Blade used
regularly for 8 months with No Issue compared to a
New unused blade
See larger images below
Used 8 months New
Austech review of Iclebo Smart
In reply to strong claims and an attacking review made on Austech & posts on Whirlpool forums we have posted our response here, as well as copies of emails to show exactly what we did write to Andrew. We are told Andrew owns the Austech forum site.
Andrew's claim that the bin blade now wears to the point of non functionality within 3 uses is not only completely inconsistent with our own use of both personal machines and demonstration machines, it is also inconsistent with all of our customers here in Australia, and from Yujin Robot it is also inconsistent with users all over the World. Also the Good Gear Guide website reviewer tested our 'Home' model (which has the exact same bin and rubber blade) extensively for weeks and did not report any issue with this blade wearing.
Logic will tell you a rubber strip can not wear above the level of the floor it is working on!
Andrew's Austech forum post states:
I purchased an iClebo Smart in September 2010 after doing a lot of research in to robot vacuums. As they are a reasonably new item to the market, I decided to purchase from an Australian dealer is case things didnt go to plan with a fauly or not up to standard item. Unfortunately this is something I would come to regret.The iClebo itself is a fairly well made unit (apart from one item I will mention later ). The " smart " model incorporates an inbuilt webcam type camera that takes a picture of your roof and walls so it knows where it has been and where it has to go. The "home" model doesnt use a camera but a series of pre determined patterns which may vacuum the same area anywhere from 2 - 10 times. The " smart " model uses this pattern in " carpet " mode.
I received the unit in a reasonable amount of time when ordering, but had to wait for it to arrive in Australia from Korea so I can only assume Alpha Robot doesnt keep stock but rather " drop ships " - placing an order after you pay them.
This is an offensive assumption & an obvious attempt of discrediting our business, the below reply email to Andrew shows he was told exactly why he had to wait. We always carry stock of our models but our first shipment ran short before the next shipment arrived due to the popularity of the model. As stated in the email & if for any reason we run out of stock before our next shipment arrives we will air freight the stock in so as to fill orders in a timely manner.
Andrew's first email:
Hello
After much research of robotic vacuums, I have decided that
the iClebo Smart is most likely to suit my needs and before ordering via your
website I wish to confirm that you do have this model in stock in Australia and
would like to know how soon it will be despatched after payment.
Hello Andrew,
I appreciate your decision and thank you for your enquiry, it is very timely as
we have had a greater interest in iClebo Smart than anticipated and have
actually received over night orders that put us in a stock out situation.
That said we have already ordered some tie over stock via air freight which will
be dispatched from Korea tomorrow, and we would most likely have that by Monday
6th September with further air freight arriving later in that week.
If you are happy to wait until next week I can contact you to advise you of
arrival of that stock.
I am sorry for any disappointment or inconvenience this may cause.
Regards,
Continuing...
Generally, a full charge will get you around 2 hours of vacuuming. I have a large house, so only use the iClebo in my small front lounge room, hallway and family room. See the photos below of the flooring tested on - hard wood flooring and short pile carpet.
As a point of interest here are a few posts on austech from Andrew prior to his receipt of the Robot
"Scheduling was also a must have for me. I cant be bothered pressing a start button"
"Mine is in transit at the moment so I should have it today or tomorrow. If I am
happy with it, I am considering buying an iClebo Home as well. I live in a
fairly big house so I will have to see how a single machine goes doing the job.
I am thinking having one at each end might be better."
" I intend to run it on auto schedule 7 days a week so its really going to get a work out (which is why I consider a decent warranty important)"
"Due to a back injury I cannot vacuum. My wife works fulltime night shift so I dont expect her to do it and getting kids to do something to help these days is a waste of time. Last time I vacuumed I spent 3 days in agony so I am not trying it again."
These quotes were also used in an earlier reply to Andrew's Post on whirlpool to show that he intended to use it daily in his large home (which later he claims was us saying he should not use it daily)
We think these above comments by Andrew, & how loudly he is now attacking us really are strong idicators that:
1. He would not have waited three months to complain if he had been without a useable product after two weeks.
2. That he had most likely used the robot daily in his large home for just under three months before there was enough wear on the blade to effect performance.
Continuing...
