iRobot Scooba Exposed

ticketmaster41 writes "Informit is running an article that takes a look at what's inside a Scooba. As the write up indicates, adding water to a robotic cleaner not only means more parts, but also more fail safes to frustrate the end user. The site also has posted an interview with Helen Greiner, one of the founders of iRobot."

Europe please!

[mccalli]

I'm in the UK, and recently imported a Scooba after being very impressed with the Roomba. The Clorox Scooba cleaning fluid is available in the States only, and would cost an utter fortune to import. It's not so much the price of the fluid, $29.99 for five bottles of 32 fluid oz, but the shipping which seems to be around $120 - more than we paid on shipping for the robot itself.

That's obviously untenable - I've got some tests lined up for a bottle of Flash Liquid All-Purpose to see if it will do the same job. Simple things - ph balance, foam test, conductivity and traction. If all passes, then I'll be using Flash inside the Scooba instead of Clorox. But I'd rather use the recommended stuff, so if iRobot feels like making it available in Europe than that would be very welcome.

The Roomba has been the ultimate in word-of-mouth marketing, by the way. Since buying one I've had three other people buy just by hearing my description of it, and they in turn have inspired about three more people each to buy one. Great little devices.

Cheers,
Ian

Its quite impressive

[iMaple]

I got the Roomba about an year back as a gift for my parents. I was almost sure that they wouldnt like it and it would be just another toy (which is why I actually bought it, I like 'toys' :) ). Anyway the gist was that they totally totally fell in love with it, and its a memeber of our house (just like the interview says, it makes beeps and bloops and makes itself adorable).

The scooba seems to be worth a buy excpet for the fact that u have to use the special cholorox (its is still cheaper than hiring a maid, but its not as simple and easy like the original roomba). Now my only pending request to iRobot and the evil mom is a bending unit , a boomba ?

 

Re:scooba video

[accessdeniednsp]

(i got one)

It actually runs very slowly. It does a great job in my fairly large open kitchen. But my grandma has a HUUUUGE kitchen+dining+living room all hardwood. The living room itself was so big that we had to break it into two ares with obstacles and other shrapnel available.

It seemed to have some difficulty grokking the room size and did indeed make several passes in places. But it got the job done.

However, twice now it seemed unhappy with the whole "check tank" routine. It whined that it was empty, so I refilled it, but it would never start again. I think I now know it wanted the cleaning solution rather than pure water. Also, I wasn't sure when it stopped if it thought it was done. In my kitchen, it dried the floor well. But at my grandma's place I couldn't tell if it tried to dry the floor or not. No doubt it was probably my inexperience with it, but it seemed somewhat ambiguous to me. I wasn't sure ,after the pretty noise and the "check tank" light, if it was whining for more juice, or if it thought it was done.

I'll RTFM again and try to figure it out. Regardless, it was great and made me realize just how nasty my floor was!! Yuck! I'm gonna have to run it two or three times a month I guess.

It r0x0rz :)