Electrolux Trilobite on clearance at Sam's Club!

[susantx3]

This forum is great and has been a tremendous help to me. The Tribolite?s sold through Sam?s seem to have a lot of problems. This first one I bought came in a box with the seals intact and that unit has worked well over the last two days. The Roomba, in comparison to the Tribolite, has many advantages in the fact that in seems to pick up more dirt because of the side brush and dual roller system. The Tribolite picks up more extremely fine sand particles but less fuzz and hair. The next two I bought had fatal error codes that could only be corrected by returning to the factory. (Sonar and Electrical.) Major failures right out of the box and not a single use. I checked two Sam?s in Houston area, the Woodlands and Katy locations. There were a total of 22 returned opened boxes that had been taped shut and put back on the shelf. All units give a manufacture date of 2004 (That?s not a mistake 2004). The new Tribolite?s claim to have 200 improvements. Translation, the Sam?s units will have 200 things that someone felt needed improvement. I bought the three year maintenance agreement and the unit has a two year warranty. I would advise caution. Yes it is a great price. No, it is not heads and tails above a Roomba. If you decide to go ahead you can wait until the price drops to 299. But you may need a quick shipment to the Tribolite service center.

[BikerGar]

This forum is great and has been a tremendous help to me. The Tribolite?s sold through Sam?s seem to have a lot of problems. This first one I bought came in a box with the seals intact and that unit has worked well over the last two days. The Roomba, in comparison to the Tribolite, has many advantages in the fact that in seems to pick up more dirt because of the side brush and dual roller system. The Tribolite picks up more extremely fine sand particles but less fuzz and hair. The next two I bought had fatal error codes that could only be corrected by returning to the factory. (Sonar and Electrical.) Major failures right out of the box and not a single use. I checked two Sam?s in Houston area, the Woodlands and Katy locations. There were a total of 22 returned opened boxes that had been taped shut and put back on the shelf. All units give a manufacture date of 2004 (That?s not a mistake 2004). The new Tribolite?s claim to have 200 improvements. Translation, the Sam?s units will have 200 things that someone felt needed improvement. I bought the three year maintenance agreement and the unit has a two year warranty. I would advise caution. Yes it is a great price. No, it is not heads and tails above a Roomba. If you decide to go ahead you can wait until the price drops to 299. But you may need a quick shipment to the Tribolite service center.

Don't sell you Roomba's quite yet. I haven't had the problems susantx3 has had (yet), but the Trilobite is like Roomba's sophisticated distant cousin. Roomba just goes in and gets the job done while Trilobite just holds back and says I don't have to do that.

Trilobite is built better and will probably last longer, where it goes I feel it does a better job, but say what you want about its technology it fears to tread where Roomba dives in.

BG

[newmom]

The Tribolite?s sold through Sam?s seem to have a lot of problems. Major failures right out of the box and not a single use. I bought the three year maintenance agreement and the unit has a two year warranty. But you may need a quick shipment to the Tribolite service center.

How is the Electrolux service for warranty work? Do they ship you a new Trilobite or repair the one you send in?

How about the Sam's Club service agreement or did you buy that from Electrolux?

[geekgranny]

This forum is great and has been a tremendous help to me. The Tribolite?s sold through Sam?s seem to have a lot of problems. This first one I bought came in a box with the seals intact and that unit has worked well over the last two days. The Roomba, in comparison to the Tribolite, has many advantages in the fact that in seems to pick up more dirt because of the side brush and dual roller system. The Tribolite picks up more extremely fine sand particles but less fuzz and hair. The next two I bought had fatal error codes that could only be corrected by returning to the factory. (Sonar and Electrical.) Major failures right out of the box and not a single use. I checked two Sam?s in Houston area, the Woodlands and Katy locations. There were a total of 22 returned opened boxes that had been taped shut and put back on the shelf. All units give a manufacture date of 2004 (That?s not a mistake 2004). The new Tribolite?s claim to have 200 improvements. Translation, the Sam?s units will have 200 things that someone felt needed improvement. I bought the three year maintenance agreement and the unit has a two year warranty. I would advise caution. Yes it is a great price. No, it is not heads and tails above a Roomba. If you decide to go ahead you can wait until the price drops to 299. But you may need a quick shipment to the Tribolite service center.

