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New iRobot Roombas Aimed at Pets and Very Dirty People
Posted by Mark Wilson at 1:59 AM on September 4, 2008
iRobot is expanding their Roomba line with three new models intended for more industrial of use. The Roomba 532 and 562 Pet Series Robots (US$350 and US$400) are meant for animal owners—or anyone sucking up massive amounts of floor hair—and equipped with larger sweeping bins to accommodate copious amounts of fur. The Roomba 610 Professional Series ($600) is similar, sporting a larger bin as well, but also comes with an extra, interchangeable bin and a Max Mode that will burn the batteries lower to finish big rooms. All three units are available now. Here are the full specifics:
iRobot Introduces Roomba Pet and Professional Vacuum Cleaning Robots
New iRobot Roomba Pet Series Perfect for Pet Owners; Roomba Professional Series Handles Larger Areas and Office Spaces
BEDFORD, Mass.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—iRobot Corp. (NASDAQ: IRBT) today introduced the newest additions to its line of vacuum cleaning robots, the iRobot® Roomba® Pet Series Vacuum Cleaning Robot and the iRobot® Roomba® Professional Series Vacuum Cleaning Robot. Engineered and designed with pet owners in mind, the new iRobot Roomba 532 and 562 Pet Series Robots pick up even more pet hair and dander with the help of higher capacity sweeper bins and additional accessories. The new iRobot Roomba 610 Professional Series Robot cleans even the largest of areas, perfect for maintaining office spaces or large high traffic areas.
Help for Hairy Homes
The new Roomba Pet Series Vacuum Cleaning Robots make caring for a home with pets easier. The Pet Series robots come equipped with an extra set of easy-to-clean brushes, a high capacity sweeper bin for trapping even more pet hair, kitty litter or dander and cleaning tools for ensuring both sets of brushes remain free of debris so they can perform optimally. The sweeper bin holds three-and-a-half times more debris than the vacuum bin, and counter-rotating brushes reach deep into carpets to pull out pet hair and dander. The new iRobot Roomba Pet Series Robots are available immediately in the U.S. and range in price from $349 to $399.
The iRobot Roomba 532 Pet Series Vacuum Cleaning Robot, priced at $349, cleans up to three standard-sized rooms on a single charge. It comes standard with two Virtual Walls® that use infrared beams to confine and guide the Roomba from room to room and then return it to its Home Base when it is done vacuuming. The Roomba 532 also includes iRobot's latest technological innovations, such as a light-touch bumper, advanced anti-tangle technology and the ability to transition from carpets to hard flooring with ease.
The iRobot Roomba 562 Pet Series Robot, priced at $399, comes with all of the same features found in the Roomba 532 model. In addition, it features an extra set of brushes and can clean up to four standard-sized rooms on a single charge. The Roomba 562 also includes an on-board scheduling function, so it can be programmed to automatically clean up to seven days a week, even when owners are away, and with the new high capacity sweeper bin, Roomba can pick up even more pet debris than ever before.
Going Pro
Designed for small business owners or those with larger areas to clean, the iRobot Roomba 610 Professional Series Vacuum Cleaning Robot features a high capacity sweeper bin, extra brushes and filters, and cleaning tools. It comes equipped with two interchangeable bins that can be utilized for either everyday cleaning or for picking up larger-than-usual amounts of debris. The Roomba 610 also comes with a convenient storage case to keep its extra accessories and sweeping bin organized and in one place.
Additionally, the Roomba 610 features Max Mode, which allows the Roomba to clean until the battery is almost drained, and then returns it to its Home Base, allowing the maximum cleaning effort possible in larger homes, offices or business settings. The Roomba 610 Professional Series retails for $599 and is the only iRobot Roomba vacuum cleaning robot to carry a two-year warranty.
The Roomba 610 features the same Roomba functionality customers have come to expect from iRobot. The Roomba 610 vacuums the entire floor, under and around furniture and along walls and adjusts automatically from carpets to hard floors. The Roomba 610 comes equipped with two Virtual Wall® Lighthouses™ and also features durable paint and a bumper guard, providing a scratch resistant finish to the Roomba and more protection for furniture.
