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Comment by kaskavalci | Hacker News Reader

I do not trust Eufy brand anymore. We had a Eufy RoboVac and within its warranty period, battery went bust. When attached to its station, it gave some sound errors which is apparently tied to its battery. I contacted support several times, reminded their obligation for warranty period but they did nothing. They asked me to find a "certified technician" to get a report such that this malfunction was present when I made the purchase. I asked what do they want as "certified technician" and where can I get one. They stopped replying. This took a week.

Fortunately I bought the item from Amazon. I issued a dispute and within minutes they created a return label and issued a refund.

I now have a Roomba. I'm pretty happy so far.

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iRobot is a great company. They'll sell you parts to repair your robot. The take refurbished units and sell them for educational purposes [https://www.irobot.com/about-irobot/stem/create-2], with a fully open and documented platform [https://www.irobot.lv/uploaded_files/File/iRobot_Roomba_500_...]. It's so obviously a company that started as somebody's grad school project, and remains so to this day, and I mean that in the best possible way.

As usual, a bunch of ripoff Chinese competitors will sell you a cheaper piece of shit that you'll find yourself throwing away in three years. Resist the temptation.

Another company is Bobsweep (Canadian company) that sells you parts too and their machines are easy to repair.

Yeah. I got a squeaky wheel on my Roomba 960, sent an email to customer services, they just sent me a whole new wheel module with instructions on how to replace it. Really really great service. And it looks like pretty much all parts of the robot can be bought and replaced separately.

Note: Create 2 is just low-end 6xx missing a few parts. If you're going to buy it just for robotics experiments, just buy the cheapest models that looks exactly the same(not E5, 690 or 800), or older(OG, 400, 500). Costs the same but when you're bored they vacuum your floors!

In my opinion, the iRobot support and parts availability are worth the premium. Our 2013 model 650 is still running great. All we’ve had to do is periodically replace worn out brushes and spinners and at some point we replaced the main battery. This is all easily done with a screwdriver.

Totally agree. I just checked my order history: I bought my current Roomba 650 in May 2014, so it's been running 4-5 days a week for almost 6 years straight with various simple part replacements. Really great little product, and excellent customer support and user community.

At one point the tread wore out on the wheels, so it was struggling to get over the threshold into different rooms. Rather than buy a whole new set of wheels, I found a blog saying that Kirby 301291 vacuum cleaner belts just happen to perfectly fit on roomba wheels and work as replacement treads. Now it's been happily rolling around on vacuum belts for the past year or more.

I absolutely agree. I got a broken 650 from my sister, fixed it with a cheap easily available part, and it has worked beautifully for the last three years.

It is also a joy to maintain and was obviously designed by people who care about maintenance being reasonable.

Same here with a 650 I got in 2016. It runs daily, and all I've ever had to do with it is replace the brushes/spinners twice.

I find this a little surprising because, Anker, Eufy's parent company, has a good reputation from my perspective.

Anker has utterly lost my faith - all 3 Anker QI charging pads failed within months, and the USB-C to A cables I bought more recently don't want to stay connected on the data pins.

Same. Anker does not make quality anymore.

The battery on my RoboVac 11 went bust right out of the warranty period even if it probably had ~15 recharge cycles on it. Bought a replacement (~30E) and the vacuum is happily chugging along doing a good job. This being said I assume Eufy is saving money on that front so I'm not entirely sure my next purchase will be from them.

so I take it the battery is user replacable? That's my worry with most of these electronics, the product can be fine, but if the battery is welded in place, then it becomes a huge PITA to replace.

Easily, one screw and a lid away on this model [0]. Phones are a bit harder to work inside with the constrained space and far more delicate parts (screen, screws, etc.). Maybe for a vacuum this is a lot harder to achieve even if manufacturers insist on it.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/eufy-RoboVac-Replacement-Compatible-A...

My anecdote: our Eufy has been working great for just under a year, now. We have a lab that sheds bucket-loads off hair, and it is generally able to keep things clean. The only real problem is that I was a bit over aggressive cleaning the roller brush, and removed some padding, and now I need to get a new one.

I bought a Neato XV 21 something like 6 or 7 years ago. Still doing great, I've only changed the filters and battery pack once. we moved to a house a few months ago and it still manages to vacuum the entire upper floor (~800sqft) with 1.5 passes.

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