Daily Techno-Babble

After almost two years running my original iRobot Roomba Discovery the poor little guy was starting to look a little worse for wear. iRobot advises that you should clean the brushes and such after no more than three full cleaning cycles, something my Roomba was not always subject to and the results were starting to become apparent. Strange behavior such as random shutdowns and the occasional incident where the battery would run out before it could find the home base led me to consider that it might be time for an upgrade. Cash in hand I settled one of the newer models I found at the local Best Buy. The iRobot Roomba 530 is a complete reworking of the original Roomba design. Featuring several new cleaning tricks and a much improved battery this model looked like just the right excuse to upgrade. Although there was a lot to like about this new Roomba but my experience ended up leaving me with mixed feelings about the Roomba 530 and ultimately led to me returning the unit to Best Buy in defeat.

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As those of you who already have read my review of the Roomba Discovery already know, I truly enjoy having one of these units for my weekly vacuuming jobs. It really is fantastic to just hit a button and watch it roam around the room, seemingly at random, cleaning up the typical little bits of dirt that have accumulated during the week. All things considered I was very pleased with my long term experience with the Discovery and was excited at the opportunity to see what improvements the newer model would bring. So when I started to have some minor problems with my Discovery (likely the result of not cleaning it enough) I decided to run out to Best Buy (making judicious use of my left over gift cards from Christmas) and pick up a new Roomba 530.

The 530 seemed to be a good mix of features; new NMiH battery, quick charge dock, and the soft-touch bumpers (something I was really looking forward to). The un-boxing experience was positive with all components being well packed and easy to find. I don’t think iRobot will win any design awards for their packaging but I will say they have done a decent job regardless.

Setup was easy enough with a cute (and later very useful) voice tutorial that describes each feature and does a quick run through of what you need to know to get up and running. The new battery charged much faster than the previous model taking about 3 hours at most to reach full capacity.

The dock included with the 530 was similar to the Discovery except it had rubber feet that seemed to do a much better job of keeping the dock from moving around on my hardwood floor. Not a huge deal but definitely a nice touch for those of us that don’t want to use two-sided tape to keep it from shifting around every time the Roomba attempts to dock itself.

Once the Roomba 530 was charged I was ready to start cleaning! Initial impressions were very positive. The Roomba 530 was quieter than my older Roomba Discovery, moved a bit faster, and did not make the annoying thumping sound every time it encountered an obstacle in it’s path. On my first test I had it clean my living room which features both a medium pile rug and hardwood flooring. It seemed to do a decent job but took much less time than the Discovery which made me a bit nervous about just how good a job it was really doing. Since the floor was not all that dirty this time around I decided to give it another try in a few days. So a week later with the floor a total mess I ran the Roomba 530 for a full cycle and to test the new cord avoidance features I did not even bother picking up any cords or other floor debris before starting the Roomba up. Two hours later I was less than impressed. With my old Roomba Discovery I would always find the floor and my one rug nearly spotless after a full cleaning cycle but with the 530 I found obvious dirt on both the floor and the rug. Thinking there must be something wrong I checked the Roomba carefully for clogs or jammed brushes but found none. After another complete cleaning run I came to the conclusion that the 530 just did not do nearly a good a job as the older model which was something I did not expect considering all the new features. After some careful observation and a few unscientific tests it appears that the vacuum has less suction than the previous version.

Weak vacuum aside the Roomba 530’s new brushes worked quite well at getting dirt located in corners and cleaning these brushes was significantly easier than with the older models. Previous models were downright difficult to clean but the Roomba 530 is a joy to clean with the process taking significantly less time than before. The modular layout of the 530’s components makes it easy to remove what needs to be cleaned and to get access to hard to reach areas.

Up to this point my Roomba 530 experience was mostly positive with the one exception of the weaker vacuum. On my third week of using the Roomba 530 I started a cleaning cycle only to notice that the side brush was not spinning. Usually the trick to getting something like this fixed is to reboot the Roomba but this time it was no help. No matter what I did I could not get the side brush working again. I double-checked to make sure the brush was not fouled by dirt or hair (it was not) and ran the tutorial which clearly indicated that the brush was no longer functioning. At this point I decided to return the Roomba since not only was the side brush no longer working but overall I was not happy with the cleaning performance I was getting from the 530. So, admitting defeat I returned it to Best Buy the next day.

Overall I don’t think the Roomba 530 (or any of the other variations) are horrible but I do have some concerns regarding the quality and performance of the latest generation. Like the original Roomba I really hope they make little tweaks to fix these issues and that the quality control improves. If so I might just consider purchasing another one (again).