Rollibot BL100 Robot Vacuum, Black

I like this little fella. He's a trooper and keeps going even under poor conditions. There are some design issues so I'm not 100% satisfied but given the entry price, and what we throw at him, he's a good worker.The environment he's in isn't the best, actually it's pretty rough. We've had few weeks' of post-flooding home repair which means there's drywall dust everywhere. Also I've two Labrador dogs with "doggie door" access to the frequently-muddy backyard. And a grandchild in the home who does the usual grandchild things that leave grandchild-sized tracks around. Yes, I'm tired of sweeping. Hence the addition of the bot to the household.So after a few weeks of continuous usage I'm noticing that the motor is definitely louder than when we first got young bottie. Also sometimes he'd "stutter" - that is, he'd move forward about an inch, jerk backwards, move forward again, jerk, etc. til I switched off the power button on the bottom and let him be overnight. (Update: The "stuttering" seems to be due to hair that gets wrapped around the sweeper axles and slows or stops one from spinning correctly. Whenever this happens I remove the easily-removable brushes and take care of that. Then it's back to normal business.)That behaviour was partly user error - my grandson was "helping" me one day and accidentally threw away the HEPA filter without my knowledge. The bot ran for a few days without it before I noticed this, and a ton of drywall/doggie/grandchild dust got into the inner workings of the guy. Inside the inner workings of the bot, not my grandson. Although he *does* have odd eating habits, so one never knows.In an attempt to clean out the inside (again the bot, not the grandboy), I took it apart (not difficult but not recommended, so don't try this at home, kids) and indeed the circuitry and interior were caked with dust. After (carefully) dusting off the circuitry and wires I put him back together. This has resolved the "stutter" but the fan motor is still very noisy. That's because I knew I was tempting the gods of destruction and wanted to save the fan cleaning for another day.So, the lesson to take away from this is to keep that HEPA filter in place - better yet, get a spare or two. Where to get them is anyone's guess, as Amazon hasn't a vendor to sell these and rollibot.com is conspicuously silent on this topic... I ended up gambling some money away and purchased kit from a different manufacturer (Infinuvo 600 series) whose parts looked the same. They weren't, naturally, so they weren't interchangeable but at least I could cut the too-large HEPA filter down to a size that fits my bot.ProsKeeps going under duress. After all the "larger" debris has been picked up (see Cons) it does a fine job sweeping up the remaining dirt and dust. This guy frees me up to do things like, o, posting reviews and contributing to society in small ways, heh.As others have noted, this will pick up loads of hidden dust - which makes for exciting bin-emptying adventures. Hold your breath when you empty the bin as the fine dust will fly everywhere. Sounds like a Con but that's actually a Pro because that stuff should be gone from the floor!He's very polite when moving around and bumps one's feet or legs of furniture only slightly. My 60-lb Labs now know not to leap away from him and now usually don't mind when he taps them by accident. If either one of them starts riding on him like an Internet Kitty you'll be the first to know as I'll link to my video here.ConsThis fella is NOISY. Not the motor (initially) but the BEEPING can drive one mad. It talks to us constantly - "Hey, i think my tiny intake slot is clogged", "Hallo, I'm switching cleaning modes now", "Hey what's this - did someone pick me up?", "Oi! I'm getting tired, where's me home?", "Hi did you know you pushed the 'CLEAN' button? Well you did", etc. We can do with the whirring of the motor in the wee hours when I'm the only one awake in the household, but the BEEPING will guarantee to wake an exciteful child at exactly the time a wee child ought not be awake. What would make this guy wonderful is a switch to mute His Noisiness.Shhh I don't want to embarrass him, but his intake slot is far too small. On any given too-shaggy-doggy day, the slot gets clogged after about 30 seconds. The tank itself isn't full, mind you, but frequently the slot gets filled with yummy floor goodness like fur or dust bunnies or the odd unknown floor-based thing. Naturally bottie does his beeping thing and shines his red CLEAN button at me but I've learnt to ignore this and let things be. The clogginess and red-lightedness doesn't stop him from continuing to sweep; after about 5 mins I'll pick him up, pull the mat of (thankfully dry) yuck that the bot has clumped together, and then do a proper tank emptying. Two or three repeats of this, and then we're down to the stuff that bottie likes best - the dust.Oddly enough, the ONLY time bottie doesn't BEEP BEEP at me is when he's stuck under something odd-shaped (which only happens rarely). He doesn't know his wheels aren't moving any more and just stays in place, whirring until he runs low on power, when he BEEP BEEPs and tries to find home, which of course he can't, being a Stuck Creature and all, and sadly remains there until he dies of exhaustion.

I was very excited about this product, and enjoyed it at first. However, I have had it a year now and I wish I had saved my money for a better brand.This robot worked pretty well on a hardwood floor. It did a reasonable job of collecting our dog hair. Very little of the dog hair was ever sucked into the actual bin. Instead it would stick at the entrance of the bin and be carried around with it. When it was done, you would pick the machine up and there would be a pile of hair under it. This worked well enough for us and made our lives easier so it was okay with us.However, there are a few things you should know before purchasing:This will not make a flooring transition greater than 1/2". It often got stuck on the transition board between our tile and hardwood or our hardwood and carpet.It does not remove dog hair from carpet. Instead, the hair spins around on the rotters until it gets caught on a carpet fiber. The machine would leave behind little balls of hair that then have to be cleaned up. We closed the doors to our carpeted areas when running this unit.This will not transition onto the memory foam floor mats we had in our kitchen. Instead it would push them around until it pinned the mat against a wall and then proceed to get stuck as it tried to drive onto them.When running it will sense that there is a wall and then proceed to bump into it repeatedly as it slowly tries adjust it's angle. This is very annoying it listen to. Do not set it to run in the middle of the night.It is not very easy to program as it does not always take the program and does not give very good feedback on whether it did or not.Now again, all of these were things that we could live with. We figured it was just what you get out of a robot vacuum. But here is the kicker...THE VACUUM NO LONGER HOLDS A CHARGE!Like I said, we have had this vacuum for just over a year. Almost immediately after the warranty expired, the battery life started to decrease rapidly. It got to the point where I would hit the button to tell it to run, and then before I even got down the hall, it would beep at me that the battery was dead and needed to recharge. I think this is due to the way it sits on the dock. The contacts don't make great contact (you can hear the electrical whine when it is charging). I think this greatly fatigued the battery, but I am not an electrical engineer.We contacted the company to see if we could just purchase a new battery. They refused to sell one to us. They said we would have to ship the unit to them and pay a $60 service fee for them to fix it for me. That's half the price I paid in the first place! We will not be buying this brand again and I highly recommend that everyone else look elsewhere.