Initially the iClebo Smart worked well, certainly from a robotic perspective it was able to get around the cleaning area with any real problem, obviously you will need to remove any objects from the floor before hand that might get caught up in its spinning brush.
In December I contacted Alpha Robot to let them know the following :
|
Originally Posted by Email to Alpha Robot
I have unfortunately not had a very satisfactory time with the
iClebo Smart so far. It worked reasonably well for the first
week or 2, but since then has had issues cleaning. I have
unfortunately been busy and havent had the time to deal it, but
hope to now look at rectifying this issue.
|
Continuing...
After a couple of weeks use, the iClebo Smart wasnt doing its job. On the hard wood floor, instead of removing items it would run over the top of them and shoot them out the back. The rubber bin blade looked to be the culprit and Alpha Robot sent another :
|
Originally Posted by email from Alpha Robot
I have posted a new bin blade today as it seems there may be
some blades that lose a 2 – 3 mm strip off the edge. The blade I
have sent may do the same thing but until Yujin Robot supply a
blade that will not have this issue we will just keep replacing
it for you.
|
Continuing...
After replacing the rubber blade, the result was instant. The machine was back to working as normal. But not for long, after only a few vacuums we were back to square one. Alpha Robot admitted " there is an issue with this " but claimed no one had it happen after a few vacuums. They stated they would send another blade but if it happened again this quickly I would have to give them my phone number or have them inspect my house.
Please read this email below that shows we did not say he had to, but did say "I will need" thinking Andrew would be happy for us to contact him in pursuit of answers to his claimed issue. And said "may need to arrange" for someone to come by... Andrew flatly refused our requests & showed no willingness to allow us to try to understand how this could be possibly be happening so quickly when by this stage we had only had a handful of customers who had a problem with the rubber blade. ( and to date, March 2011, NOT ONE of those have returned to us with this issue again.)
Alpha Robotics - Sales <sales@alpharobot.com.au>
Sent: Mon 17/01/2011 14:24
To: 'Andrew'
Hello Andrew,
"Good but with an issue. Its only a small one but unfortunately it effects the units performance. The Australian distributor has been good support wise, but the replacement part I received has gone the same way as the original.
Its only a rubber strip, but without it it wont work properly. The distributor has stated in a email that he will keep supplying them to me until the manufacturer fixes the problem, but the replacement only lasted 3 vacuums so I would need 2 a week.
This issue aside, I am happy with the iclebo it works great. I did intend on doing a review but I havent been able to until this issue is resolved"
Note this "The distributor has stated in a email that he will keep supplying them to me until the manufacturer fixes the problem" see below contradiction from Andrew.
Continuing...
I then sent the photos of my floor to Mark as requested, where he was quick to spot an aluminium seperating strip of " unusual nature " which he was quick to blame. He then sent me another blade that was a different color to the previous one. Again, same problem, rubber wears out, vacuum doesnt vacuum. This time, I ensured the robot did not cross the seperating strip at all. Exactly the same result.
So after 3 rubber blades wearing out in a short period of time, I asked Mark for a refund.
These photos from Andrew show a metal strip that is not just in a doorway but runs the full length of a room several metres long. We would think a room that is three quarters carpet & one quarter timber is unusual, but without seeing what other floor surfaces the robot is used on we can not be sure it is just this area that may be causing premature wear.
Logic will tell you a rubber strip can not wear above the level of the floor it is working on unless it is crossing something above that floor level.
|
Originally Posted by email to Alpha Robot
Hello Mark
Although I had hopes for an improvement on this blade, it is already worn and slightly split with dirt items travelling under it and out the back of the vacuum cleaner. This is from use on my floor boards and carpet only...very carefull use to ensure it only travelled on those 2 surfaces. Clearly this unit will not clean properly unless the blade is in as new condition with no wear, as soon as wear is apparent the above happens. This product has been of great disappointment to me as I am on a disability pension and am unable to vacuum my own floors. Obviously this issue will continue to happen.....I dont expect that you will be supplying me a new part every week ( this is a realistic time frame with how fast they wear out ) nor do I expect to be paying for a replacement part every week come end of warranty. With this in mind, I am requesting a refund on this product. Please advise your return procedure, I have original box and packaging. |
| it seems there may be some blades that lose a 2 – 3 mm strip off the edge |
Unfortunately from this point, I havent used my iClebo Smart, its sitting in the corner with 3 worn out bin blades. Interesting Mark now claims on another public forum " he offered to supply new bin blades for the life of the product " yet there was no mention of this when I asked for a refund because I did not intend to be responsible for paying for new parts when the warranty ended. Contradiction
Well this above "quote" shows Andrew is not even very good at getting his story straight, as you may recall the above quote Andrew inserted from us that says "The blade I have sent may do the same thing but until Yujin Robot supply a blade that will not have this issue we will just keep replacing it for you." This is quite clear we were wanting to keep Andrew's machine working for him, even though he would not allow us to speak with him or visit his home in an effort to identify why he is the only person in Australia, and from what Yujin Robot tell us, the only person in the World who claims the bin blade rubber wears out in 3 uses!
