Today, My Roomba Died...

It's a sad day at the Baker house because my Roomba robotic vacuum just up and died. Everything has been going great and I am absolutely in love with the fact that my floors are being vacuumed every single day. I have had Roomba scheduled to come on automatically now almost every day since I started using it 8/14/05. However, on 9/19/05 it started on its prescheduled voyage and then just stopped in its tracks and beeped at me. So, in about 5 weeks - my brand new Roomba Scheduler has ceased to function. To say I am bummed is an understatement. However, I take it in stride as I know I will now be able to write first hand accounts of my interaction with iRobot's customer care department. After all, the product is only as good as the company who backs it - right?

Important Roomba Tip: It talks to you...

Roomba "speaks" using a series of different beeps. My robot vac was "talking to me" trying to tell me what was wrong. The series of beeps was telling me the battery was discharged.

To find out what Roomba says -- click here:
http://www.irobot.com/sp.cfm?pageid=48&id=100&productid=0&categoryid=

iRobot recently revamped their website. They used to have a web page that actually had the sounds (series of beeps) that each Roomba model made and what it was trying to tell you. I see the new website no longer has a page that contains the sounds. The new page only gives a description of the beeps. Hopefully (hint, hint) they will bring back the sound as it was very helpful.

Battery recharging battle

After several hours of trying to recharge the battery, my Roomba did not want to come on. It kept telling me the battery was "discharged". I followed the steps in the manual:

• Make sure battery is properly seated in Roomba. CHECK
• When you insert battery you should hear two clicks. CHECK
• If Roomba is not charging on the home base, plug charger directly into Roomba. CHECK
• If this does not work, all customer service @ 1-877-855-8593 RATS!

Now, I do have to say that the iRobot company is very good about letting you know they want to help you. All through the manual it gives their 800 number and states over and over they want to help you with questions. In fact, taped to the Roomba shell when I first opened the box was a little card with iRobot's phone number. Pretty impressive I must say. Usually you have to hunt for that kind of thing!

So I called customer service. The hold time was almost 10 minutes, but the representative I spoke with (Jenna) was very friendly, professional and truly wanted to help me. Thank goodness. I had this fear of getting an idiot that could care less that my floors were not being vacuumed!

Roomba needs replacement

After spending some time trouble shooting with me, Jenna determined that my Roomba needed to be replaced. She called me back and told me they would be sending UPS to my door to pick up my Roomba. I must have asked her at least three times what she wanted me to keep and what I needed to send back.

Learn from my experience

In the end - as you follow my journey with my new iRobot vacuum you will see that it would have been much easier (on me) had I just exchanged out the entire thing and not kept any pieces and parts. The hoops I have had to jump through to get my robotic vacuuming lifestyle back to "normal" have not been easy. Learn from what I went through and save yourself a lot of time and frustration. Stay tuned...

More on the story! - Roomba Goes Back To iRobot - Back to Index