and set it on its charger to juice up while we went to Chevy’s for some dinner (we had a coupon expiring soon). I must say that I was pleasantly surprised in unpacking the Rooma 530. It was all very nicely packed and there were no parts that needed inserting, plugging or screwing. The whole thing was pre-assembled and ready to go. I placed it on the based station and we left for dinner.
Upon return the Roomba was fully charged which was surprising to me. I guess during manufacturing and testing they charge it up prior to shipment. So wasting no time I pushed the clean button and off Roomba went. It was quite entertaining at first to watch Roomba zig-zag across the floor. But after about twenty minutes of watching Roomba it seemed as if its electronic brains were infected with the computer equivalent of mad cow disease. It did not follow any sort of discernible pattern. We put on Hells Kitchen and waited for Roomba to finish its chores.
About one hour later it did just that. It was getting late but Regina wanted to wait till it was finished so it could inspect the dust bin. She was concerned that it would not clean very well. She and I were pleasantly surprised by the results and thus any buyers remorse that may have been welling up in our hearts was quickly dispersed.
The Roombs devoured and dominated our living room floor. Granted we keep things fairly tidy around here but Roomba found enough lint, dust, hair and other stuff to make the purchase worth it (oh wait it was free).
Props to Tom for the suggestion to buy Roomba and thanks to iRobot for creating such a wonderfully consumer friendly and perhaps completely needless device.