iRobot Scooba 350 Floor-Washing Robot
by iRobot
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List Price: Category: Home See more product details |
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Tools and Hardware Reviews of iRobot Scooba 350 Floor-Washing Robot
Customer Review: Great concept, poor design
Summary: 2 Stars
I really hope the company looks at these reviews. I would give this product 5 stars were it not for the "small" but extremely annoying design issues. First of all it does get stuck in the least likely places such as between the legs of a chair. My guess is that there's nothing one can change to avoid that. If space openings roughly match the Scooba's width it'll likely get stuck there - unfortunately. This is not a huge issue. Once it gets stuck a couple of times you find ways to rearrange furniture to prevent the device from going there the next time.
Much more annoying is everything related to the tank design. Latches, handles, sensors are a nightmare. The pull-up release handle and the latch on the tank is in my lowly opinion the height of design incompetence. The latch would release on its own in the middle of cleaning causing Scooba to stop and complain that the tank is open. Ironically some time later the latch got stuck so I could not take out the tank. No amount of pulling on the handle did the trick. The flimsy handle finally broke off. I now have an invalid device that still works but looks like it fought in a war.
While it was still brand new it would frequently stop and signal for you to "check tank," while there were no obvious reasons for it - solution tank still full, dirty water tank still with plenty of capacity. This is by far my biggest problem with the device because what I was really hoping to accomplish is leave it cleaning when I depart the house in the morning and come back to clean floors when I return. Instead you come back and find this thing either stuck, with a popped tank, or just a bogus "check tank" signal and you realize that it didn't get even 5 minutes into its cleaning. You now have to "jiggle the handle" and listen for an hour to its - fairly loud - operation when you want to relax after work.
All of these issues are made all the more irritating since I took extra care to avoid them by thoroughly cleaning it on a regular basis.
I would still recommend it to anyone who likes clean floor, has a LOT of patience, but doesnt have time or energy to swiffer. If iRobot folks could put their heads together and fix these rather basic design issues I would be a much bigger proponent. Until then swipper the floors to avoid the frustration.
Customer Review: Scooba Woes
Summary: 1 Stars
I purchased my Scooba from iRobot in November of 2007 and it worked great for 7 months, then stopped working with a check tank light. Tech support people at iRobot for the most part have been nice and seemed interested in helping solve the problem issues. They run through several issues and when exhausting all avenues decide that my scooba needs to be replaced.
Since then however, I have had several replacements. Some of which would work once until it was time to empty the water tank and then the inevitable check tank light comes on after playing its little song and dance. Others did not work at all saying check tank, and some worked but wouldn't put any water down. Oh, and one would put water down, but would not pick it back up. Upon going through several tech supports and all of the trouble shooting, they would then send another unit. I was told that these replacements were new units, two of which were obviously used and they didn't bother to hide that fact with the scratches and broken filter. Someone in their own sales dept. told us they wouldn't send a new unit, that it would be a comparable unit. Does this mean that since my original unit no longer worked, they would only send us used broken ones to replace it?
Now, since I have had more replacements than anyone else (research scooba reviews and you will find many similar cases), they had one of mine sent back to them at their office in Lancaster. I received a call from a girl with a small voice but a very big attitude that we apparently didn't know how to prime the unit, because they had it working just fine. Funny how my first one worked for 7 months with little ole me priming it all by myself and since then did manage to prime others and actually had them working until the tank needed to be emptied. The tech support people had us do the priming each and every time and yes water sprayed out of both sides, yet the unit would not run. But, we must be the reason these units aren't working, so they will return the last unit back to us and that's the end of it. They will do nothing else to help solve this issue. Seems to me that when I spend more than $400 for a floor washing machine, I shouldn't have to work so hard to get IT to work.
Customer Review: Wish Scooba was as good as Roomba
Summary: 3 Stars
I really, really want to like the Scooba. In fact, I do love it--when it's working properly. We had our first Scooba for about two years before it died. I'd say we used it about once a week or so. One day it just wouldn't work. The battery said it was fully charged, the power light came on, but nothing happened. After reading some other reviews online, I thought it must be the battery and that it was my fault for leaving the battery plugged in even when not using for a few days. I ordered a new batter for iRobot; the same thing happens. My husband called iRobot to ask them if it can be sent in for repairs; we live in a small town and there is nowhere around here to take it to be repaired. After hearing how much it will cost for the repairs, he decides to take iRobot's offer of sending a replacement Scooba at a discounted price.
