Barsetto Robot Vacuum Cleaner with Powerful Suction, Automatic Self-Charging, Filter for Pet Hair, Daily Schedule, Drop Sensing, Slim Design, for Hard Surface Wood Floors Tile, Upgraded (Black

Sat 6/02/2012 7:07 am. There are numerous objects in the box. There is a quickstart guide with no information about any of them, except the Roomba itself. Within the Quickstart guide is a CD, which I presume one is supposed to apply to one's forehead; or insert in one's convenient optical drive which of course we all keep by us at all times, *particularly* when we're setting-up the floor cleaner. And there is the obligatory STOP sign leaflet, begging me to call their 800 number robot, 9 to 5, Monday through Saturday....The quickstart tells you to remove two tabs; which one can see protruding from the complicated bottom of the device. It does not tell you *how*. The orange one rips out; at least I hope it does. The cardboard thing requires figuring-out how to remove the dust tray (?) -- without instructions -- open it, and get out the cardboard. Without instructions.I managed to get through Step #2, setting the date and time; just like your microwave -- and our beloved VCRs of yore -- the roomba *must know* the exact time; unlike your microwave, it *also* must know the date.However I was stumped at step #3: "Plug in the Home Base and Charge Roomba fully." It's true, being a geek, I *guessed* I should poke the chic-blue-illuminated button with the legend "charge" (or "dock", or something) on it. Whereupon the Roomba started pushing the light plastic charge thingey around the floor, like a stupid dog who can't figure-out how to gnaw a bone. ... And there's no on/off button. That is, I *couldn't* turn it off. There's the international symbol for circle/line on the "Clean" button, but that just starts/stops it cleaning. With a fairly loud roar. Thankfully, when it's pushing its docking station around the floor, pushing clean *did* stop it; but not turn out the lights. ... Now I will google for "docking Roomba". ... Apparently this is known can't-do-anything-about-it behavior! As Steve Jobs would say, it just doesn't work. Kuel. ... Apparently I'm supposed to wedge it against a wall or something; which I eventually managed, and now it's docking quietly....And I know *I* was enchanted to learn that the last Step #4 is "Schedule Roomba". I'm hoping they're lying, and I can just tell it to clean....Due to a lifelong fascination with this kind of geeky know-it-all extravagant stupidity, and a desire to clean my floors without work, I'll probably keep it, so long as it doesn't catch on fire or molest the neighbor's cat; and of course actually manages to clean something. ... And if *you* really enjoy infuriating geeky puzzles, here's your cleaner!// Sun 6/03/2012 7:55 am. The robot's OK. I threw it in at the deep end: our mudroom, a place of dread, at least at night. It not only swept it cleaner than it's ever been swept before, it did it without noticeable trauma; various nests of wires and other debris were left relatively unmolested. Roomba's cleaning standard is gratifyingly better than mine, which isn't saying much, but after the grueling mudroom test we turned it loose on the rest of the ground floor, and the carpet in the bedroom hasn't looked that good in *years*.So it's a success. I won't give it 5 stars because I'm *still* annoyed about opening the box. It turned-out the seeming profusion of little objects was an illusion, no doubt intended to soothe those of us with doubts about a $500 plastic gadget, but it had the opposite effect on me, along with the omerta quickstart pamphlet. ... In the house-cleaning project I *did* use one of the two supplied "virtual wall" gadgets, once I googled and pointed it in the right direction, and was amused as the robot repeatedly approached the barrier and was turned-back. So, as others have noted, it's also an entertainment device....

My wife & I have a 600 series Roomba & had got the 760 as a secondary. Even though the 760 claims to have all these neat features, none of them seem to work on ours. The Side arm on both models goes under our throw rugs while the Roomba tries to go over. So you can watch it go back & forth trying to get over the rug for minutes on end. Also both Roombas have destroyed several throw rugs by running along the edge constantly & rips out the thread unraveling them. Also the smart technology that lets it clean rooms better, seems to fall short.Instead of hitting a wall, making a slight correction & going straight, ours will keep making right turns into a wall until it darts down some other hall way or finds a different wall. Once in a while it while look like it's cleaning right, then it darts across the room at a 45* angle & misses all sorts of floor. For the cost of these things & how much robotic tech has advanced over the past several years, one would think iRobot would offer free software upgrades. Also the tech about it noticing ledges, I guess cant be said for bumps. We have a heavy duty rubber mat at our back door. When we have the door open the Roomba will go onto the mat, then tries to go out the door. It gets high centered on the kick plate of the door & then proceeds to tell you to relocate to another area.Over all as a basic Vacuum it works. If you have throw rugs or a medium sized house (ours is near 1600 sq.ft) 1 Roomba will take a few runs a day to keep the floors clean. Now take note, we have 7 dogs, so we get a lot of debris from out side + hair. I would only recommend to those who have smaller places & fewer pets to make a mess. The headache of getting home to find it tangled up in a throw rug or stuck in a corner, because it couldn't find its charger will make you wonder why you wasted $500+ on one.

