iRobot Roomba 860 Vacuum Cleaning Robot

This has been my first experience with a roomba, and it is a determined little cleaner! I have friends who have had them for years, but I never paid much attention. This 860 cleans better, and in more unreachable places than I ever could! Seriously folks, if you are researching and thinking about it, go ahead and pull the trigger. You probably won't read another review like mine, so stay tuned. We pulled up all of our carpet a couple of years ago (thanks to our sweet puppies), which revealed some 1950's style hardwood floors. They still have varnish on them, but they also have some dark spots and melted carpet pad which we tried to scrape up. I have a bad back, and my husband has bad knees, so we basically don't do floors. I'm serious, we don't do them. About once every 3 months my husband runs a vacuum over them at break-neck speed, which does very little for the cause. When I got the 860 I charged it overnight, and I actually swept a little. I even moved a little furniture. When I first started it, like everyone else, I followed it around watching it clean. It went back to it's charger after 10 minutes because the bin was full! For the next couple of weeks I became an expert at cleaning the filter and emptying the bin. You couldn't see the dust on the floors, but it's almost like it was pulling it out of the tiny cracks between the hardwoods, and it really had a field day under the beds! It goes and cleans in places that I hadn't even thought about, and I find myself standing there and thinking "well, that's a good idea"! It is so powerful, and once it gets your floors in decent condition it will go for 2 hours, easy, because of the lithium ion battery. That is one of the best features about the 860...the only other Irobot that has it is the 980. I did so much research that I feel like I know my robot vacuums inside and out! I have long hair, and I shed a lot. I found myself wondering where all that long hair was. When I followed the instructions and unscrewed the little side brush there was a big ball of hair under it. Then I took the little roller bars out and it was all wound up inside on both ends. This is not a fault because it's so much nicer to clean out a few balls of hair instead of having it tangled up in brushes or even worse, floating around your feet. Irobot has made it easy to clean the thing out, and it only takes a couple of minutes. Okay, at this point I realize I sound like a commercial for Irobot, so let me assure you that I WISH I was one of those people who got their products for free, but I paid full price for mine. The 860 is so powerful that I get nervous when it is around power cords. I found out it's designed to back up when it gets on them, but it still made me nervous. I have bunch of extension cords and all kinds of things hooked up around my bed, so my solution was to block the roomba off with a 4 ft long by 2 inch wide axe handle. Well, it seriously climbed right over that axe handle with such determination that I stood in awe as I also freaked out. This thing is amazing, and maybe a little bit scary, lol. If you are wavering between the 860 and 880, I would go with the 860 because of the lithium battery. It's stronger and will last a lot longer. It doesn't have a memory like the other roomba batteries (like I said, I've done my research). I ended up having to return my 860 because it started making a clicking noise that I couldn't fix by cleaning it. Also, the lights on the machine and charger weren't working the way they should. I'm telling you this so you will know what to look for, but even with the clicking and lights, it still was a crazy cleaning machine. I loved it! The 880 went on sale and I really thought I needed the remote. It turns out that the remote only works if you point it right at the machine, so I have barely used it. The lighthouses are nice I suppose, but I found that I rarely even needed the virtual wall that came with the 860. More than likely I will return the 880 and go back to the 860 with the lithium ion battery. Although the 880 is running fine this first week, it will only go for an hour whereas the 860 was topping out at more than 2. I hope this helps you make your decision. Whether or not to get one at all is a no brainer. It's the best thing I've ever had. Bottom line, my floors have never been this clean. Today I'm going to celebrate by mopping!

I have a three-year old 760 iRobot Roomba, but it's a pain to carry it up and down stairs to clean other levels of the house. I finally decided that I needed another Roomba, and I settled on this because of a combination of features and price. As much as I like my other Roomba, this one is much better, with a few exceptions. It has a slightly bigger bin and different rollers (no more brush, just rubber rollers), plus it uses the dual-mode virtual wall barrier instead of the much simpler virtual wall with the 700-series. It also seems to clean better, although I had no problem with the other except for its inability to pick up fine dust on wood floors. When it bumps into furniture, the 860 doesn't seem to hit as hard as the 760 does. No matter what you do, an iRobot will take a lot longer to vacuum than you will, primarily because it is not methodical. Instead, it works in seemingly random patterns that eventually cover most, if not all, of a given area. The noise level is considerably less than an upright vacuum cleaner, but it takes longer to finish. This iRobot is most useful to clean when you're not home or while you're doing something else. Because I have a spread-out floor plan, I tend to need to schedule it to run at least twice a week. (It seems to turn in the opposite direction that it did the time before.) The brushes that extend beyond the disk push debris from underneath the edges of furniture where it cannot pass and into the path of the vacuum. It does a pretty good job of getting the edges and corners of the room. The one exception is the area around the charger -- it doesn't even bother. The dual-mode virtual wall that comes with this is great because it can either be set as a room barrier or as a circular no-go area. I am able to protect a plant stand that can easily tip over with the Roomba's bumps by placing the wall underneath and setting it to the correct mode. My one complaint about the 860 is that it comes with only one virtual wall. The 760 came with two, and buying extras was much cheaper than the dual-mode extras. The Roomba moves easily from different kinds a surfaces and over fringed area rugs without getting caught (most of the time.) I have mine on a level that has hardwood floors, tile, and several area rugs, including an extra thick one with fringes, and it runs without flaw over each. It doesn't scratch my hardwood floors. It does take a lot of fuzz off the carpets, and the first few times I used it, I had to empty the bin halfway through cleaning. That takes away from the convenience factor, of course. Now, though, I empty after each run. If you have non-piled carpets and/or hard floors, you won't have to empty nearly as often. The iRobot Roomba is definitely a luxury item, especially since you won't be able to get rid of your existing vacuum cleaner. While the Roomba does most of the work, you'll find yourself vacuuming on occasion because of either time constraints or to get what the robot may have missed. But coming home to a freshly vacuumed home? Sheer delight. -- Debbie Lee Wesselmann

