Product Description

The Roomba 4230 Scheduler Robotic FloorVac will start cleaning whenever you tell it to! Any time of day or night, when you are home or not, once a day, once a week, or three times a day--just tell it what to do. Upon completion of its cleaning mission, it automatically returns to its Home Base to recharge its batteries. The Roomba Scheduler knows what surface it's cleaning and automatically adjusts to whatever floor surface it's on.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #55031 in Kitchen & Housewares
• Color: Clean Blue
• Brand: iRobot
• Model: 4230

Features

• Robotic, battery-powered floor vacuum and remote scheduling device
• Remote scheduler sets and changes vacuuming times and zones
• Artificial intelligence and sensors navigate between walls and furniture legs and adjust for carpet, tile, and wood floors
• Virtual wall mechanism establishes two invisible perimeters for vacuuming specific zones
• Low-profile design fits under beds, sofas, and other tight spots where conventional vacuums can't reach

Amazon.com Product Description
iRobot Roomba Scheduler is the latest vacuuming robot from iRobot. Join the over 1.2 million Roomba owners who have discovered the smarter way to clean. With Roomba Scheduler, you can program Roomba to clean when you're not home, at night, daily, or when you go to work. Nothing keeps your home cleaner than cleaning every day--with Roomba Scheduler, you can!

Scheduling Capability

With Roomba Scheduler, you can easily program Roomba to clean when you want. Roomba will leave the Home Base at your scheduled time, effectively clean the floor, and return to the Home Base to recharge its battery for the next cleaning cycle. If it weren't for the clean floors, you might forget Roomba was there.

Simply program the desired cleaning time into the Scheduler Remote, then send the cleaning schedule to Roomba and the new Virtual Wall Schedulers. Both Roomba and the Virtual Walls will turn on at the time you have scheduled.

Roomba Really Works

Roomba features a patented 3-stage cleaning system that is proven effective. First, the small spinning side brushes grabs dirt and debris in corners and along walls, sending it into the main cleaning path. Second, two counter-rotating brushes pick up large particles, pet hair, and other debris. Third, an extremely efficient vacuum picks up the remaining fine particles. All of the dirt and debris is deposited into a large capacity, easy-to-empty bin.

Roomba's cleaning head automatically adjusts to any floor surface including wood, tile, linoleum and low-to-medium pile carpet. Roomba can even sense dirtier areas of your floor and will clean more intensely there.

Roomba Covers the Entire Floor

Roomba automatically calculates the appropriate cleaning time in any situation. Roomba will cover every part of the room an average of 4 times per cleaning cycle, and because Roomba cleans under furniture and other obstacles--Roomba actually cleans more of the floor than standard uprights. Roomba will even return back to its self-charging Home Base at the end of a cleaning cycle or when its battery is running low.

To start a cleaning cycle, simply press the clean button and Roomba immediately begins calculating the size of the room, the number of obstacles in the room, and the cleanliness of the room. Roomba automatically monitors its environment and adjusts its behavior over 67 times per second.

During a cleaning cycle, Roomba automatically reacts to many different obstacles and situations. Roomba features integrated cliff sensors that allow the robot to turn away from stairs and other cliffs. Roomba's non-marring bumper senses furniture and other obstacles. Roomba also has infrared wall sensors that allow the robot to clean on the perimeter of the room and around obstacles. Roomba also features special escape behaviors that allow it to quickly get out from under chairs and off of troublesome thresholds.

Roomba Scheduler comes with two special Virtual Wall Schedulers to confine Roomba in the area you want to clean. Simply place the Virtual Walls in a doorway and send the cleaning schedule to the Virtual Wall. The Virtual Wall will turn for the duration of Roomba's cleaning cycle. Roomba automatically detects the invisible infrared beam of the Virtual Wall and turns away. Virtual Walls are great for keeping Roomba in one room or away from cords and other obstacles.

Easy to Use

Roomba Scheduler is very easy to use. Simply set the time you want Roomba to clean and send the schedule to the robot, or just set the robot down and press "Clean." At the end of the cleaning cycle, Roomba Scheduler will return to its Home Base. Replaceable air filters prevent dust and dirt from escaping back into the air and the large capacity bagless bin is easy to empty. Roomba's brushes can be removed by hand for easy maintenance. The Scheduling Remote also allows you to turn on and steer Roomba from across the room.

