SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Fire / ignition

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20200105-A1BB2-2147375591. Severity: Incident, No Injury. Product: Roomba Roomba 980 (Vacuuming Robot, Designed for carpets, rugs, hard floors. WIFI enabled, Automatic scheduling, 120 minute run time. IROBOT Roomba 980). Incident: The IROBOT Roomba 980 series has been having charging issues for a period of time. I started doing some online research and have come across other people having the same issues. Some other people have taken there Roomba apart and have found that the electrical contacts on the bottom side of the Roomba are melted causing them to recess into the unit. I flipped my Roomba over and inspected for this. I found that the one contact has been melted\pushed up into the roomba a good amount. where the other electrical contact is still flat. This to me seams like a fire hazard. Even though this has NOT started a FIRE. I feel like there needs to be something done about this. Because there are alot of reported instances of this in online reviews of multiple different Roomba models. Not just the roomba 980. I contacted Roomba directly this morning and told them about what was going on with it. and also asked if they had any recalls for this happening. They said " this isn't a common case but a very common robot " That too me sounds a bit off. especially after finding multiple reviews with other people having the same problems. Roomba Customer service representative online said they will send out a new roomba and charging station. But will this actually prevent the new roomba from not having melted contacts?? I just feel like this is something that needs to be looked at by a third party. Because the worse case scenario is that a roomba can have a thermal event and cause a fire and burn down your house or apartment. This is why I am filling out this information.