iRobot 330 Scooba Floor-Washing Robot
by iRobot
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List Price: Our Price: $229.00 You Save: $170.99 (43%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Home See more product details |
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Tools and Hardware Reviews of iRobot 330 Scooba Floor-Washing Robot
Customer Review: I-Rob-Yu - an Incredible waste of time and money
Summary: 1 Stars
I have three iRobot products - two roombas and the Scooba - all which now sit unused.
They are all NOT worth the cost and the effort to use to clean a floor - carpet or tile. They take more time to clean, recharge, unstick when stuck, and waste a vast amount of time for prep, cleaning and maintenance. Although at first they are intriguing to watch after a few months you will haul out the old vacumm to give your place a decent cleaning or pull out the mop since it's a lot easier to just mop the floor.
Roomba: The batteries are unreliable and only last for cleaning a couple of rooms - not a entire typical house. They do not get into corners. They clean by repeatdly changing patterns with multiple passes and in the process miss areas. They have to be emptied after each use. They can't get over a throw rug on a wood floor or a throw rug on a carpeted floor so they are worthless if you have area rugs. They constantly get stuck. The Roomba's do a very lousy job of cleaning since they have absolutely worthless suction. After a few months, the roomba's were just spreading lines of dog hairs around the carpet and leaving a black outline of their tracks.
Scooba: When I first received it the battery would not charge properly. I had to contact iRobot which sent a new battery. It still did not hold a decent charge for more than a few days and barely enough when fully charge to clean the floor. It worked a couple times and then it then stopped spreading fluid on the floor and would not clean at all. I found out this was a design defect and this had to be remedied with a bulb syringe I had to obtain from iRobot again. It repeatedly gets stuck under standard height kitchen cabinets and the dishwasher. Half the time the battery dies before it completes cleaning a 10 by 10 kitchen floor completely.
It takes far more time to prepare the scooba, mix the solution, clean its mechanisms and fill it then it does to simply mop the floor. After each cleaning you must clean out the fluid tubes, clean the intake screens, empty the dirty water tank and rinse it, pull the brush out of the bottom and clean that, and plug it in the recharging station if you are going to use it in a day or so. Otherwise don't bother charging it for a cleaning next week. It will no hold a charge for more than a few days. Worthless batteries. I have gone through several in a year.
Before use, you have to plug in the charger and wait about 6-8 hours to charge since it will always be uncharged during normal use. You must carefully measure out the special cleaner in a provided cup. You then add water and prime the air intake with a bulb they provide so it will eject the cleaning solution on the floor.
The scooba does a good job scrubbing the floor when you finally get it to work; but it misses every corner and those must be cleaned by hand. It gets stuck easily under cabinets since it it barely low enough for standard kitchen cabinet overhangs. When done -if it doesn't run out of power first, it then requires a tedious cleaning procedure so it will work the next time.
Bottom line - Rooba and Scooba are incredible time wasters and the opposite of convenient. Like me you will kick yourself for wasting so much money on things which are incredibly frustrating and inefficient.
Customer Review: Lots of water left behind, misses spots - no Roomba!
Summary: 1 Stars
About two weeks ago I ordered the Roomba and immediately fell in love with it. It does an amazing job of cleaning our carpets, rugs, and wood and tile floors. Being so pleased with this product we immediately ordered the Dirt Dog for the shop and the Scooba 330. I was very hopeful for the performance of the Scooba.
When I started running the first one that we received I noticed it was leaving behind a great deal of water, traveling fast and missing entire parts of the floor, and that it's algorithm for travel seemed to leave it in some spots for a very long time and yet never hit other spots at all.
Not being ready to give up on the Scooba, we evaluated all the parts to make sure that everything was connected correctly and nothing was clogging the vacuum. Check there -- everything okay. I then ran a test with just 1 cup of water and measured only 1/3 cup in the dirty water tank when all the clean water was used. So Scooba had left 2/3 of the water on my floor. I called the iRobot folks and asked them how much water I should expect Scooba to pick up and was told that it should pick up all the water that it drops down.
Hearing this, I decided I should try out a different unit -- just in case we had received a bad one. Kudos to the great folks at Amazon for immediately shipping me a replacement that arrived the following morning. Unfortunately, the replacement Scooba had the exact same issues as the original.
