iRobot Scooba 5900 robotic wet/dry vacuum user reviews

Pros vacuum and mopper in one

Cons doesn't return to charger on its own

Summary Last month we tore up our carpet and replaced it with tile. Shiny, gleaming marble, beautiful stuff. Since then, the house has been cooler and feels much more open. What I was afraid of, though, was we'd soon find ourselves with sticky stains and dulled surfaces.

My husband laughed when I ran out and bought a Scooba to protect our new investment. He's not laughing anymore. It's been about five weeks and the tile hasn't changed a bit, because we run the Scooba almost every night -- it's a vacuum and mopper in one, plus it doesn't leave any dirty water behind on the tile, so it's essentially the perfect tile cleaner.

The only drawback is that, unlike some of the Roombas, it doesn't return to its charger. But I think that's a good thing: you wouldn't want a tank of dirty water/cleaner sitting in the corner too long.

Pros It effectively clean and washes most type of hard floorings

Cons It can get a bit noisy and need special cleaning solutions

Summary I got mine for 2 weeks and used it a couple of times. I told my maid it did a more thorough job eg it mops the floor underneath the ovenette. She doea give me that worrying look now that I have this wonderful cleaning machine. The tech support is quite available and a pleasure to speak to someone when I needed some answers.

Oh I just spoke to iRobot Tech support and was told some good news. Now I can share this news with you Scooba fans. You can actually use "white vinegar" instead of their special clorox solution if you are too stingy to buy. But it has to be white vinegar and nothing else. Otherwise your warranty might be void. White Vinegar is fine. Same 2 oz per full tank like the clorox solution.

Wish I had known earlier. Wasted my monies buying those clorox at $7 per bottle plus shipping charges!

Pros vacuuming, washing, scrubbing, suctioning

Cons can take a bit of time

Summary When you take your first look at the Scooba, it doesn't look like it'll do the job. How could something so small and unimposing do the job better than a person with a mop? Well, it might take a little more time, but it will do an even better job -- only without much effort on your part.

First, it's a vacuum. Just like its cousin, the Roomba, the Scooba sucks up all the dirt and crumbs, etc., that it encounters. This already is more efficient than a person with a mop. Mops don't do anything with dirt and crumbs except push them around. Once the vacuuming is done, the Scooba squirts its own specially formulated Clorox cleaning solution onto the floor (however, you do have the option of using just water if you feel like your floors need to be treated very gently). Then the brushes at the bottom of the Scooba do the scrubbing work -- again, this is pretty gentle compared to the way a person can damage a floor by scrubbing it too hard.

The last part is what makes the Scooba much more efficient than a person with a mop. If you were mopping your floor, you'd have to leave now and wait for the floor to dry. What would you have accomplished? The same dirt and grime would be there after the floor dried; all you'd have done is spread it out over the entire surface area. The Scooba is really different in that it sucks up the now-dirty cleaning solution into its tank, and so the dirt and grime are completely removed from your floor, which is what you really wanted in the first place. All you have to do is empty the dirty solution from the tank into a sink. You'll see the solution is pretty brown at this point; that's the dirt and grime that have been on your floor all this time.

What's most impressive is that it does all four of these steps -- vacuuming, washing, scrubbing, and suctioning -- in one pass over the floor. It might take a little bit longer for the Scooba to cover an entire area, but in the end your floors are much cleaner than before, all while you were relaxing or doing something else.

Pros Will make you appreciate what a good mop and pail of water can do

Cons Short battery life, Doesn't clean corners or edge of floor

Summary A design flaw in Scooba's battery charging circuit, will destroy the battery if left connected to the power supply for an extended period of time, which in my case was about a month. I discovered this design flaw after the warranty period, because all previous charge cycles were done by removing the battery from the robot, and placing it in the charging station. The charge station will cut off properly when the battery is full. I only had at most 7 discharge cycles before the battery failed to hold a charge. When I phoned iRobot concerning this issue. I was at first told there was a design flaw in the software that caused the battery to be overcharge, and that I'd be sent a software update to fix that problem. But when I asked for a replacement battery, I was told that since I was outside the warranty window, I would need to purchase a new battery for the unit. Their explanation for why the battery failed changed to, you didn't use the product often enough, that is why the battery failed. Being an electronic design engineer with 25 years experience in circuit and software design, I found that comment to be pretty ridiculous for a product that has a nickel metal hydroxide battery.

My advise, go out an buy a good mop, and forget about this product. You can use that money to buy something more useful, and avoid the hassle of fooling with iRobot's customer service. You'll also save the expense of another battery when yours fails after a few uses.