Roomba Discovery SE (Reviewed)

Ok so i'm a huge gadget junkie i admit it. I have the IPaq the blackberry phone, laptops, digital cameras, computers, you name it, i got it. Well, its about time i got into the world of Robotics.

I ordered my roomba discovery SE online directly from the Irobot Website

A few days later, the robot arrived and i joyfully unpacked it as quickly as possible to get started. First the wait while you have to charge the battery. Brutal. Finally its done i get to start. I press the little button to start the roomba, it backs out of its charging ramp and goes to work.

The roomba is quiet in its operation. I let it run for a while watching it as it goes in its patterns across the floor and watched it as it slowly wanders its way into my bedroom.

After about 10 minutes of roomba action under my bed, i hear a sad sounding tone. What could be wrong??? I dig roomba out from under the bed and figure out that the trash tray was completely full. It seems that i had never vaccuumed under my bed before and it was picking up MAD amounts of dirt and dust. I cleaned it out and then put it back to work. it cleans untill it runs low on battery power and then trys to find its own way back to the charger.

The job was excellent, the roomba for being so small does a great job of cleaning in my opinion. The only down side i see is that its capacity is too small for large houses. They need to make a BIGGER version that is for large houses.

Problems, The roomba likes to get stuck. It can find just about anything to get stuck on, you have to make sure that there is no carpets, cables, clothes, string, or anything that may get wrapped up in its wheels, brushes, and other moving parts. after the first couple times you use it, you will figure out what will stick and you can just pick it up before you start.

My roomba also started doing a wierd thing where it was going in circles, and then going backwards. After checking for stuck wheels, dirty sensors, etc, i finally had to call roomba tech support. They said that this was a problem with some of the roomba models, and that they would send me an update to the firmware. This call was made over a week ago and i'm still waiting for it. They said that if the firmware upgrade doesn't work then they would replace the roomba for free. I'll let you know how this goes.

So it was great while it lasted, after 3 months it broke down and hopefully the firmware upgrade will fix the problem. Overall, i would say get one of these roombas, they are worth it if you like gadgets, are too busy to clean your house all the time, or just want to have a cool toy to mess around with. I have had hours of enjoyment watching it work. You will too.