Continuing...
Unfortunately I cant recommend the iClebo nor can I recommend Mark from Alpha Robot. His claims I used it too much by vacuuming once a day border on hilarity. I had very high hopes for iclebo, and whilst it does work well with a new rubber strip on it, you can guarantee it will only be working for a few vacuums. The " 2-3 " ml strip that Mark mentioned wearing off is enough to render the iClebo unusable on a hard flat floor. Clearly until iClebo fix this issue, you are wasting your money.
And yet another false claim from Andrew! We never said using the Robot daily was unacceptable, we say in our own promotional material that you can schedule the robot to clean daily, we have many customers who use their robot daily (without their bin blade wearing out in a week) and we are quite happy for them to do so. Andrew twists this completely out of context from one of our earlier responses showing Andrew claimed on his own forum site (shown above) that he intended to use the robot daily, and we showed this to point out that he had most likely used the robot daily for three months before there was any issue, yet he now claims he only gets 3 days use before the bin blade wears to the point of making the robot useless as a cleaner.
Continuing...
I did originally intend on writing a substantial review but have had to put it off for months while dealing with Alpha Robot so have made it alot shorter.
Andrew suddenly started demanding a full refund on Feb 17 2011, 5 months after purchasing and after denying us any opportunity to see his floor or even speak with him on the phone.
For anyone wanting to try another brand of robot vacuum, Roomba seems to have a good name and can be bought from major stores like Harvey Norman. I wouldnt expect you would have the same warranty issues that I did if you bought from a large professional retailer.
Edit : Forgot to also mention that attempts to contact Yugin Robot directly failed. They have a number of dead contact email addresses and when I did find one that didnt bounce I got no reply.
(End of Post.)
Yujin robot were made aware of Andrew's demands and unwillingness to cooperate with a our attempts of further consultation.
Anyone who believes Andrew had only 2 weeks use from the robot then left it for nearly 3 months to contact us to complain would be very gullible in our eyes!
We look after any of our customers who have honest and genuine concerns and will continue to do so, but we will not be bullied into giving a full refund to someone who denies further consultation thinking that we will be a soft target and give in to a false bullying campaign.
Bottom line is that you should have faith in our product and service as is reflected by the 99.9% of customers who are very happy with their Iclebo model. If you purchase from us and have metal strips that prematurely wear or damage the rubber bin blade we will replace that bin blade for you for the life of the machine. And would also like to say that if you have any issues that you think would warrant a Full refund please be sure to bring those to our attention in the first weeks or months of use rather than waiting a few months to tell us you only got 1 - 2 weeks use from the robot.
We recently had an Iclebo 'Smart' come back after 8 months of regular use to have a faulty sensor replaced, on inspection we found No Significant wear to the rubber Bin Blade.
Blade used regularly for 8 months - No Issue! New unused blade
For interest sake here is the contents of an email received from someone completely unknown to us, but stating they do know Andrew.
I just want to add some support to you in dealing with Andrew
xxxxxxx, the guy bitching about your support and warranty.
This guy is a total xxxx. He
OWNS the Austech forum and bans anyone who disagrees with his point of view.
I have met him he is a typical short man bully who acts tough and talks
like a real bogan hero, I'm surprised he hasn't threatened you.
Don't give in on him, he has asked Austech forum users to
support him in his 'attack on you @ whirlpool'
I would be contacting the whirlpool forum owners to get rid of his rants.
Regards
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