All Roomba Pet and Professional Series robots include iRobot's patented three-stage cleaning system that automatically adjusts to effectively clean carpets and hard floors. Roomba's intelligent cleaning system evaluates its environment more than 60 times per second so the robot is always delivering the right amount of cleaning power to your floor, regardless of the size of the room, or the size of the pet.
Availability
The new iRobot Roomba Pet and Roomba Professional Series robots are available immediately in the U.S. from www.irobot.com.
[iRobot]
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
There are currently no AU comments for this post.
Phenostar
Posted 2:35 AM 4/9/08
I'd like to see that thing clean up after my husky. In Houston. In the summertime.
Phenostar
ANoel
Posted 2:28 AM 4/9/08
They work by scaring the hair out of your pets then hoovering it up.
Kind of a Roomba Pluck N Suck .
ANoel
PDSM
Posted 2:18 AM 4/9/08
I would but I live in NYC and space is a premium. I agree the Dyson is great!
PDSM
daftrok
Posted 2:16 AM 4/9/08
Oh for God sakes just get a Dyson you lazy Roomba bastards!
daftrok
PDSM
Posted 2:16 AM 4/9/08
I stopped using mine since its annoying as hell to clean the brush. Why bother when cleaning the roomba takes as long as sweeping with a broom ?
I had version REV 1 and no carpet. One Cat and a girlfriend with long hair. when those two combine it creates a mess in the roomba.
PDSM
92BuickLeSabre
Posted 2:44 AM 4/9/08
@PDSM: Vacuums are such a classic NYC problem. It has to be big enough to work but small enough to fit in that tiny space in the living room closet next to the shelves you've installed to hold all of your worldly possessions, but under the coats and behind the mini-step-ladder.
If I weren't afraid to invite robots into my home, I'd be all over this.
92BuickLeSabre
ANoel
Posted 3:14 AM 4/9/08
Sire, ... you have a minifigs !?
ANoel
92BuickLeSabre
Posted 3:03 AM 4/9/08
@ANoel: Mini-step-ladder.
It's a step ladder for minifigs.
Step-ladder...*pshaw*...what do you think I am the King of Luxembourg?
92BuickLeSabre
ANoel
Posted 3:00 AM 4/9/08
@92BuickLeSabre:
You have a step-ladder !
We dream of step-ladders as we crawl around on our hands and knees carefully ducking to avoid the cost more head bandages...
ANoel
ALT
Posted 2:59 AM 4/9/08
My current craigslist-found roomba shat the bed... maybe its time for the pet model...
ALT
matsayz
Posted 3:56 AM 4/9/08
yea i dont know how well this thing would do with Collie hair in Arizona right now...plus we already spent hundo's on our dyson sooo...maybe for under the couch
matsayz
XSteveMurphy
Posted 3:54 AM 4/9/08
It's all lies.
I have a Roomba from the last generation that was specifically for pet hair. Every single time I used it I had to completely disassemble it and clean every last crevice of dog hair (I have a single large dog). I don't mean just taking out the brush. I mean I had to figure out how to completely disassemble the thing, which took scissors, the included brush-cleaning tool, and a few other small implements. Then after cleaning it I had to put it back together and charge it. And it never actually finds its base automatically as it's supposed to. It gets right up next to it, then tries and tries and tries to park before giving up and making that sad noise.
Failure to perform this cleaning every time meant that next time it would run for 3 minutes and then give up until you took it apart.
The manual did not mention anything about how to clean it the way I had to, and multiple unhappy emails to iRobot went completely unanswered.
Bad customer service, and a product simply not suited for pet hair. The size of the bin doesn't matter when the bearings on both sides of the brush get so filled with hair after one room that the thing chokes up and dies.
XSteveMurphy
Gann
Posted 4:11 AM 4/9/08
I love Nelson (my roomba's name is Nelson), but I think he might give my bird a heart attack. Hopefully she'll get used to it, since she's the reason we got it in the first place.
