LG HOM-BOT “Please remove foreign material from the brushes on the bottom.”

If you have an LG HOM-BOT, you may be extremely pleased with the efficiency and the quietness. It’s a great—albeit expensive—robot vacuum cleaner.

There are issues though. We had to send ours back while it was still under warranty because the computer stopped working. They took care of it no problem. However, a year or so later, one of the wheels wasn’t moving, so I had to open it up and figure out what was wrong. It turns out one of the wires to the wheel was cut so it wasn’t getting the correct signal.

Then, a year after that, we kept getting the error ”Please remove foreign material from the brushes on the bottom,” even though there was no foreign material on the brushes. If you’ve experienced this, you know it’s a show-stopper because it doesn’t clean and it becomes a $750 paper weight:

So, I opened it up again and investigated the motor for the brush (located in the upper right of the machine when looking from above).

I didn’t see anything wrong with it, but I unplugged the unit and plugged it back in. After closing it back up, it works fine now—no false errors.

Hope this helps others who have the same problem!