iRobot Dirt Dog Robot Deals!

UDPATED 11/21/09 with BLOWOUT DEALS:

The Home Shopping Network (HSN) has the iRobot Dirt Dog Shop Sweeping Robot for $99.95 plus $9.95 Shipping! (HSN also offers an extra 1-year warranty for $14.95.)

But the deal I recommend for Peace of Mind is at Hammacher Schlemmer, which now offers the iRobot Dirt Dog with an Exclusive Lifetime Guarantee for just $129! Use coupon code MCSHIP09 or VISAWON08 to get FREE SHIPPING! Hammacher is the premier online retailer, and its customer service is the best in the business. If you ever have a problem with your Dirt Dog, they will replace it or give you your money back.

Amazon has the iRobot Dirt Dog for just $129 SHIPPED!

iRobot also has FREE DIRT DOG combo packs deals: The Roomba 570/Scooba 380/Dirt Dog Value Pack is $899 Shipped! The Roomba 560/Scooba 350/Dirt Dog Value Pack is $849.99 Shipped!

The new Dirt Dog is a Roomba derivative, like the Roomba for Pets released last week, and is designed for shop floors and garages with heavy duty bristles and a 40 percent larger dust bin.

To make room for the Dirt Dog's larger dust bin, the Roomba loses it's vacuum motor. Instead, the rotating bristles (at up to 1,000 RPM!) will sweep up dirt, dust, nails, etc. rather than suck them in. HSN sold about 500 in the first hour. (Company CFO Geoff Clear told an investor conference Thursday that the Dirt Dog exceeded HSN's planned initial sales by 30 percent).

The new Dirt Dog is compatible with the Roomba Discovery Series (also known as Roomba 400) accessories, including the virtual wall and charging dock, etc., but does not ship with them to hold down costs. And it features a single button, "Clean." The included battery lasts an hour, less than that of Roomba (I get nearly two hours), which suggests that the new brush system is an amped-up power hog, appropriate for a mini-robot-Shop Vac. The included standard charger, like the Roomba Red (as cheap as $129 here), recharges the robot in seven hours, but an upgraded 3-hour charger is available.

PC Magazine's Lance Ulanoff also quotes iRobot marketing chief Nancy Dussault talking about iRobot's new focus on men:
"The majority of our products are designed with women in mind. This is a bit of a departure in that it's for men. A bit more fun, a bit more rugged."
(Note that another male-oriented product, an iRobot Robomower, is also reportedly in the works.)

I think iRobot is going to sell a ton of these. The new lower price point, and the new focus on shop floors will appeal to a whole new set of retailers and customers. And a lot of existing Roomba owners will add one for their garage. It's not inconceivable that they could sell 100,000 of these for the Christmas selling season, juicing revenue that is already expected to see robust growth, when you factor in sales of the Scooba mop, which will be in its first holiday season.

Here is the press release:
iRobot Introduces Workshop Robot
Wednesday September 13, 12:01 am ET
New iRobot Dirt Dog Sweeps Up the Dirtiest Places in Your Home
BURLINGTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 13, 2006--iRobot Corp. (NASDAQ:IRBT - News) today announced a new addition to its family of home robots, the iRobot® Dirt Dog(TM) Workshop Robot. The rugged robot is designed to pick up small nails, dirt, sawdust and other debris that accumulates in garages, basements and workbench zones. Priced at $129.99, the workshop robot will be available at www.irobot.com starting Sept. 15.
"We developed iRobot Dirt Dog to attack the dirtiest places in and around your home -- garages, porches, decks, basements and under your workbench," said Greg White, president of iRobot Home Robots. "iRobot Dirt Dog is the first robot made for jobs that are too dirty for a regular vacuum."
The same size and shape as the iRobot Roomba® Vacuuming Robot, iRobot Dirt Dog features an oversized, bagless debris bin that is approximately 40 percent larger than Roomba's bin. The robot also features two counter-rotating bristle brushes that spin at nearly 1,000 rotations per minute to pick up heavy debris such as nails, wood chips and small shop scraps. With brushes specially designed to sweep up dirt that clings to rough surfaces, the robot is recommended for use on hard floors, shop carpets and industrial surfaces only. Similar to the company's line of award-winning home robots, iRobot Dirt Dog is easy to use -- simply push the Clean button and it goes to work. The workshop robot is compatible with most Roomba accessories including the remote control, battery, Virtual Wall® and self-charging Home Base(TM).

Now we know why the stock price has spiked the last couple of days!

Tags: Dirt Dog, Roomba, iRobot, IRBT, robot, robotics, robots