Roomba RIP
Sep. 3rd, 2007 02:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
c9I forgot to complain about the fact that I appear to have killed our Roomba!
A common practice in our household: bring the Roomba upstairs from its charging station, set it going to clean the living room of pet hair, and then leave for work/movie/friends' house/vacation. Upon return, put Roomba back in charging station.
Recommended practice according to iRobot, Inc.: not that.
You're supposed to have the Roomba charging as quickly as possible after discharging the battery, so leaving for a weekend is a no-no. We did it for a few weekend trips, and when we returned from PEI recently the Roomba was dead (this has happened before) but would not charge at all (which had never happened before).
I left it charging overnight, and no change. Time to worry. I scoured the iRobot website and learned the recommendation above, which I had missed when we got the Roomba. I tried a recommended reset trick which required a 72-hour charge, and no dice. I bought a replacement battery from eBay and tried charging again: no dice. Eeep!
I have contacted iRobot for help, and they think the Roomba's dead. They've offered an Out-of-Warranty exchange option ($153 US incl shipping to Toronto), but there's a company in Montréal that will do a diagnosis for $30 and also do repairs. Is that a smarter option?
I miss our Roomba, and do NOT want to go back to sweeping.
(let's be honest: I do not want to go back to NOT sweeping.)
A common practice in our household: bring the Roomba upstairs from its charging station, set it going to clean the living room of pet hair, and then leave for work/movie/friends' house/vacation. Upon return, put Roomba back in charging station.
Recommended practice according to iRobot, Inc.: not that.
You're supposed to have the Roomba charging as quickly as possible after discharging the battery, so leaving for a weekend is a no-no. We did it for a few weekend trips, and when we returned from PEI recently the Roomba was dead (this has happened before) but would not charge at all (which had never happened before).
I left it charging overnight, and no change. Time to worry. I scoured the iRobot website and learned the recommendation above, which I had missed when we got the Roomba. I tried a recommended reset trick which required a 72-hour charge, and no dice. I bought a replacement battery from eBay and tried charging again: no dice. Eeep!
I have contacted iRobot for help, and they think the Roomba's dead. They've offered an Out-of-Warranty exchange option ($153 US incl shipping to Toronto), but there's a company in Montréal that will do a diagnosis for $30 and also do repairs. Is that a smarter option?
I miss our Roomba, and do NOT want to go back to sweeping.
(let's be honest: I do not want to go back to NOT sweeping.)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-09-03 08:11 pm (UTC)One way to think about it: how many weeks of cleaning will you get out of the cost of a Roomba ($300ish in Canada) ?
We're not bad about the rest of the cleaning, just the picking up cat hair dust bunnies, so the Roomba seems perfect for us. If you had a maid then all the kid toys and wires and remotes and whatever wouldn't be an issue I suppose...