Revised Reviews: iTrip and Roomba

It’s been nearly two months since we got Roomba, and despite my initial glowing review, it’s going back to the store. Roomba really worked quite well at first (or at least the first couple of rooms worth). Since then, Roomba consistently stops well before its done, giving the unhappy sounding tune that says there’s a problem. We’ve extensively cleaned it, made sure it was charged, made sure there were no obstacles for it to get stuck on (it would stop and complain in the middle of the room, anyhow). If we have to babysit Roomba and can’t just leave it to run on its own, it will have to go back. It’s a real shame, because it seemed so fabulous at first. Maybe the next iteration of the product.

As for iTrip, I am keeping it and I’m not fully dissatisfied with it. The major issue is that its broadcasts are just not strong enough. Even with a good, open frequency, I get a fair amount of static on just about any radio I try it on. The minor issue I have with it is that the mechanism for setting the frequency, which is generally pretty neat, is that you have a playlist full of “songs” that instruct the iTrip on which frequency to use. Unfortunately, if I’m just having the iPod shuffle randomly between all of the available songs, those iTrip “songs” inevitably pop up. That’s an overall minor nit. The iTrip still has the very positive advantages of not needing separate batteries and that it joins up so nicely with the iPod.