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irobot 560 roomba vacuuming robot black and silver
iRobot 560 Roomba Vacuuming Robot, Black and Silver
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List Price: $449.99
Our Price: $349.99
Your Save: $ 100.00 ( 22% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Kitchen
Brand: iRobot
Color: Black
EAN: 0853816560011
Feature: Vacuuming robot picks up dirt and debris with the touch of a button
Label: iRobot
Manufacturer: iRobot
Model: 560
Publisher: iRobot
Release Date: 2007-08-30
Studio: iRobot
Variation Description: Black
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Features
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Vacuuming robot picks up dirt and debris with the touch of a button
Easy-to-empty bagless dustbin; fine-filtration system traps allergens
Anti-tangle technology; gentle-touch bumper system; built-in cliff sensors
Self-charging Home Base, 2 Virtual Wall Lighthouses, an extra filter, and more included
Measures 16-3/4 by 21 by 5 inches; 1-year limited warranty
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Editorial Reviews:
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Life happens in busy homes, and keeping up with accumulating dirt, dust, pet hair, crumbs, and debris can be a daily challenge. Introducing the iRobot Roomba 560- a member of iRobot’s newest generation of Roomba Vacuuming Robots. Now there’s a better way to maintain cleaner floors every day. With dramatically improved navigation, cleaning coverage, vacuum pickup, particle filtration, and scheduling capabilities, the Roomba 560 picks up amazing amounts of dirt and debris from your floors with the touch of a button--so you don’t have to. The Roomba 560 even cleans on schedule when it’s most convenient for you. Use the on-board scheduling system to easily program up to seven days and times per week for Roomba to vacuum--whether you’re at home or on the go. The Roomba 560 also offers the most efficient room-to-room cleaning available using two innovative, new Virtual Wall Lighthouses. With dramatically improved navigation, cleaning coverage, vacuum pickup, and particle filtration, the Roomba 560 vacuuming robot picks up amazing amounts of dirt and debris with the simple touch of a button. The powerful unit features innovative spinning side brushes that grab dirt and dust from corners and along wall edges, as well as two high-speed, counter-rotating brushes that pick up pet hair, cat litter, food crumbs, and other debris from floors. The vacuum sucks up the debris and deposits it into a large, easy-to-empty bagless dustbin, and its improved fine-filtration system traps dust, pollen, and other allergens inside the unit, reducing infiltration into the living environment.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Far more useful than I expected, though far from perfect.
Comment: When I ordered the Roomba 560, I honestly didn't think it was going to work very well. As a gadget and especially robot lover, I simply had to try it.
Fast forward a couple weeks and my Roomba has been faithfully cleaning my 1,200 sq ft house with few problems. My floors are MUCH cleaner, and it does a better job cleaning than I expected.
The vacuum is powerful enough to leave "vacuum marks", giving you that freshly vacuumed look basically every day. It does a great job at picking up just about anything. Mine easily sucked up push-pins, cat hair, lint, cat litter, even metal nails. It has two types of brushes, that counter spin and create their own cleaning force, to augment the somewhat low powered vacuum motor. As a result, it's efficient but also fairly quiet, and has a surprisingly good battery life per charge (3 to 4 rooms at almost a half hour each). My only cleaning gripe is that I wish the bin was bigger. I have to empty and clean Roomba after every use (which just takes a second, admittedly).
The design is almost Apple-like in that the unit is very clean, well thought out, and easy to use. The buttons are large and durable, the center and most frequently used one being big enough to push with your toe, even if you're wearing shoes. Nice touch. It also has a nice handle to pick it up by, and is overall much heavier than I expected. From the pictures it looks like a cheap plastic toy, but in reality it's a bit larger and heavy enough that a toddler likely couldn't lift it. The unit feels very durable and is made of modular parts that are user serviceable with little to no tools necessary. The design is such that the Roomba is clearly a long term investment, meant to be repaired as necessary, rather than just thrown away for a new one. Good job iRobot!
When the Roomba encounters errors, it flashes various lights and makes obvious "sad" tones. Should you not be able to decipher these beeps, simply pushing the Clean button once more causes the Roomba to begin talking to you in a pleasant female voice, instructing you as to the problem and how to remedy it. In two weeks of usage the Roomba has done this about 3 times, indicating that its cliff sensors were dirty, or that I needed to clean the bin or wheels.
The clock and scheduling system is super easy to use and works great. The Roomba does however need a few software tweaks at this point. For instance as of right now my Roomba has been trying to find its dock for nearly a half hour, despite being in the same room as the dock, already. I'll likely have to go and dock it myself shortly. It has issues with the lighthouse units, as they have repeatedly prevented Roomba from returning to its charging station, even when it was VERY low on power. This happens in Lighthouse and Wall mode both. It'd say roughly half the time, the Roomba never makes it back home on its own, thanks to these lighthouses messing up the works. That said, the lighthouses DO work great for keeping Roomba to cleaning certain rooms efficiently, before moving onto the next.
Overall I am pleased with Roomba and will likely never be without one again. It truly does clean better than expected and is a great and fun little unit to have around. Friends are impressed by it, and impressed by how clean my floors are now.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not the best option for indoor pets
Comment: This robotic vacuum is fantastic, unless you have pets. It picks up nearly all the dirt, lint, food and other debris that is trapped in our carpet, but has a very difficult time with pet hair.
We purchased this specifically for our shedding cat and golden retriever to get rid of their fur on the carpet. This edition Roomba simply cannot handle fur. It runs for about 2 minutes before getting clogged with hair and it doesn't take much pet fur to get it stuck. Every couple of minutes I have to clean out the brushes in order for it to start running again.