We've had our new Scooba for about a month now. It seems to work okay, although it doesn't seem to disperse water as much as the old one. I admit, it had been a while in between Scoobas that we had mopped, so there was a thin layer of grime on the hardwood floors. Scooba cannot even begin to scrub the floor to get this off. If used every day, it will keep the floors clean, but it has a hard time actually getting them clean the first time. I'll probably end up swiffering the whole floor and then letting Scooba do its thing.
Scooba works awesome on hardwood floors but really sucks on tile, especially with a little bit of texture. Our bathroom floor is 12x12 tile that has a slight texture to it. Scooba cannot get this clean; it leaves dirty water in all of the grout cracks in between the tiles. It also gets stuck on the door jamb in between the two floor surfaces. It also gets stuck on the edges of all of my rugs, so I have to roll them up out of the way to keep Scooba from getting stuck. Overall, I've liked Scooba enough to buy a replacement when it died. However, I'm not sure I'll replace it a second time because I'm not sure we're getting our money's worth.
Customer Review: Goodbye Dirty Floors
Summary: 4 Stars
I have the iRobot 350 Scooba and the 4220 Discovery floor vac and love them both! Scooba cleans the floors so good and the vac is quick and does a much better job than I would. I have hardwood floors and a small 2 Bedroom condo around 800 Sq.ft. What I do is let Scooba clean half my place every week or two. It takes about an hour to clean half my place and I have to drain/fill the tank every 30 min. or so. The battery runs about an hour and 15 min. One day I came in the living room and saw my six year old son in his white school shirt laying on the floor pushing himself around. I could not believe my eyes; I had him sit up and I looked at his shirt and there was no dirt on his white shirt. Before irobot I would have just thrown the shirt away I'm sure! It's just the two of us guys living here at our guy place and all I can say is we are not used to living in this clean place yet. I would have bought these years ago if I would have known. My son has some allergies and I have noticed a huge improvement since we got the robots. We also get some entertainment watching the cat run from them. I did buy the Discovery vac as well because I wasn't sure if I needed both the Scooba and a vac? You can get by with only the Scooba if you don't mind extra work; I do so I'm glad I bought both. The of con of only buying the Scooba is that it is a lot slower and you need to empty water etc... The vac can clean my entire place in about an hour and return itself to the base all on one charge. You only need to empty the dirt every few cleanings so it's very easy. I didn't give the Scooba 5 stars only because of the price and time of operation. I feel for the price they should give you a couple batteries and a way to have them charged. I think being able to clean an 800 sq.ft. place for the Scooba is a reasonable request. Their vacs can do it. I'm still so glad I bought it; however look forward to possible upgrades or may consider buying an additonal battery.Customer Review: Great Product, TERRIBLE Customer Service
Summary: 1 Stars
I received the Scooba as a gift for Christmas. I have nothing but great things to say about the product itself.
iRobot's Customer Service on the other hand, has managaed to fail miserably every time I have been in contact with them.
First time I contacted them, they wouldn't honor a discount that was mentioned 7 times in the paperwork and fliers inside the box. Their excuse was because someone posted the code online and other people who should not be using it were infact using it. So, a new customer was punished for others wrong doings.
Second time was for warranty repair on the battery. They told me it was backordered. After a lot of running around and calling them out on the fact that they had them listed as instock online, they send me a refurbished one. They made me wait almost 3 weeks beacuse they didn't have a refurbished battery in stock. My Scooba was purchased NEW. Instead of shipping me what they had on hand, they made me wait 3 weeks. AFter closer inspection, they sent me a 50 minute battery and not the 100 minute battery it came with. When I called them, they basically said too bad. They had no intention on correcting the situation. I spoke to a supervisor, manager and even the director. All to no avail.
It took a call to my local news station and having one of their investigators call iRobot on my behalf to finally get it resolved.
It really did not need to go that far and should not have had to go that far. All they had to do was replace what broke for an identical item, not a lower quality item.
It's really a shame that a company with such a great reputation refuses to stand by their product.
I will no longer be a "valued customer". They've lost me for life.
Buy at your own risk.