Roomba's cleaning head automatically adjusts to any floor surface including wood, tile, linoleum and low-to-medium pile carpet. Roomba can even sense dirtier areas of your floor and will clean more intensely there.

Roomba's Power System

The vacuum's advanced power system consists of a fast-charging battery, a three-hour charger, and a power source--it supercharges the unit for up to 120 minutes of continuous cleaning. When the battery is low or it has completed a cleaning cycle, the vacuum automatically returns to its charging Home Base so that it will be ready for the next cleaning session. Roomba can clean up to three 14- by 16-foot rooms before the Roomba Battery needs to be recharged.

What's in the Box
Roomba Scheduler, scheduling remote, scheduling virtual walls (2), home base, fast charger, cleaning tool, spare brush pack, APS battery.

Customer Reviews

Independence from the floor stuff
I spend a lot of time away from my house and don't always have any time to clean when I am home. I also like to have a fairly clean house with minimal work when I do get home. I got this vacumn about 2 weeks ago. I wanted to give it a fair chance before I reviewed it. Setup was incredibly easy and only took about 5 minutes. Everything was already in the machine except for the battery. I had the vacumn charged and ready to go 2 hours after I got home. The first couple of runs it picked up more dirt than I expected. I had it run once a day every day for the first week. Since then I only use it 1-2 times a week. It does such a good job that there is no need to run it more often in my place. The main area I use it is the front room and kitchen areas. They are connected at one end and the machine has no problem cleaning both without getting lost. The scheduler function of the walls and the vacumn work as they are supposed to. One of the few drawbacks is the fact that it is quiet due to a fairly low power suction motor. This necessitates the repeats of areas that iRobot talks about. The machine is sturdy and hasn't marked up any of my furniture or floorboards. It is small enough to fit under the overhang of my floor level kitchen cabinets. It runs much slower on deep carpet and although it can clean that type of area it isn't recommended. Clean up is easy and only takes a couple of minutes. I recommend cleaning out the dust bin area with a damp cloth at least twice a month. The kit comes with extra brushes and filters so that you don't have to worry about that when you first buy the vacumn. The whole kit comes with the scheduler vacumn, 2 scheduler walls, the scheduler remote, the floor base station with portable charger, and brushes and filter in place plus the extras mentioned above. You need 4 AA batteries for the remote and 4 C cell batteries (2 each) for the virtual walls. Be sure to thoroughly read the owners manual before using the vacumn the first time to make sure you know what it is going to do. Check the website to find out what the sounds mean. I definitely recommend this kit and will be buying the Scooba (their mop version) as soon as it comes out also.

3 dogs and an RV
Simply put, it exceeds my expectations. I'm traveling in a 26ft class C Rv with 3 dogs and a husband, all of which shed copious amounts of fur. My partner was very critical of this vac before we got it, and to be honest, I bought it for our cabin, not the RV. However it arrived while we were on the road so I took a risk at an "told you so" and used it in the RV. To my delight, we are hair free for a month now without having to lift a finger (except cleaning the bin and brushes on a regular basis) and the skeptic even praises it and named it Hazel. For a techno-phobe, this is saying something. It does a good job avoiding problem areas like steps and squeaky toys. The dogs watch it from the sofa and have accepted it as a family member. I find we watch it a lot too. It's mesmerizing. We run it once a day, often as we walk the dogs, and return to a very clean floor. I disagree with those who say it is a toy. It is not a toy; it does a good job maintaining a floor on a daily basis. I wouldn't expect it to replace my regular vacuum but rather replace daily vacuuming. We use a shop vac once every two weeks for those hard to reach areas that dog fur always seems to find (door pockets, top of dressers, etc), and use Hazel for daily maintenance to keep our travel quarters shedding fur free.
Two things you need to be aware of about this device. It doesn't like rugs with tassels, or shoe laces, or anything else a normal vacuum doesn't like. Roomba doesn't always see these things as obstacles. It does a great job of getting un-stuck (it uses what I call the dung beetle approach by rearing up and turning around...fun to watch).
You also need to keep it clean. I clean mine every other day. Emptying the bin is one thing, but I use the included cleaning tool to keep the brushes hair free on a regular basis. Since we have so many dogs in a confined space, it can build up hair on the brushes quickly. At first I thought this was going to be a bother, but its something I enjoy doing. Its like grooming a friend (in a monkey at the zoo kind of way).

