iRobot Roomba 530 Robotic Vacuum Review

My husband brought home a present that I thought was going to be a new puppy around Christmas time, and when I came out to the room to where my "present" was, I suddenly heard this "whirring" sound, looked down, and there was my iRobot Roomba® 530 cleaning my carpets and floors for me!  No, folks, it wasn't a puppy, but it was the next best thing ~ something that saves me from the neck and back pain that I always had after using a traditional vacuum.  My husband is a busy man at work and is so tired when he comes home, that the last thing he wants to do is help with the vacuuming.  Our Roomba, who we affectionally now call "Robby", does most of our vacuuming for us.  He conveniently is parked at a docking station where he gets re-charged and to where he returns when he starts running low on energy.  He just starts heading toward his docking station, docks, and his red circular light goes on that shows that he's charging (we say that Robby's "feeding").  For a small, round, flat automatomic vacuum, the Roomba does a surprisingly wonderful shop of sucking up all of the dirt and dust from both carpet and floor, and adjusts to both surfaces and textures.  When it finds a larger particle of dust or dirt, its center light comes on, and it circles all over it until it sucks it up inside.  It also comes with two "virtual walls" (each emits an adjustable infrared beam up to 8 feet) that you can place wherever you want to tell the Roomba not to vacuum there - it creates an invisible boundary that the Roomba cannot cross.

Cleaning it is very easy.  Just open the dirt catcher and dump out the dirt right into your trash can. Occasionally, long hair gets caught around the wheels, and have to be removed with scissors.  Oh, and by the way, it also knows when it is against a wall, and follows along it until it's done that path against the wall.  The only real "con" is that Roomba doesn't hit every spot on your rug or floor, and seems to just go its own way, especially in a wide, open style home, so sometimes you need to watch it, turn it off for a moment, and turn it in the direction you want it to go. 

All in all, it's not the absolute perfect vacuum cleaner, but it's just GREAT for either in between cleaning or for help for a person such as I am who has back and neck injuries, or for someone who is disabled.  I just love to hear Robby doing the job for me so I can be free from pain. He's a real pal.