iRobot Dual Mode Virtual Wall Barrier

I needed this barrier last minute when I realized my Roomba kept getting stuck on the Christmas tree skirt. Works perfectly!

Our house floor plan is very open and these virtual barriers allow me to divide our floor plan into separate rooms for our Roomba to clean. We also have a large jute rug with huge tassels that aren't very kind to our Roomba. With the virtual barriers, I can just set one on each each of the rug with the invisible beam going across the tassels and the Roomba will vacuum the entire rug without even touching the tassels. So great! NOTE: Make sure the wall barrier ON/OFF button is facing opposite of the direction you intend for the barrier to be. It took me a few tries to figure out that they button is on the BACK side. NOTE: Your Roomba will come with 1 of these virtual barriers automatically, but get a few and you won't be sorry! Just remember to turn them off when you are done - just to save batteries. NOTE: Blue light only comes on when you first turn on the virtual barrier. It will go off after a few seconds, so don't think yours is broken - It's still on and is supposed to do that.

These virtual walls are great! I love they only use 2 AA batteries and he manual says they can run continuously for months and months! I didn't like the older versions with the D cell batteries, they always had to be operated manually and I never kept extra D size batteries around the house.

I use these every time I clean to control which rooms are cleaned. If all of my first floor is cleaned it takes the Roomba going home to recharge at least once. By using these I can set up which rooms to clean in one charge. Love them and would like a couple more.

So glad that they have designed these to take AA batteries. I don't need one more item with the confusion of another of the many USB cables to remember to plug in. After months of service just pop in another pair and she's good to go.

I have house rabbits, so there is fluff, dry poop and hay everywhere and downstairs there are no doors to limit robot roaming. The Roomba gets a bit too rambling at times when I want one area thoroughly cleaned. The virtual wall does work, but I have to position it well inside a doorway so that the robot is not deterred from cleaning the spot just outside. It's very light so It gets kicked on its side a lot. I still use it frequently

No way to control power of range, for both Virtual Wall and Halo , door threshold barrier needs to have unit well inside room to be missed in order to operate up to threshold . The other model with Lighthouse do allow the range and power to be adjusted

I am really surprised at the design of this device. It should use a replaceable, rechargeable battery pack that can be replaced. That pack should include the charging technology so you can have NiMH, L-Ion etc. It should plug into the wall to stay charged. When plugged in, it should be a night light. There should also be a version of this which extends down from the wall outlet, to the floor for non-halo use. I never have enough batteries to keep these things working. There could be an RF or UV beacon on the Roomba for the first 5 minutes after starting, and then for a full minute anytime that the beacon from the wall barrier is lost. When received, the tower would wake up and go into transmit mode, until the Roomba beacon is lost for 5 minutes. Fast beacon and slow beacon strategies would conserve power. The towers and the roomba need to talk about working and conserve power if you must continue to use silly alkaline batteries. Yes I could by rechargeables, if you worked with 2.5v instead of 3v etc.