The roomba is worth it- but know what you're getting.
OK. First let me say that this product is amazing and well worth the money. As an engineer, this thing has amazing obstacle avoidance software, and it navigates rooms extremely well. I put a good deal of research into this vac before I bought it - so let me tell you what you can expect, and more importantly- what not to expect. The majority of reviews that are negative are from people with defective units or people who expected something completly unrealistic. On a side note - all of the units have the same capabilities. So I would recommend that you buy a slightly cheaper unit to test it out. If you really like it, then buy the schduler seperately. The high-end vacuum is no different than the low end one. The only exception is the red - which doesn't have "max" clean mode. I personally recommend the sage unit that comes with the home base. It has everything you really need to fully test out the unit - the home base is particularly useful, but the black basic remote (not the white scheduler remote that comes with this unit) is not very useful.

My wife and I have about a 1500 square foot house. To really get the most out of the unit, we divide our house into 3 areas, and we move the roomba each day into whatever area we want to clean (one large bedroom, the living room, and two smaller rooms joining a bathroom). We then run it in there 2-3 times that day and move it into the next area the following day. I was suprised at how well it will navigate between rooms if you leave the doors open. Anyway, the floors are very clean - much cleaner than they ever were with an upright. The roomba really does a great job on the baseboards and under furniture. The suction is NOT as strong as an upright, but the unit will cover most areas several times - and after several times, it will pick up as much or more than most uprights. It has to hit larger pieces of debris head on to be picked up. There are some cases where the roomba may hit a small spot only once or miss a spot completely after a full 1-2 hour cylcle. However, if you run it multiple times in a day in the same place - you will have very clean floors.

If you think you will buy this vacuum, set it in the middle of your house, punch a few buttons, walk away - and your floors will forever be clean - do not buy this vacuum. This vacuum does requre that you empty the bin at least once a day. It does requre that you find out what type of items it may get stuck on the first few times you run it. It does reqire that you make sure you don't have cords or tassels in its way. It does requre that you clean the brushes every few uses. The roomba cannot do anything a normal vacuum does not. It cannot clean over tassels, it cannot magically hop over 1/2" thick area rugs, it cannot run over wires and ignore them. If you are willing to do these few things, such as "roomba-proof" the room, and clean the brushes - it is MUCH EASIER than a traditional vacuum. It will keep your floors very clean, and you will be very happy.

Let me tell you a story about why the robot is still a robot... My wife and I were watching TV and the roomba was cleaning (it's not really louder than a dust buster). We have a puppy... Well... the puppy pooped on the tile entryway while we were watching. The roomba... ran over the puppy poop and drug it all over the carpeted floor next to the entryway while smearing the poop all over itself (brushes, small places, dust bin). Needless to say - it was not pretty - and we had caught it after about 5 minutes. One and a half hours, and 150 Q-tips later - the roomba was clean, the carpet was clean - and the puppy was outside. Lesson learned - watch what the Roomba may run into. It's not completely fool-proof. It did it's job... and if I had watched the puppy - things would have gone well.

This is a great product if you don't have unrealistic expectations. It's a great product if you don't get a dud. The jetsons are not here yet - but I can honestly say my carpet and hard floors are much cleaner than they have ever been, and the unit is very easy to use. It is well worth the money.

Ok - So I wanted to edit my review. The roomba has honestly done such a good job - that we no longer run it two or three times a day in the same room. We run it once a day in the heaviest travelled areas (living room & kitchen), and on the weekends in the guest bedrooms. It really is fantastic. In fact, when we whipe off the counters or the table - we just whipe dust and crumbs onto the floors - because we know the roomba will pick it up pretty soon!