This time I measured 3 1/4 cup of water in and only received 1 1/3 cup back in the dirty water tank -- a slight improvement but still leaving practically 60% of the water on my floor. What I was left with were huge water spots everywhere.
This one also seemed to have problems with the travel algorithm. My Roomba effectively gets an entire room -- while the Scooba missed several areas of my approximately 250 square foot kitchen entirely -- places it never even ran over.
This one also races over spots and you can see where part of the area that it covers is not even wet. In fact I had three juice spots in the middle of my floor that I saw Scooba travel over probably half a dozen times and yet never clean up.
I will grant you that it did clean part of my kitchen and the water in the dirty tank was indeed dirty. But having been so impressed with Roomba I am sadly returning the second Scooba that I received. I think that Scooba needs first and foremost an actual wet vac so that it picks up most of the water that it lays down. It also needs to have more consistent cleaning when it goes over an area, and an algorithm for movement that is as effective as Roombas.
If you don't mind water spots on your floor or don't mind following along behind it to dry up your floors, it doesn't do a bad job. But at this point I will wait for a few more versions to come out to see if they implement any of these necessary changes to make this a great product. For now Roomba and my Swiffer Wet Jet do the job much better.
Customer Review: Wow, that floor is clean!
Summary: 5 Stars
Okay, so I bought an original Roomba back when they first came out (I'm an early adopter type) based on the ravings of a close friend of mine. He told me, "I've cleaned out it's dust bin and found it sucked up AA batteries!" So, I bought one and let it roam around the house...WOW was I impressed. AFTER I've already cleaned the hardwood floor by hand, swept, swiffered and spot wiped...the Roomba still comes back with a bin full of dust bunnies. So, I'm SOLD on the Roomba. But this isn't a review on the Roomba...it's on the Scooba.
All the while, I've had a kitchen floor that admittedly gets neglected. It's about 150 square feet of travertine tile with about 1/2" of grout between the one-foot squares. fortunately, its the type of tan stone tile that completely hides the dirt, so it was easy to let it go. I do a lot of cooking and it's intevitable that something minced always finds its way under foot. Looks arent everything. Even though I couldn't see the dirt, my white socks would get dirty on the bottom! I would get down on my hands and knees and scrunge some of the tiles with a sponge thingie, but would get pretty tired of that after abotu 1/2 an hour. Oh, well, maybe my socks are cleaning the floor enough?? At some point, I decided to try the Scooba. I bought the least expensive one...mostly because I didn't know there were other models. A lot of the difference is in how big a floor it will cover and since mine is small enough...this one would do.
I filled it up with cleaning solution and warm water and let it have its way with my dirty floor. As with the Roomba, you want to watch it for a while...then let it just do its thing as you go for a hike or some other activity that is more enjoyable than scrubbing your kitchen floor. When I got back, the little bugger was just sitting there with a "How'd I do?" look on its face. I emptied the "dirty" side of the tank and I was amazed at how black that water was! I'm really a pretty clean guy, but you've GOT to be kidding me! The Scooba did an AMAZING job!!!
Just as a test, I dampened a white paper towel slightly and hand scrubbed some of the typically worst tiles...about 6 feet of them. The paper towel came up as clean as new. There was NO dirt on the towel. I almost felt guilty throwing it away! The Scooba scrubbed the entire floor and sucked up all that dirty water into its tank. Sweet. I now run it about once a week when I'm about to head out for a mountain bike ride. It gives me a clean floor and I can get back to enjoying life.
Some additional info: The tiles are pretty bumpy and I wondered about that before I bought it. Y'know where the tile is kinda rounded on the edges, but higher than the grout? NOT a problem. The Scooba handles it perfectly.
The second best household product I've purchased...just slightly behind the original Roomba!
Customer Review: Have Many Pets- I Love It!
Summary: 5 Stars
I could not sleep early one Sat. morning and turned on the TV in the bedroom and there was an info-mercial on Comedy Central (about 5am). I had heard of Roomba and had also heard some time back they were coming out with a "mopping" version. I hate info-mercials but was very interested in Scooba for the below reasons:
I have several rescued pets. I removed all carpet when I bought my house 2 years ago and have wood floor in the living room and sheet vinyl everywhere else. I have a handicapped cat who has small wet "accidents" and I spend SO much time spot mopping, then 1x/week using one of those big and heavy Hoover carpet/bare floor cleaning machines.
