here’s the manufacturer’s website
and the user manual
lots of good reviews on this one at buzzillionshttp://www.buzzillions.com/reviews/irobot-roomba-530-vacuum-cleaning-robot-reviews
and 85/100 from alatest is good too.
http://alatest.com/reviews/vacuum-reviews/irobot-roomba-530/po3-53041241,340/
A thread from the same item back in August. I’m sure lots of common questions are answered there!
Also a thread from April!
But a beautiful magic. Each time I see one of these on Woot, I get just a little bit closer to buying one. The floorplan in my house makes it…difficult, to say the least. (lots of small rooms with doors and doorjams that would make vacumming with this thing impossible)…le sigh.
I bought one at this previous Wooting. Been very happy with it. I named it Roombie.
Hey Woot! My wife and I would like the one designed for pets. Maybe the next time around?
Killer gift for the lazy meth addict
I have a 560 I believe and it actually broke within the first year of having it… I thought it was going to be a customer service nightmare getting it fixed but it was actually a great experience - after a series of 2 or 3 troubleshooting emails they sent me out a replacement part free of charge and it has been working great ever since.
This model has been around for awhile, but the reviews are good.
http://www.gadgetvenue.com/irobot-roomba-530-vacuum-review-05175441/
http://housewares.about.com/od/vacuumreviews/gr/iRobotRoomba500.htm
I have this roomba and it works great!
One caveat though is that it will not like dark colored rugs! The sensors will think they are a cliff and have it avoid them and possibly get stuck. iRobot has yet to come out with a fix for this.
You can cover the sensors yourself with paper and tape however this will morph your roomba into a lemming that will tumble down flights of stairs.
If you don’t have a dark carpet or you don’t have a staircase this is an excellent pick up.
I’ve been having a terrible weekend, which has included vacuuming.
In for one, no more weekends like this. Clean floors without effort.
I bought one of these from the last woot offering. The Roomba does a great job of picking up cat fur and stray litter pellets from around the house. It also does a great job of picking up my girlfriend’s long hair, getting tangled up, and then bleating plaintively until you come to repair it.
That said, I am thoroughly satisfied with my purchase, and I haven’t yet encountered any of the common problems with battery life (we’ll see how that holds up in a year…)
Maintenance is pretty easy but you really do need to pull all of the tangled hair/fur out of the sides of the brushes, and hair will somehow manage to get on the inside of the little side brush. You’ll have to use a Phillips head screwdriver to take off the brush and remove the offending hair.
I can vouch for this Roomba 530 and refurbished ones from Woot. I have bought three of them from Woot, two of which were for me, and they do a wonderful job and have been problme free. I have a Siberian Husky, so pet hair is a bit of a problem, but Roomba handles it pretty well. Had I known how well, I would have purchased one long before last June. BTW, I just picked up the Roomba 560 during the last Woot Off. Roombas rock!!!
That’s the perfect layout. You only want this to clean a small area at a time. It does the best job that way.
When I was in a house with that type of floorplan, I’d just run Roomba in a different room every day, on my way out the door. Now I’ve got two going in a huge multi-room space, and it can be hit or miss.
I have a Roomba that gets lost and dies before
it can get back to its charger. My mom made a
sweater for it!
I have this unit and I highly recommend it. It works great on hardwoods and doesn’t seem to have much of an issue with our rugs. Definately gets some of the hard to reach areas and picks up the wandering dog hair around the house. The docking station is really nice, you don’t have to go looking for it after a while, it takes itself to the docking station to recharge the battery, all by itself! Great price on this as well, paid quite a bit more for ours a few months ago.
Not to mention, my apartment complex doesn’t allow pets 
It was a roomba or a goldfish… I think a roomba is cuddlier.