Combo J5+

I run a Roomba J5+ daily on the main floor where my GSD hangs out. And a couple times a week in the bedroom/hallway, because she sleeps in there with me. Been doing this for a little over a year, and it has helped a lot. It does pretty well at keeping up with the hair. One thing I've noticed though is that, at least in my house, the dust filter needs to be cleaned regularly, even with a self-emptying vacuum: every two or three runs or so. This is because dust (not hair) tends to cake onto it, and the self-empty feature doesn't pull that off very well. If it gets even partially blocked the vacuum won't pick up debris and dust as well. Fortunately the dust filter is easy to get at. Keeping the equipment clean will help it perform at its best. My house is probably dustier than many because I have carpet throughout, except in the obvious places (kitchen, bathrooms). There's no roller brush on most Roomba models; instead, it's a pair of rubber (or silicone?) rollers. Nothing gets stuck on them, though you may have to take them out and clean around the axles occasionally. Robot vacuums definitely help, but I don't think any robot vac is going to be completely hands-off, set it and forget it.

I bought a mid-to-upper model Roborock a little over a year ago, after having tried my daughter's (somewhat old) Roomba. I ended up returning it because it did stupid stuff like drop its rollers out when it went over a floor vent. (??!?) And because after I ran it and found very little in its bin, I ran my daughter's six-year-old Roomba and it sucked up a LOT of hair. Maybe the Roborock I got was a lemon, since I'm hearing that other people think it does just fine. I loved its app - iRobot's app is not very user-friendly. But the goal is cleaning, not playing with an app, so I got a Roomba J5. Good cleaning. Added a J7 later on because I didn't want to tote the J5 to different levels of the house. I'd say the J5 is smarter than the J7, for some strange reason. J7 gets stuck at the top of a "cliff" (stairs) from time to time, and the J5 never did. Maybe the J7's camera is less capable. Heads up on Roombas: they require enough ambient light for their cameras to work. They're not into LiDAR navigation, which would allow them to do their job at night with all the lights off. Just in case that makes a difference to you. I haven't had a chance to personally compare performance between the i and the J models of Roombas, but went with J because I wanted the greater suction power that is advertised to come with them. Edit - PS re blow dryer for undercoat. I've found the best tool for GSD undercoat issues is an old-fashioned, low-tech undercoat rake. My present girl has a pretty short coat for a GSD, but wow that rake can really pull it; and she feels the difference. Something like this: [Amazon undercoat rake link](https://www.amazon.com/Coastal-Pet-Undercoat-Designed-Undercoats/dp/B0083TSC64/ref=sr_1_9?crid=J4X43SSVX9PI&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.2GaHbloLLXTdo2hjKm_oN6gb_cbIKNYd7UFh9e43Q6ogcCWKCY9vL4O1MdIff7VBUMbvZMfahjPK6CoBQH3wjXji1drTidQ5tYydwaw2GdFLCqMkElUijPLNAu_O0rPCbMTNI5Xa4gg137VrHl2elQH8Qf6DdGDMkdfOpMBbIK77IK_kRb98iO-COLDsb9L-Rgzc0HW1fcDDjEBQjylfrqXGAkNGH1i7I70Pypgpt87dqHzSUkzm2Smkw1zGclbo2pqp8XlX7lXGnZSkMFT0cVRtxg7XGTAOOWV3ID_VMMs.jA93VyAAfUBWBT-szQymuBvblJC8wB55Q0eCgTBf6js&dib_tag=se&keywords=dog%2Bundercoat%2Brake&qid=1751840435&sprefix=dog%2Bundercoat%2Caps%2C149&sr=8-9&th=1) No need to spend a fortune.

My j5+ is really good with pet hair. No clogs or tangles. Long human hair does get stored inside the rollers, but will eventually wrap around the rollers My Ecovacs x1 and roborock s6 have a bristle brush that pet hair gets stuck in

I'm really happy with my j5+. Every run is fine and I have ~450 hours on it. It's navigation sucks compared to my lidar bots and it can't run in the dark. It also seems like the older combos are less reliable. With that being said it vacuums well and has good obstacle avoidance. It can handle insane messes thanks to the bin sensors

Obstacle detection/avoidance of the j series is good, it's the navigation that is problematic (hard hitting walls/furniture, poor coverage, and getting lost) I feel that this model needs better anti-tangling tech to be more competitive

My Roomba did that once, but I'm 70 and once it saw me naked in the shower it immediately turned around and fled then caught on fire 🔥

I can't comment between Roborock and Roomba I can only say that my Roomba J5+ works quite well for vacuuming except on a very very thick (quasi Shag) carpet. I question whether they're going to go out of business especially when they're such a huge market for replacement parts bags etc I'm assuming they license other companies to provide some of those parts aftermarket. I don't use mine to mop so I can't comment on that. I found once I did the initial setup including mapping both floors of my house It works very well except on occasion it has a problem docking and emptying itself But that's usually resolved quickly. When there is some kind of problem I find the information provided to the app is generally pretty helpful. About the only thing that's missing it would be nice to show its current location on the map within the app. But for most people that's not a problem since you can just track it down yourself in your house. If I recall it beeps to help you locate it if it gets stuck but that's been an extremely rare occurrence.

Just avoid Roombas. They're really loud so you can't really run them when you're in the house whereas Eufy and Roborock are very quiet (maybe not all of them just the ones I've seen). Roombas have also fallen behind on software, I spent €900 to replace my 4 year old 960 with a J9+ Combo, it's constantly struggling to dock, if you take if off the dock yourself it loses the mop function unless you restart it literally 10 times and it's forever getting stuck or ignoring the saved map. Now I have the clean bag full error after two months when the previous bag lasted me a full year. I got a J5+ for upstairs and it's equally bad. Can never find the dock or will do a random 10 minute clean before going back. My 960 wasn't perfect but when I bought it, it was one of the only decent ones on the market as they hadn't taken off at the time and it was also on the US market for like 4 years by the time I bought it.

It's fine, mine j5 is 3 years in and still going. It is pretty good at cleaning the apartment, it was still a life changer. I bought cheap replacement parts and filters off Amazon and never looked back. 

I have 7 long haired dogs and a Dreame L40S Ultra CE that I've had about 45 days now. I'm on all laminate flooring. Compared to my irobot J5 and the Roborock QRevo, this current vac gets clogged and hair wrapped less than those 2. However, I do pull the roller brush every other day and clean off the ends. My old Narwal T10 is my favorite robot mop, and is still in use. It's lacking some app features but I'm sure those have been improved for the flow. The flow was out of my price range, but it looked super promising for being resistant to hair tangle. One thing to remember when setting up is to divide rooms further than normal to get the robot to go back to base and empty the onboard bin. That will keep you from having clog issues.

The Ecovac Deebot T50 Pro is awesome. I just got in a week ago. I ditched my iRobot Roomba J5 which sucked. Always got lost and stuck. The T50 has honestly been so much better and was only $650. I have 2 other iRobots that I’ll get rid of because they’re all god awful.

I’d highly recommend the Ecovacs T50 pro. I just got that after having a Roomba J5 which was awful. The Ecovacs does an absolute awesome job mopping and vacuums pretty well too. It has 2 spinning mopping pads which extend to get corners and close to the walls. The mapping is really good and it always finds its way back to the base, which the roomba never did.