Gann
urbanturban666
Posted 4:05 AM 4/9/08
want one
urbanturban666
Andyr2120
Posted 5:28 AM 4/9/08
I put a picture of Sarah Conner on my Roomba. Yeah, it takes a little extra cleaning to remove long hair from the innards, but it works pretty well for me.
Andyr2120
m4ximusprim3
Posted 5:18 AM 4/9/08
i'll upgrade my roombie when they put sealed bearings in the gearbox rather than the stupid plastic on plastic crap they have now. Until then, he's good enough for me.
m4ximusprim3
strangesnow
Posted 7:49 AM 4/9/08
i have the 500 series roomba and it works great for cat hair and wife's long hair. wife can't imagine life without the robot now.
strangesnow
aelver
Posted 2:05 PM 4/9/08
@XSteveMurphy: This is also my experience. At one point the bearings became so clogged (on one clean), it actually burned out the brush motor.
They are great if you have no pets, but otherwise it takes just as long to run/clean the thing as a normal vacuum.
Oh and if you have bad allergies, forget it, dust gets everywhere when emptying / cleaning.
aelver
Workout
Posted 2:49 AM 5/9/08
@aelver: "Oh and if you have bad allergies, forget it, dust gets everywhere when emptying / cleaning. "
Like most vacuums when you empty it?
Solution?: Do it outside!
Workout
darex
Posted 5:08 AM 5/9/08
@XSteveMurphy:
I second Steve's comments. My Roomba with Pet attachments (last gen) was no match for my two golden retriever's hair, and it was a bitch to clean, and made for an early death.
I am extremely skeptical that this model is any better.
Cleaning out the dog hair was a huge chore that had to be done after EACH cleaning, and sometimes during a cleaning.
A fool and his money won't be parted THIS time; not on a Roomba at least.
darex
TysonLollerskater
Posted 9:40 AM 5/9/08
i have been through 3 Roomba's and will never do it again. the first was the original; actually was fun and worked for many years until it died. just then QVC had a crazy sale on a new model that returned to the base automatically, which seemed like a great upgrade since my first one was from the prehistoric days. that one died an early death, and iRobot wouldn't do anything for me, so i said, "never again!" i got my 3rd one when we got married. hell, it was easy enough to put on our registry, it had a bigger bin, yadda, yadda. the battery died after 3 months. never again. i have a pile of things that i would like to destroy dramatically, and this one is probably going to get just shot over and over with a shotgun. for that matter, what would y'all do with a 27" CRT TV? i'm torn between firearms or manual labor, i.e. sledgehammers or axes. it's not everyday one gets to hear that satisfying "pop" sound as the tube and vacuum go.
TysonLollerskater
XSteveMurphy
Posted 9:18 PM 8/9/08
@workout:
(a) my Dyson has a single button-press that dumps the bin into a bag so easily it can, if it's pouring rain, be done inside without a lot of dust escaping
(b) "do it outside" would be easier if we weren't talking about a 10 minute cleaning procedure, and that's for each room of the house.
XSteveMurphy
jackhennessy
Posted 7:56 AM 5/9/08
It's coming soon ... a higher capacity designed for pet owners. I have 4 chocolate labs, 2 cats, a rabbit and a rumba that really helps out with the chores. As soon as we saw the new Pet version, it was without hesitation, we pre-ordered it for the main part of the house. The previous one will be stationed in my office. Great product.
jackhennessy
designinsidechicago
Posted 2:51 AM 4/9/08
I had a first generation roomba and loved it until it stopped working (probably due to the massive amounts of dog and cat fur it cleans up on a daily basis). I took it back to Best Buy and they gave me the newer model which suck! I have to clean the brushes 1/2 way through a 1 hour cleaning...hopefully this new pet version will work better. Hopefully my roomba will break again soon so I can take it back to the store and use the extended warranty plan I purchased.
designinsidechicago