iRobot Roomba 760 Review
Positive:
Cleaning empty rooms is no issue at all but cleaning any room with lots of things lying around like my nephew's toys was not something the Roomba liked The scheduling feature is a great bonus for the busy user and can be added to a productivty budget even for use in a large open office Very intelligent for cleaning and going over dirt until its satisfactoryNegative:
You need to keep an eye on it for first use to make sure it is totally suitable for your type of space The HEPA filters get clogged up Small bin so will need to be emptied after few cleans You sort of need to pre-clean your space before use which some can see as doing double jobiRobot Roomba 760 has a sleek new design and features engineering enhancements such as an advanced cleaning head and the AeroVac Series 2 bin that pick up even more dirt, dust and pet hair. On-board scheduling allows you to program Roomba 760 to clean while you are away and HEPA filters leave the air fresher after each use.
Overview
Every weekend my carpet and laminated floors would have gathered dust and few particles here and there from outside over the week and having a busy life means it can be missed with shoulder shrugged. For those men that lives with their partner, cleaning can also be chore or sometimes cause arguments about who does the vacuuming and I’m on your side and have a really futuristic home tech that will do us men some good in our cleaning lives. The iRobot Roomba 760 is a sixth-generation iRobot vacuum cleaner from the award winning Roomba series. It will clean up to 3 spaces, clean on schedule and has advanced technology to clean tiny particles, and before I forget to mention, it has a remote control (I know what you are thinking and I agree it is not a product for the lazy men)
image from http://blog.maids.com/2011/make-saturday-afternoons-fun-outsource-the-cleaning/
iRobot Roomba 760 has a sleek new design and features engineering enhancements such as an advanced cleaning head and the AeroVac Series 2 bin that pick up even more dirt, dust and pet hair. On-board scheduling allows you to program Roomba 760 to clean while you are away and HEPA filters leave the air fresher after each use.
As you know any review you read on GadgetsBoy are always unbiased regardless of us buying our own product for review or having them sent in so let’s get into the review.
image from http://blog.ajrosecarpets.com/slider/vacuuming-101/
Unboxing and what’s in the box
The iRobot Roomba 760 came in a well packaged brown box with no special detail in packaging, but who cares, it would only get thrown in the loft once it gets unpackaged. Opeining up the box you get the following:
- 1 iRobot Roomba 760
- Compact Self Charging Home Base
- 2 Virtual Walls
- 1 3 Hour Battery Charger
- 1 Rechargeable Battery
- 2 Extra HEPA Filters
- 2 Brush Cleaning Tools
- 1 Remote Control
- 1 Instructional DVD
- Manufacturer’s 1-year limited warranty on Roomba; 6 months on rechargeable battery
Design
The Roomba 760 is round in shape with a diameter of 13.9 inches, Weighing 8.4 lbs; those numbers might mean a little to you reading this but it feels quite heavy and solid which you would expect from a Robot that will at some point bump into a solid wall.
On the Roomba 760 you will see few buttons and the sensor that guides it around the room. At the center, there’s the Clean button and Pressing it once will turn it on and press it again and it turns off. Just above the Clean button you will notice the glowing battery level indicator. Green light indicating battery is full status and amber when it needs recharging. Roomba 760 is a green technology and will recharge itself during use and will also intuitively return to its charging station once finished. The Dock button tells the Roomba 760 to return to the docking station, Clock button allows you to set the time which in turn will allow the Schedule button/function to be set. The final button, Spot tells the Roomba 760 to clean a specific area repeatedly especially needed when you have a coffee stain or something similar that you would like to go over a few times.
Turning the Roomba 760 over for inspection, you will notice the two wheels that aids the Roomba 760 forwards and backwards movements and a smaller rotating wheel at the front that aids the 360 navigation. At the top left corner on the bottom side of the Roomba, there’s a 3 blades brush that spins as the Roomba 760 moves for cleaning along walls and around edges where a standard vacuum cleaner may not be able to reach.
The HEPA filters helps suck everything in as much as possible especially those tiny dirt that a hand brush could miss. The Roomba 760 is bagless and has a small collection bin, although all the cleaning is done for you, you still have to get up and empty the bin after few runs.
If you are wondering how it would work when using it near the stairs and worried about it dropping few flights down the stairs, well there are 4 sensors situated along the bottom edges, which automatically detect stairs; and impressively when the Roomba gets nearby it doesn’t just back off, it will still clean the edges then moves away once done. The proximity sensor at the front will impressively scan the room about 60 times every second and the sensor is also used to slow down when approaching a wall or other large objects. The rubberized front bumper acts as a shock absorber when bumping into things which is good so that the Roomba can last long especially after paying the hefty price for it.
Using the iRobot Roomba 760
The Roomba 760 needs charging before you can use it, although I was sent the international plug I was able to find an adapter to get it charged; once the battery is fully charged, you can begin to use to vacuum continuously for just over an hour but hopefully your room is not that big or dirty that it would require that long to clean but if you do have one that requires more than an hour, the Roomba will return to the charging station automatically when it’s running low on juice. If you are not that lazy remember you can simple hit the Dock button on the vacuum or for convenience the remote control.
The Roomba 760 certainly is just about everything you can expect from a robotic vacuum cleaner with so many intelligent features and in many cases you can simply leave it to run its course. My only concern or may be more of a paranoia is depending on it to clean a room full of expensive ornaments and flower pots but putting it on it simply is intelligent enough to sense those large objects. It is very easy to use for a very sophisticated product and with simple buttons there isn’t so much to learn about it unless you want to get technical and learn all about how it senses dirt and moves around. It is not only able to clean simple dirt but it is able to detect when it needs to go over any particles more than once. It has become some sort of house pet since using it that just has its own mind to move around the house.
As automated as it can be and be part of the everyday gadget to help out in the house, you still need to pick up the obvious from the floor so if you are going to use it, remove the likes of your socks or any other objects lying around then get your iRobot Roomba to do the rest. Maybe the next stop for the manufacturers would be to make it a little more interactive like voice activated.
Conclusion
The Roomba 760 is definitely fit for it’s built purpose, stylish and very intelligent. It is also built to last for a long time with its rubber shock absorber and sensors to keep it safe. There are still questions in my mind regarding paying the hefty sum for the convenience or go out an buy a Dyson for slightly less or about same price and do the cleaning job myself. The next step I would like to see is some voice activation.
Pros
- Cleaning empty rooms is no issue at all but cleaning any room with lots of things lying around like my nephew’s toys was not something the Roomba liked
- The scheduling feature is a great bonus for the busy user and can be added to a productivty budget even for use in a large open office
- Very intelligent for cleaning and going over dirt until its satisfactory
Cons
- You need to keep an eye on it for first use to make sure it is totally suitable for your type of space
- The HEPA filters get clogged up
- Small bin so will need to be emptied after few cleans
- You sort of need to pre-clean your space before use which some can see as doing double job
Where to buy