If you have pets, I would recommend trying the Roomba 532 Pet Series. It's made specifically to clean up pet hair without trouble. iRobot Roomba Pet Series 532 Vacuum Cleaning Robot
If you don't have pets, than I would definitely recommend this Roomba. Roomba does a decent job on bare floors, but really shines when cleaning the carpet. It cleans the carpets very well in the rooms where we don't allow the animals to go. I love the scheduling feature that allow Roomba to automatically clean at its scheduled time of the day.
This version of Roomba is very good about getting itself unstuck if it gets tangled on a rug's threads or in tight spots. It cleans your entire room before moving onto the next room to ensure the space is clean without missing spots. The spot clean feature is great if you have a spill and just need to clean up that space.
A perfect vacuum for normal, everyday cleaning. We have it scheduled to run every morning while we're at work to keep our carpet clean. However, Roomba isn't for heavy-duty vacuuming and will have a difficult time picking up large chunks of mud, rocks or other large items. For these jobs, you're probably better off with a shop vac, Dirt Devil or other vacuum.
Customer Rating:
Summary: IROBOT GREAT UNTIL IT BREAKS THEN WHAT?
Comment: I purchased my iRobot in Dec 2007. It worked great until Dec 2008 when it stuck in spot mode. I have reset and cleaned everything possible. I followed iRobot's robotic customer service suggestions and nothing. There is physically nothing wrong with my Roomba it cleans fine except it now only cleans a two foot square area. I have removed the batteries and reset numerous times. NO JOY. iRobot's customer service recommendation for repair? Buy a new one. It probably only needs to be reprogrammed but they recommend buy a new one? DON'T BUY A IROBOT PRODUCT -- unless you can afford to buy one every year --- because you can't fix it if the computer has a hiccup.
Customer Rating:
Summary: "Rosie the Robot Maid" from The Jetsons, eat your heart out!
Comment: I researched robotic vacuums on one of the consumer review sites, and learned that the most highly-thought-of models were the Roomba 510 and its upgraded cousins, the 530 and 560. We decided to purchase our Roomba at Best Buy, because of an 18-month no-interest financing promotion (the Roomba by itself wasn't quite enough to qualify, but the additional unrelated stuff we planned to purchase on the same visit easily bumped the total purchase amount up high enough). Most Best Buys apparently have either the Roomba 530 or 560 in-store, but not both (although both are available via their website); the Best Buy we shopped at had the 560, so that's what we brought home.
Everything one needs to get started is all in one light-to carry box, including a spare filter, a brush-cleaning tool, a recharger "Home Base," and 2 "Lighthouse/Virtual Wall" gadgets -- except for batteries for the "Virtual Walls" (we sent one of the kids to the supermarket on the next block to buy some -- on New Year's Day, yet!). We found an unobstructed outlet near the floor in one of the rooms we wanted to vacuum, plugged in the "Home Base," and plugged the Roomba into it for its initial charge (after listening to its little self-contained audio demo). You're supposed to leave it recharging overnight the first time; however, our Roomba indicated that it was ready to use after just a couple of hours.
We tried it in our kitchen and dining room (AKA "main computer area") for our maiden robo-vacuuming experiment. We did take the precaution of lifting everything loose off the floor, except the Ethernet cable for the computers; since this first time was so interesting to watch, it was no trouble to have someone lift the cable out of the way, and it was pretty good about "escaping" when it did get on top of that cord. (In future, though, I'd want to keep the cord secured above the Roomba, or use a "virtual wall" to keep it away from the Ethernet cable.) Our floor had a lotof dust and pet hair on it, so we had to empty the dust compartment and clean the brushes halfway through. We also used a "virtual wall" at the doorway between the dining room and living room, and another one at the kneehole opening of one of the computer desks; both of those gadgets worked beautifully.
All the humans in our family were quite impressed with the Roomba's performance. (Our dog is a bit frightened of it, though; perhaps she thinks we've got a strange new "robopet" in the house?) With regular use (which should be eminently doable, since this is much easier to use than a traditional vacuum cleaner), the floor should stay clean enough that the mid-job cleaning breaks will no longer be needed. Now, if only the Roomba could do stairs, too!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great concept, but unfulfilling results
Comment: We love the idea of the Roomba, and have owned two of them. We first bought an entry-level model, and it was adequate for our small apartment. However, we wanted the ease of scheduled sessions, better battery life and more effective cleaning when we moved to our current, larger apartment.
The 560's scheduling function is nice, and the battery is adequate. However, we experienced multiple problems: the first battery only survived one charge. iRobot support was somewhat responsive, and we exchanged the battery and updated the 560's software. The battery issue was resolved, but numerous other problems remain:
* The robot fills up very quickly. Although it's an obvious tradeoff--the collection bin can only be so big--even in our apartment it gets full after a single cleaning at most.
* When it transitions from our hardwood floors up onto rugs--even a low-profile rug--it has a tendency to dump lint, dust, etc. onto the floor at the transition point, especially if it is close to full (see previous bullet).
* Getting a true cleaning requires human intervention that negates the point of a robot vacuum cleaner. It gets trapped easily by table chair legs and our somewhat small, square kitchen area. The virtual walls were not terribly effective in helping focus the 560's attention.
The idea of a vacuum that doesn't require your attention is alluring, but the 560 requires a level of intervention that limits convenience. We are going to move back to a traditional vacuum.
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