The iRobot Roomba is a  vacuum cleaner that hoovers  the floor by itself .  Basically - you just plug in the base station where the Roomba will return to when it needs charging - and you let it loose around your rooms to vacuum the floors for you.

Roomba Robotic Vacuum

There are not many places that sell the Roomba in Ireland - or even online . But you can BUY an iRobot Roomba 560 online here for around  €335 delivered to Ireland. ( Now back in stock for 2010. The roomba 530 is also available at a lower price. Don’t be fooled into buying reconditioned ones or US imports - these are new UK models with a warranty.

The Roomba 560 has additional features such as two virtual wall units, now called ‘lighthouses’ and a a scheduling function -  so you can get it to start cleaning  at a specific time of  day or night.

Similar robotic hoovers by Electrolux are selling for around €1000 Euro!

Review: I bought a Roomba 560 in November 2008 and have been really impressed with it .
The instructions supplied are simply and easy to understand mainly because there is very little to do with the Roomba, just charge it and its away to go.
I have a bigger than average house but Roomba easily copes with cleaning the whole down stairs, supplying about 2 hrs of constant vacuuming on one battery charge, it docked itself and after about two hours of charging was ready to go again.

I have a mixture of flooring types, Tiles, wood flooring and a few rugs - the Roomba does them all. Emptying the dirt  bin you can see that the Roomba has done a good job.
The Roomba easily navigates around the house- and does a better job of cleaning than I did - especially under beds

The “light houses” supplied are easy to set up, just put batteries in, decide where you want them and roomba does the rest.  The lighthouses act as sort of homing beacons for Roomba, confining it to one room before guiding it directly to the next, they also assist in getting roomba back to the charging station.

When i want to do upstairs - I just pick the Roomba up carry it upstairs and set it off, obviously it can’t get back to it charging dock (downstairs) so we leave it hoovering away until it runs out of steam, then pick it up and stick it back on the dock.

It is a brilliant invention - worth every penny.
It would be a great Christmas present for a loved one who usually does all the hoovering - but expect funny looks when you tell friends you bought your wife/husband/partner  a hoover for Christmas!

Irish Residents - buy your  Roomba Here

Tags: irobot roomba