I've had my Roomba for about 8 weeks now and I think I can give him a fair review. It was easy to unpack and put together. It's not greenish, like shown, rather silver which is fine. He, yes we refer to it as a him and "Roomba" like he was a person, and why not? He's a working member of the family now! We've set him to do his thing around 1am every day and let me tell you!!! I haven't had to vacuum but maybe once in 2-3 weeks and that's just because we had company and I wanted to clean cracks and crevasses! We have two fluffy dogs and two fluffy cats so fur balls rolling like tumble weeds on a wood floor were my nemesis! Now, I just stop every other day and empty his container and go on my way. Like others have said, he is more of a sweeper than a vacuum but don't let that fool you into thinking it's not worth the money. He picks up pretty much everything a vacuum does and at the very least vastly extends the time between thorough vacuum jobs. Worth it to me!Lets start with the beginning though. I'm glad someone warned me that for the first week or so, your Roomba will be learning his way around and measuring things. What this means is initially, he'll zig and zag kinda haphazardly and may not get every little speck. I'm inclined to say those who review this badly for not picking up everything, probably didn't give him a fair chance. He really does learn his way though so be patient. The more you can run him initially, the faster he'll learn. I'd let him do his schedule, and then after re-charging, manually turn him on to clean again later the same day. One, because he didn't get all the debris and two, he was learning with every bump and pass. For the first week, he was room to room bopping around but 2-3 weeks later, he was pretty proficient. Now, he goes to a room and seems to know his way around furniture and tends to complete that room before moving on. What use to take him 2-3 battery cycles now he's able to do in 1. He will go under the beds and the first day I thought for sure, he'd get stuck under there, but he bopped around until he found his way out and that was that. As for his "bopping" as we called it, he's only actually gotten stuck on furniture once and that was actually the dishwasher on the first day. He ran into it, and as he spun around to move away from it, his little raised nub (the little black knob on the top edge) got caught under the lip of the dishwasher. He spun around and jerked for a few moments but I was right there and freed him. He might have gotten out on his own, but it's funny how he's learned not to do that again!I finally ended up making this purchase because of several factors but one is that I HATE the sound of a vacuum cleaner. It's not that I mind vacuuming, I just can't stand the noise. So, I was pleasantly surprised that Roomba is pretty quiet as vacuums go. You could hear a TV over him, so to me that's pretty mild. Like I said, I have mine set to run at 1am every day because I work at home and may not leave for a day or two at a time. So, I set it to run when I'm asleep. The charger base is just outside my bedroom door but in the middle of my sleep cycle, I never even hear it come on and do it's thing. If you had this down stairs and slept upstairs, you'd never know it was working except for the dust in the bin and not on your floors! Our bedroom is carpet and like I said, being more of a sweeper, I find he does best on the wood and tile so I close my door at night and just go over the carpet with a regular vacuum cleaner instead. Now, if you have a low pile carpet like berber or throw rugs, he'll clean those too but I find on regular carpet his bin fills more quickly and you may need to empty it in the middle of a cycle rather than every other day.Mine came with the virtual wall but I haven't needed to use it. Our roomba is contained by a ledge (which he will not go over) and our closed bedroom door. When I need him to clean the sunken living room, I have to set him down and hit start then pick him up when he's done. Speaking of doors though, this is where I'll get into his faults: He did have a nasty habit of bumping around and accidentally closing himself in a room. One of the first mornings, I found him missing. Finally, I discovered the half bath off the kitchen closed and there he was in the middle of the floor, dead battery but a spotlessly clean floor! He'd just run around that little area until his battery died. I invested in a few decorative door stops and we were back in business. Occasionally, when Hubby forgets to put the door stop back, we have this problem again, but we pretty much know where to find him now.He doesn't get stuck on rugs at all, but we have had him suck up a cat toy and a phone charger. One toy gets stuck in his brushes but doesn't stop him, the other does. We just find him somewhere in the morning stuck on the kitty toy, free him, and off he goes to finish his job. Actually, we've pretty much managed to find out which ones he gets stuck on and which ones he doesn't and just dispose of the offending toys. Note, bigger, lighter weight toys are better since he just pushes them out of the way. The little bitty fuzzy mice and anything kinda flat are the ones to avoid. The phone cord was not damaged at all. He actually stopped and sounded an alarm, waiting for me to release him. I was surprised neither were damaged as a regular vacuum would've wound it so tightly it would've broken, but with Roomba is was loose and easily removed. He just recognized it as a cord and stopped before any harm was done. But, I would suggest going through your home and "Roomba proofing" by tying up loose cords and such just in case. As for other reviewers saying his pushes their stuff around, I haven't seen much of it. He does push my flip flops around if I leave them by the door, but hey, at least he's cleaning under them!One final nit-pick: The base charger is pretty light weight and I found on my slick hardwood that he had a hard time docking without pushing the charger away from him. The application of a non-skid mat under the charger or one of those command strip velcro pads solve this problem though. Very simple to fix but would be nice if it came from the manufacturer with something like that. The little slick rubber feet aren't enough to keep it in place on a polished floor.Other than that, we have no complaints about our Roomba. We've learned what we have to do to accommodate him, and he's learned his job as well. Now after 8 weeks feel we wouldn't want to live without him. We keep his base plugged into a surge protector to help protect him and every morning admire our nice clean floors that we didn't actually have to vacuum ourselves. Totally worth the money!