My Roomba 535 Review

I’ve had my Roomba 535 for about 4 months now. I never owned or knew anyone that owned the older models, but the new 500 series, from what I’ve read, has really improved from the older version.

My 535 is in the lower-middle area of the Roomba 500 series and I have only seen the Roomba 535 available for sale online. The 530 and 560 are available in stores, but the 530 does not come with one (where the 530 does not) ‘lighthouse’ and the 560 (includes 2 lighthouses) is a good amount more expensive than the 535. You could buy a lighthouse for your 530, but one feature that makes the 535 better, is it is upgradeable. You can remove the middle module and make it, basically, the 570, the highest Roomba in the 500 series. With the module upgrade you can use the wireless command center, which allows you to set up to 7 different cleaning times for the Roomba. The 535, stock, only allows one setting, such as every morning at 8AM. I bought the 535 because it comes with 1 lighthouse (which is all I need right now) and it has the option to upgrade.

For people that have never owned a Roomba before, you may be wondering what a ‘Lighthouse’ is. A lighthouse serves to purposes, to be a temporary wall and a ‘permanent’ virtual wall. The temporary wall/lighthouse tells the Roomba to finish one room or area before it goes to the other side of the lighthouse. By moving the switch to Virtual Wall, the Roomba will never go on the other side. The Roomba does a very good job at vacuuming. Even if you feel your carpet is clean, it will pick up dirt and pet hair that you most likely won’t pick up if you vacuum yourself. The Roomba tends to repeat areas and it does take more time than if you did it yourself, but in return you get a clean home and – the best part – you aren’t the one cleaning. The Roomba is quiet, a lot more quiet than a normal upright vacuum, so you can watch TV while it is vacuuming. You will have a new view of what clean is. You can set the Roomba to go out on a schedule or you can click the clean button. The Roomba plays a ‘beep beep’ backup noise and slowly backs up, the brushes and the vacuum turn on and it starts to do its thing. The Roomba goes underneath furniture and beds to help on the dust and allergies, it can go on hard floors and carpet and do a good job cleaning on any floor type, it also moves along walls and uses its spinning side brush to pull dirt close to the walls and in tight corners, as if you were using your vacuum hose extension. It is best if you let the Roomba do what it wants, in most cases, even though it seems it’s repeating areas. It may be sensing more dirt in those areas.

When the Roomba senses an extraordinary amount of debris, it will spin around and give extra care to the area, you can tell when the Roomba senses these areas, not only by its reaction, but the blue dirt sensor light illuminates. The Roomba also has a ‘Spot’ button that makes the Roomba focus on a small area, it spins in circles about 3 feet out and then it goes back to the middle. If there are things in the way of this 3 foot radius, it will adjust accordingly. The Roomba also has a ‘Dock’ button that tells the Roomba to focus more on getting back to the dock than cleaning. I use this if I want it to clean the kitchen and then go back without doing a full cleaning. It tends to still clean a lot, which isn’t bad.

The lighthouse is a huge feature for the Roomba. The Roomba will clean better because it is not going all over a huge space, running into things and running out of battery before it cleans everything. I split my 800 square foot apartment into two sections with the one lighthouse, it cleans my bedroom, bathroom and hall and then once the Roomba communicates with the lighthouse to say it’s ready to cross, it goes and cleans the living room and kitchen. It cleans better and faster. It will clean my whole apartment and park itself back in the docking station before it dies, which is about 3 hours.

Sometimes the Roomba will get stuck or stop, which is no big deal. It doesn’t get stuck too often and the top reason it shuts off is because the brushes need to be cleaned. The best thing to do is to pull out as much hair as you can from the ends of the brushes and the cogs/drives that move the brushes. You will have to do it more often in the beginning, but normally you would have to clean the brushes every other time it cleans. You don’t need to dump the trash can too much, even though it’s small, but at first you will because it will pick up a lot of fur and dirt. I ran my Roomba every day for the first week and now I run it between every other day and every 4 days. Sometimes I start it before I go to work and sometimes I do it while I’m doing my weekend laundry or while I’m watching TV after work. I’ve found that maybe starting it before work may not be the best idea because if it does get stuck, you don’t have much of an idea of where it could be, maybe under the bed, maybe under the furniture…it depends on how large your home is. If it’s running while you are home you will at least know where you heard it get quiet, like in the bedroom or in the living room. As the Roomba finishes up and parks, it makes a ‘Hey look, I did it’ noise, letting you know it parked correctly in the base and is now charging. I have only had it mis-park once. If it is unable to park, it usually turns and tries again.

I would recommend the Roomba 535, in particular, because I think it is a great investment, it’s a good deal for the money and it saves you time while keeping your place clean all of the time. I will be adding pictures and cleaning up the text this weekend!