Thanks for the info, susantx3

I guess maybe I'd better let Electrolux take care of the problem then. We can cross our fingers that maybe when they go back in for service perhaps they may put in any improvments possbile. One can hope can't she?
geekgranny=alice

[eqwalker]

susantx3 & geekgranny, hate to hear of the troubles that you are having with your Trilobites. I guess I'm lucky. I have bought 2 from Sams as well as ordered one of the new ZA2's from Europe. All of them have been working very good. On my carpet my Roomba's can't come close to my Trilobites. The Trilobite, IMO, wins hands down. The Roomba just can not compete with the 90 watt vacuum motor that it has. At least that is what my comparisions are showing. And I have done many here at the house with both. Maybe, iRobot will introduce a new Roomba with more powerful suction in the near future. I hope so. They will have to increase the longitivity too, I believe. But my Roomba's are great on my tile floors and they "rule the roost" there.

[THX-1138]

The Trilobite does have certain technologies that I would like to see implemented on future Roombas, one thing is certain other robocleaners are already going there; check metapo's latest robot "QQ-IN" :

LOOK AT THE VIDEO BELOW

Only thing that concerns me about Trilobite and it's owners in the USA (since Electrolux officially do not sell them here anymore, per Electrolux HQ - Sweden) is support and parts after warranty expires. Simple items as filters and batteries that usually wear out fast is of concern, now we know how our other forum members outside of the USA feel with their Roombas and Scoobas.

I was expecting a unit from Electrolux - Sweden (Trilobite 2.0) to review but they seem not to be interested in robotics within the USA or know that for the price (above US$1400 per unit) it can not compete directly with iRobot products that already dominate the market.

Either way, from what our forum members that own them I gather that these robots are setup as BMW and actually clean better on certain floor types (medium to high pile carpet and throw rugs) compared to our Toyota-like Roombas. Definitely I am looking forward to newer upcoming products from all of these companies (iRobot, Metapo, Karcher, Electrolux, Microbot, LG, Friendly Robotics, etc.) and from new ones that will come up soon!

[mag48]

My, sams club near me was rude...I called asked the price..the girl, sounded about 18? Was like...Uhh...One second let me check..I heard her shout to one of the other employee's "Do we sell a robot vacuum?" and the lady was like yea its 186.00..and I was like is that the Roomba or the TRILOBITE..and she goes I don't know..its made by Irobot...and I was like well I'm looking for the TRILOBITE and she immediatly in her ditsy voice goes "We dont sell that, Sorry." So I just gave up..No Luck for me.

[reinmund]

My, sams club near me was rude...I called asked the price..the girl, sounded about 18? Was like...Uhh...One second let me check..I heard her shout to one of the other employee's "Do we sell a robot vacuum?" and the lady was like yea its 186.00..and I was like is that the Roomba or the TRILOBITE..and she goes I don't know..its made by Irobot...and I was like well I'm looking for the TRILOBITE and she immediatly in her ditsy voice goes "We dont sell that, Sorry." So I just gave up..No Luck for me.

You did not ask to speak to the supervisor ?
That's usually the first thing I do.

I have had several times problems with "low level" customer service folk, like at my bank. I typically ask politelly to get transfered to the supervisor. In case the supervisor doesn't want to help me, I ask to be transfered again, this time to their manager. At that level, I have always gotten what I wanted.

[greyhound]

LOOK AT THE VIDEO BELOW

Jeez, after seeing that video, I feel like the roomba is so archaic! I think the roomba probably stands a better chance of getting every bit of dirt.

[Todemesne]

Am I the only person that would be driven insane watching that QQ-IN robots cleaning pattern? OK I know we are supposed to switch them on and walk away but good grief! The way it backs up and turns so slowly at the end of each line would frustrate me.

And what if it fails to pick up some debris? It wont be going back over that patch agin like the Roomba does.

I much prefer Roombas random cleaning pattern. Perhaps it better suits my personality

[davidelewis]

A couple things about the QQ-IN:

1. After carefully watching the video a few times, it seems to me that the QQ-IN is slightly overlapping each pass with the previous pass. (The video states: "Navigates in lapping motions", however I decided to try to test this using my mouse cursor as a placeholder in the video).
2. Who's to say that after vacuuming across the width of a room that it won't also vacuum up and down the length of the room. Remember that the version demonstrated in the video is a prototype.

[Todemesne]

Yeah but how long would that take? With its silly manouvering about the same time as a Roomba I expect

[vacuumboy98]

Hello, I wanted to buy a trilobite. I can't find one anywhere.

[newmom]

They aren't sold in the US anymore and haven't been for a few years. Unless you can find one from a private party, you may be out of luck.

[vacuumboy98]

That sucks, i love its cleaning power and ultrasonic.

[davidelewis]

I would recommend the Neato instead. It cleans so much better that than the two Roomba's I've had.

[vacuumboy98]

I know, I already have one. I just want to have my own robot vacuum clan.