Maybe they have worked out the system kinks, but my Scooba 380 worked immediately. I got the package deal that also included the charger, cleaner, 2 virtual walls, and suction bulb. I followed the quick setup guide and the thing took off and cleaned my entire master suite while I was in the kitchen.
After the initial cleaning, it takes me about 2 minutes to do the tank, brush, filter, and suction port cleaning. Today I did the bedroom, hallway, living room, and cat box room. Probably because my floors are completely smooth and flat (sheet vinyl) it did a great job and dried in no time. It even did well on the wood floor.
I do not have kids or anyone else in the house (1700 sq. ft.) so I can't comment on lots of people dirt, but I am totally satisfied with this product. Since I spent so much time vacuuming and mopping, I now set the Roomba loose, then the Scooba- it frees me up to do other household tasks that would typically get put off because after vac. and Hoover machining, I would be tired (I have back problems).
I would say that if you expecting a super fast "quick fix", this probably is not for you. But, if you have lots of bare floor and pets and spend too much time vac. and mopping, I highly recommend getting the deal I got with the free Roomba. I got it on the iRobot site- it was a GOOD deal of $ ($499) but considering ALL the time I spend doing these tasks, so far it is SO worth it to me! (I also used the Pay Later option with 6 months no interest!!)
UPDATE Aug. 28, 2007- about 1 month after my original post...just wanted to follow up after the "newness glow" has worn off. Both Scooba and Roomba are still working perfectly. Having spent so much $ on this, I decided that even though I'm pretty sure their statement about ONLY using the Clorox Scooba cleaner solution is part of their exclusive co-branding deal, I didn't want to risk it. I used the 15% off coupon that came with the original order and got a box of 9 big bottles- pretty good price. I am still figuring out the exact range of the virtual walls and have mainly used them to sub-divide the large living room and converted garage area. Overall, I am still 100% pleased with my purchase.
Customer Review: A great new robot
Summary: 5 Stars
My wife and I decided to name our little robot Lupe after the Seinfeld chambermaid. We bought the Scooba 330 because we live in Brazil where there's lots of dust due to open windows, and our apartment is all tile (i.e. we end up cleaning it about every other day). I did quite a bit of research before purchasing the 330 and debated between getting the higher model. However, due to cost we stayed with the 330. I come from a family where you swept a floor and then got on hands and knees to wash it. Now, I have not yet tried this in our apartment in Brazil, but I did give it a run in the States and was pleasantly surprised with the job that the Scooba did. If you're expecting it to be the same quality as handwashing, then you're in for a bit of a disappointment. However, it does a very good job.
We put the 330 to the test in a kitchen with a peninsula and an area rug under the table. There wasn't much room for Lupe to move, so I wasn't sure if she'd get the entire floor. To my surprise, she covered everything! Obviously, she's a circular robot, so she couldn't get into the corners completely, but she did a very good job. Her rubberized front gentle hits cupboards, walls, tables, chairs, etc. without damage to the furniture. It's truly amazing to watch.
I ran tests in two rooms. In one room I used a mix of water and vinegar, and in the other I used one of the sample solution packets that came with Lupe. Honestly, the vinegar smelled a little foul, but the odor dissipated fairly quickly after she was run. The other solution had an iodine smell, and I'm not sure that it did any better cleaning than the vinegar. For our purposes, I will use vinegar because it's WAY cheaper and does not void the warranty.
Make sure you read the instructions carefully because I didn't. I we plugged Lupe in to charge, and when she was raring to go, we set her aside for a few days unplugged. This was a BAD idea because her battery drained. We had to recharge her before we could use her. But on a full charge, we got two full cleanings. I almost tried a third, but we didn't have anything else that needed to be cleaned. The manual says that the 330 needs to remain plugged in when not in use or have the battery removed. I took the battery out so as not to waste electricity.
Following the cleaning, everything was pretty simple. I rinsed the robot out, cleaned out the filters and screens, and all was good. She sure picked up a lot of junk off of the floor!
Final Analysis:
This is a great little robot! Don't expect the 330 to do a deep cleaning on your floor, but expect a good job. It vacuums first and then leaves the floor pretty spotless. I have not had the robot long enough to say how the battery holds up over time, but I will post updates on that in the future.