I love this machine!! I was going crazy with the dog fur in our house, vacuuming at least once a day and of course could not get under couch , bed etcetera. The Roomba has saved my life!! it keeps the house spotless! I have to kind of babysit it to some extent to make sure it moves on to other rooms as it will spend an extraordinary amount in one room if you don't watch it.. The only thing I wish is that it knew where it left off and started there the next round. But for now I just move it from room to room myself. I do not know what the blue icon that lights up occasionally means but it keeps on working well. I do make sure to stop it in between and empty out the bin because the dog hair can really clog it fast. But it is wonderful! and great around chair legs and baseboard edges! wow nice and clean!

Got this for an incredible price on prime day, and although I am usually frugle and I was still initially bothered by dropping several hundred dollars, I am so incredibly happy with this purchase. I have 2 small children, a cat, and a heavily-shedding dog, and this machine makes my floors look like I live alone. Roomba, which my 3yo named "Max," can be programmed super easily, but I choose to only run it when I push the button manually, so it won't accidentally interrupt nap time or ruin floor play time. It's not overly noisy, and doesn't scare the kids or pets. It sometimes tries to eat a cord, or string, or other random bits of life that end up on the floor, but it either drops it on it's own or tells me somethings up and I just flip it over to remove the debris. It's super easy to empty and change the filter, and I'm constantly astounded by how much crud, especially pet fur, that it finds. I had what I thought was a good Eureka vacuum but now find that the Roomba cleans up after it. You definitely don't sacrifice quality for convenience with this model. It navigates my house easily and thouroughly, rarely getting stuck. The battery life is more than enough to clean one floor of my house and it charges quickly to be used again. Overall, it saves me incredible amounts of time that I was formerly vacuuming on my own, and it does a far better job than I do. Still loving it after 2 months. Best splurge ever!

Honestly, this thing is pretty great. It does a great job of cleaning the floor, which is pretty much what it's supposed to do, so three cheers for that. It does have a few things going on though, which a few of the top reviewers didn't really mention, and I thought I might. First, the vacuum rollers are fairly fragile. It once ate a small squarish plastic ocelot figurine, which pretty damaged both rollers to near-replacement point. This was about 3 days after we got it. Mind you the rest of the machine is fine, so this is a small concern. Second, a few reviewers mention that it doesn't do a great job of navigating once it's out of sight of home base. I found this to be relatively true at first--in that it always made its way home (provided it didn't get stuck--more below) eventually; but it could take a while as it bumbled around trying to work out a line of sight. However, over time it has gotten better than this. Third, a few reviewers indicated that it doesn't seem to 'map out' the house. After a few weeks of living with it, I feel fairly certain that it does actually do some mapping of some sort. When last I watched it come on (usually I'm out), it made a beeline directly for the bedroom door, which it drew a graceful, tight arc perfectly through. This is not a straight-line trip from home base, and it didn't bump into anything in the process, so I'm inclined to think it's figured something out there. Also, as mentioned above, its ability to find its way home has improved over time, so I suspect it's got a pretty decent memory. Fourth--and this is the most annoying part, which is honestly not that bad--it seems to be ideally sized to use my dining room chair legs as a Roomba trap. It can juuust barely slip its way in through the front, at which point it will never, ever, make it back out again. This has happened three or four times now. Once I came home to see the poor thing, dead flat battery, huddled under the chair in silence. It honestly made me kind of sad. I was able to resolve some conflicts for it by clearing out other clutter in the house, but I just don't know what I'm going to do about the chairs. I have one too many to set up on the table, and I can hardly be expected to expend that much effort on a daily basis anyway! Finally, as stated by many other people: this thing is damn cute! I can't get past thinking of this thing as a pet. The cat is more cuddly, but honestly this guy (my daughter decided it's a boy Roomba) tickles as he goes over your foot. The 'bump to navigate' control scheme they cooked up really makes him seem like he wants to get to know you better. And, like any good cat, he's often to be found right there underfoot, insisting gently that you step on him, or fall over trying not to. (In all seriousness, this isn't really a problem). Conclusion: Great! Not perfect, but I'm not even sure I'd be happier if it were perfect.

Is it perfect? No. Definitely not, but it does a hell of a job. Living in an apartment with all hardwood floors, two pets, a dusty/silty area and dry skin? Sounds like a nightmare. I couldn't even walk around without socks on because of the crap that would stick to my feet. Two easy solutions: Sweep every day for 30 minutes and miss some of it or buy a roomba and help it once in awhile for a total of 5 minutes. Yeah, it gets stuck once in awhile or gets lost. It's not perfect but it's still beats the hell out of swiffering every day for the facts that it's both more thorough and less time consuming. Having a clean floor with little to no effort is such a luxury that I'm not sure how I lived without it. If I knew better I would have chosen a model with multi-room navigation because the getting lost and random bumbling is a bit annoying, but for the budget model it's perfect. I love this thing.

We got this product to help in between vacuums as we have three animals. It worked great for the first month or so, but now it constantly gives the error to clean the brush head and one of the brushes no longer turns at all. The roomba customer service was no help and our return window is over, so I’m not sure what we are supposed to do with it now or how we get some help. Very frustrating.

This is a life saver. We have two dogs that shed constantly. The tangle free extractors work amazing. Our floor is cleaner than it’s ever been. Works great on the hard laminate floor and the low pile carpet. It even cleans our bath mat amazingly without dragging it anywhere. The one thing is that is doesn’t get the corners. But.... it’s circular so. I am willing to manually clean the corners if this thing does the rest !