Rating: 
List Price tag: $ 599.99
Sale Value:
Item Description
The iRobot Roomba 610 Skilled Series Vacuum Cleaning Robot cleans up to 4 rooms on a single charge. It comes equipped with two interchangeable bins, a high capacity sweeper bin and a vacuuming debris bin, that can be utilized for either everyday cleaning or for choosing up bigger-than-usual amounts of debris. The Professional Series also has added brushes, filters and cleaning tools plus a handy storage case to organize and store the accessories and sweeping bin in one place. Durable
Particulars
- Vacuuming robot efficiently picks up dirt, debris, pet hair, dust, allergens and more from carpets and tough floors
- Developed for modest business owners or those with larger locations to clean
- Cleans the whole floor, under and around furniture, into corners and along wall edges
- Schedule up to seven cleaning occasions per week three cleaning modes
- Measures 17 by 18 by 5 inches two-year limited warranty
List Cost: $ 599.99
Value:
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OK, not great vacuum,
I’ve used the Roomba 610 and 560. I now have two refurbished 560s in our house, at the same price as one 610. And it’s definitely a better value.
Before I talk about the 610, let me share what’s good and bad about Roombas in general, based on my experience with both the 560s and 610:
Pros:
- You don’t have to vacuum, the Roomba does it for you
- Scheduled cleanings so you don’t even have to worry about it or be home to hear the noise
- Floors stay clean without much effort
- One button start it and forget about it
Cons:
- Absolute pain in the butt to clean these things. There’s the two brushes, the front wheel, the spinning brush (which requires a screwdriver to remove), and the dust bin. All of these must be disassembled, cleaned, and reassembled, at least once per cleaning session.
- It’s not effort free. As I said above, lots to clean, which requires 5-10 minutes each time you want to run the Roomba.
- With pets, the fur gets wrapped around EVERYTHING. Maybe without pets our cleaning of the Roomba would be easier, but the whole point of these devices is ease, and they do not deliver.
So the nice things about the 610 are:
- Easier brush cleaning than the 560. Not much easier, but easier. Hair & fur still get wrapped around the edges of the brushes and into the mechanisms, but it’s 5% easier to clean on the 610.
- The accessories case and accessories. The brush cleaning tool is nice, but it doesn’t clean the brush holders, where all the stuff actually gets wrapped up and is difficult to clean.
Not so good things about the 610:
- No carrying handle. This seems inconsequential, but after having a way to pick up my 560 without having to pick the whole thing up from the bottom, where all the dust and dirt accumulates, you appreciate a carrying handle. Why didn’t they include this on the 610?
- Only two lighthouses. They say it can clean four rooms, but they only include two lighthouses. My experience has been that three rooms is pushing it, so unless you have small rooms two lighthouses may be OK.
So why did I get two 560s if I have so many problems? I hate to vacuum, and I’d rather clean all the brushes and edges once a day than push the vacuum around for 45 minutes. So it’s a trade-off.
Read other forums and you’ll see that the 610 is not recommended, it’s basically a 560 with lipstick.
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|Great for light upkeep, excellent customer service,
We have five pets. Three elderly long haired cats and two large short haired dogs. We recently upgraded to a new home with a cream colored carpet and a mix of tile and linoleum in an open floor plan. What was I thinking? I was thinking I had three days to pick a house for a relocation is what I was thinking! But I digress. The carpet isn’t perfect, it’s five years old and the previous owners were pet owners too, but I was determined to keep it in good shape.
I held out for the professional model despite the difference in price. I figured we had a professional level of hair here. Between one cat whose fur has the texture of cotton candy, another cat whose main hobby is tearing paper apart bit by bit, and the dogs with their rolling around on the floor I needed something that could stand up to the mess. I assumed I would need the larger debris bin to hold all the stuff that comes out of the carpet but actually after a few runs I felt that the smaller one with an air filter does a better job. It’s not a HEPA filter but it gets a lot of dirt and dust into the bin.
I’ve realized a lot of things about the roomba in the six months we’ve had it:
+ I consider it more of a good automated carpet sweeper / groomer than an actual vacuum. It will not replace the old vacuum cleaner. But I’ve noticed that I don’t have to drag the vacuum cleaner out as often. Being round the roomba doesn’t do that great a job on corners but it gets pretty close so I need to use the edging tools sometimes.
+ I have to pick up all the pillows, papers, or any pile on the floor before going to bed if I want it to run well. Strangely this has become a *bonus*. It keeps me tidying. The nights that I don’t pick up and wake up to find the roomba stuck on some pillow or the dog bed make me sad.
+ We have the timer set to turn on at two am but I find that with our home’s layout pressing the ‘max’ button therefore making it run right away works best. ‘Max’ will just keep the roomba running through the large open rooms until the battery runs out of charge and dock itself or simply ‘pass out’ where it is. It gets the floors super-clean.
+ It does fairly well with larger cords and we don’t have rugs with tassels so I don’t know about that. Apparently irobot has worked on improving that system where the roomba detects a cord obstruction so it automatically reverses the brush. Smaller cords not so much – the sweeper brush got entirely tangled on a set of earphone cords but they did survive and the roomba kept on going! It runs under our sofa and coffee tables. It has a relationship with our large round ottoman that makes me kind of uncomfortable – it looooves to clean around that ottoman. Sometimes the roomba gets caught in odd places but we do our best to make sure it’s unobstructed.
+ Those brushes need cleaning. Like all the time. I do it every night. Dump the bin, clean the brushes. Not just the brushy parts either but the spinning joints. There are two handy tools included in this kit and I use them along with a pair of old scissors. It’s not pretty but it takes maybe two minutes. With the extra brushes you can swap them out every other night and that saves some time. To me cleaning the brushes and dumping the bin is a very small price to pay to wake up to carpet that was cleaned in the night.
+ Sometimes I check the front rolling wheel but the kind of hair in my house doesn’t seem to get caught in there the way I’ve read it happens to others. I also change the filters in the debris bin fairly often and rinse them (not the bin itself though that’s not supposed to happen). According to the faq on irobot’s site rinsing the air filter is ok, as long as you make sure it’s dry before putting it back in. Every few months I take the plate off the bottom and use some canned air to clean the dust and hair inside too. This is probably more maintenance than the average household needs to do but we have a lot of pets here and this was kind of a big ticket item for us. And I really really hate vacuuming.
So basically I love my little robot and don’t have to vacuum but I do have to tidy up for it and clean brushes. I’m happy.
But! I have a great customer service story to tell you too!
The dogs are messy when they drink water and the roomba tends to get stuck on the wet outdoor carpet where their bowls are (I have to find a solution for that). I usually put the roomba back in the morning but one morning two weeks ago my husband didn’t put it back, the dogs drank from the bowl and the roomba got wet on top!!! It’s been messed up ever since. I haven’t been able to get it to work. Took it apart, tried to dry it, tried to reset it. Everything. I was distraught.
I bought a 150 dollar roomba to tide myself over until I could get the 610 fixed (I had wanted another…
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