iRobot - 650

I’ve had many roombas from the 650, i7, S9x3 (they sent me 3 replacements), and a braava jet 240. They work good for awhile, but the crappy software updates, constant errors and resets broke me. I seriously love iRobot hardware vacuum performance as in the amount of dirt they pick up, but the software is absolute garbage and a vacuum is completely useless if it can’t navigate correctly. I still have my first 650 bouncing around in my basement and the i7 has been moved to garage duty. The S9 ended up in pieces. My main two robot vacuums are roborocks and I love their navigation. I wish I could take the navigation from a Roborock and put it into a roomba.

The older Roombas could be set to clean once per day at a specified time, so you could have 7 scheduled cleanings. There are buttons to set the clock and then a cleaning time for each day of the week. I still have 2 of them, one is a 650 and the other is a 500 something. I don't think they make them anymore, but I am sure you could find one. These 2 both still work. I don't have an app for them, but I have a 3 foot dowel rod I use to push the start button, If you have connection problems or simply don't want to connect to the internet, the solution is to not connect. Just push the start button. The advantage of the Roomba brand is that you can get replacement parts easily and they run forever. There's lots of info on how to repair them. Don't know if the other brands have that knowledge base yet.

I had a Roomba 650 and then got a Roborock S4 Max that’s still trucking along. You really can’t go wrong at this point.

Last week I bought a i5 that empties the bin into a disposable bag. I have a dog now finishing a shed. I live in the mountains with essentially a gravel front yard, so she tracks in a lot of sand. I now use my 600 series in one bedroom and bathroom. For me, the ji5 was 300 dollars well spent. It’s quieter, less aggressive on obstacles, and includes mapping. I sit on the couch sipping tea.

I have a Roomba 564 Pet I bought when my son was 6 months old. He's now 14 and the Roomba would be still doing the job if this little bastard had not screwed the elly plaque's screwheads. I bought a new battery I cannot replace because of that (I'll Dremel them out after the Spring clean out). So it was working since 2011, August. The other Roomba, a 600 something bought on discount in a clearance sale when my son was 6 or 7, is still going strong. I wonder how the Dreame L50 Pro Ultra is going to perform. It is my Mother's Day present, but we're not done with the Spring-clean so it just worked in the living-room.

Mapping 9 | Roomba J7+ 5 Does very good but I dont like how it splits one of my rooms ( Obstacle Avoidance 7 | Roomba J7+ 8 Does good, gentle around furniture. Has issues with a couple dog toys that it like to try and suck up. App 7 | Roomba App 8 Lots of options. Can tweak almost everything. Frustrating trying to change room layouts Vacuum Carpet 7 | Roomba 6 Does a good job on short carpet. I have a German shepherd and it does a good job of getting hair of carpet. Also does a decent job of getting dirt off surface of carpet. Deep clean you will want a regular vacuum. Vacuum Hardwood 5 | Roomba J7+ 7 As time has gone on the x10 that cleans my upstairs which is 90% LPF seems to have lost some of its cleaning power. I haven't noticed this on my basement x10 which is cleaning 90% carpet. My x10's seem to have issues picking up anything the size of dog food. Never had any issue with roomba when it come to vacuuming up dog food or anything that size. Mopping 8 | Roomba J7+ 0 Seems to have gotten better at mopping since I got it. easily cleans light messes and dirt off the floor. Base station 9 | Roomba Base 7 Does what its designed to do and seems to hold a lot more dirt then roomba. Has yet to fail to empty the vacuum where as my roomba would sometimes fail to empty due to small debris clogging the base station. Quality 5 | Roomba J7+ 7 I have 2 of x10's. I've had to send one in for repair already due to a roller brush bushing breaking. Anything the size of a piece of dog food will jam the roller and potentially break the dumb bushing design that holds the brush. I've also had sensor failure errors that come and go. Never had issues with roomba and the build quality just seems better on my J7+ I expect both x10's needing to be replaced in 5 years. Overall I would say dont pay full price. If you can get it for 600 or less its prob a good machine but the overall quality holds it back.

Look for an irobot roomba 600 series. Random navigation, effective cleaning performance, durable and easy to repair, cheap spare brushes/filters/batteries. I mostly use a newer roborock, but when it dies, I've got a roomba 600 on standby in the closet.

675 or other 600 series model from a thrift store. $20. Doesn’t empty its self but if you want that you prob need to buy a new one or from someone off marketplace. Honestly emptying the bin yourself after it’s done takes 30 seconds :)

MOST DURABLE? Alright then, new robot vacuums wont really do that. I know i will get downvoted for this but if you dont need self emptying, mopping etc, just pick up a second hand Roomba 500 series, they are known for being extremely reliable. Some 600 series like 675 or 690 are 500 series with wifi and some minor improvements, they are pretty common, cheap and easy to repair. Want mapping? Roomba 980 or any 900 series roomba (do note that roomba 900 series doesnt have keep out zones). 900 series are known for being reliable and just good robots over all. Why did i recommend these? Because newer robor vacuums these days have too many moving parts, and they work best at homes. While the roombas i listed above were also made for homes, old irobot was different than current day irobot, more reliable and roombas are pretty modular, you can take then apart and drop in a replacement part easily. They can work decently in commercial environments, especially 500/600 series. This subreddit is mostly "against" irobot, so i'll say this, i am not paid by irobot, i am a 14 year old on the internet who is passionate about this stuff :)) Edit: Check out Makita's industrial robot vacuums as well. Way more suited to commercial use.

The basic 600 series Roombas don't have much to go wrong, and there are OEM and generic parts available all over the Internet. I'm not sure about high-end models, but the basic ones have been made for years and have excellent support

If you are into servers and self-hosting, Valetudo is an option. It's a self-hosted replacement for some robot vacuums' cloud services I also don't think the Roomba 600 series need cloud features. They use random navigation

You're going to want a basic Roborock S5 or a Roomba 500 or 600 series. Clean up the room as best you can and set the robot in the room and press clean and shut the door. The Roombas have virtual walls which you can use to fence off areas of the room. The Roombas IMHO are the preferred robots as they clean better, and are easier to maintain. If you buy a used Roborock, you'll need to be prepared to do a [teardown](https://www.instructables.com/Roborock-S5-Disassembly-for-Cleaning-Troubleshooti/) [cleaning](https://www.instructables.com/A-Roborock-S5Max-Rescue/), and that will be over whelming for most people, It doesn't require anything fancy for tools so most people can do it if they can get over the complexity. This is how we run things here. We are old people trying to raise 3 active (10, 8, and 7 YO) kids. The robots do help,

Go out on Ebay or your local thrift store and pick up old 500 or 600 series Roombas for parts. They usually just need a new battery. Be sure the charger comes with them. The older Roombas are superb cleaners and very durable. This is what we mostly use at our house along with several iRobot Scoobas for the mopping.

Pull it out once a month and put it through its paces and keep the battery charged. Pull the charged battery and store it separate from the robot. This way, your robot will be ready to go to work when you need it.

If it's just one room, get one of the old random bounce around Roombas with the bristle roller. 500 or 600 series. They're great at picking up litter and combing embedded pet hair out of carpet. I have a 692 I keep just for that. They're also super cheap because everyone wants the self-emptying models now. I see the older ones pretty often at thrift stores and Facebook Marketplace for under $30.