iRobot - i7

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.

I have a love/hate relationship with my roomba i7. It's 80% hate, but I've had it for 3.5 years so there must be something to it. My dog sheds a lot, and if cleaning were entirely on me I'd have to sweep/vacuum 2+ times a week to keep things looking decent. That said, my roomba is a goddamned idiot and I want to strangle whatever team programmed it. It manages to get into the tightest of spaces, but can't find its way back out. It seems to not understand the concept of rugs and mistakes then for dirt on a hardwood floor. It will then try to deep clean the edges of the rug for 30 minutes. Sometimes, it decides that its usual 1.5 hours to clean half my house isn't enough and will go for 6+ hours. It will frequently violate its no go zones and either get stuck or move shit around. It always seems to know where I am and will do whatever to annoy me. In the kitchen? It insists on cleaning beneath my feet. Watching TV? Better spend an hour on that rug right below the TV. Reading? Better get stuck behind the chair. It feels malicious at this point and I deeply fantasize about pulling an officespace on it.

Both not in your selection but I found out my new Roborock Qrevo Master is more silent compared to my older iRobot I7 (which got a halve-retirement: only two smaller rooms upstairs so I don’t have to move the robots anymore). Besides the finer tuning of suction power it’s also less noisy around brakes between the tiles. Not sure if the wheels are more elastic or they have better coil springs… but it’s even possible to draw lines on the map where there gaps between eg rooms are, so it drives slower / more careful / less noisy over those.

As a long time irobot user, i will not buy another. There are several software problems that have been well known for years but not addressed. I have an i7 and braava jet. The i7 regularly wakes up at night, plays a small tune (and wakes me up). No faults, no alarms, it just does it. It is impossible to turn off this action .. many people complain. It would seem so simple to disable this from happening at night in the software. Irobots are not as gentle on your furniture as the competitors. Both of my robots regularly seem to “discover” new spaces to clean that do not exist. This screws up the mapping. It would be so easy to fix this in software by giving the user the ability to “lockdown” the current map to prevent this behavior. I braava jet tends to backup at high speed until it hits something. When it hits something (like a wall or furniture), the lid to the braava pops open .. When this happens everything stops until I intervene and close the braava lid. This is obviously a hardware issue. I ended up taking it apart and removing the spring that makes it pop up. I use the braava jet recommended cleaning fluid. After running an hour my Braava jet wheels are wet from the cleaning fluid. This makes the wheels slippery … and then the Braava jet is unable to climb the 1/16 inch plastic pad on the brrava home base without my assistance Irobots software is frozen in time. The hardware is dated. Look elsewhere.

If you can find someone selling a refurbished model or an old display model I reckon go for it! I bought mine as a refurbished model from a reputable online company and it’s held up well in the year I’ve had it! I think it used to be a display model that stores would do lives demo with, so it didn’t see lots of heavy use before I got it. I’m in Australia and bought it for $300, and paid $50 for an extra years warranty (on top of the included year). I have the i7 model, which retailed new for over 1k, near the $1300 mark I think?? I did choose the option to pay $50 less for the model with some scratches on it, and tbh it only had like two when it arrived so it was well worth it. They replaced all the removable parts like the filters, rollers and little brushes too, so it was a solid deal! I probably need to replace the rollers in mine soon, but it can wait for now and it’s cheap enough to get fitting parts from Amazon.

I had a i7 that lasted about 5 years. I had replaced battery, both wheels, completely disassembled and cleaned it out 4 or 5 times, but it was still chugging along after daily use for over 4 years. The dock was actually the weakest point...the contacts where it charges the roomba wore down and it stopped making good contact. I was able to get some conductive tape and kinda fix it for quite a while. We replaced it because it started getting really bad about getting stuck, failing to re-dock, just generally failing and being more of a pain as it got older. I suspect some sensor failed internally but there was no way to tell. I replaced it with a roborock and it is so far doing a much better job (due to lidar sensors and newer tech. Roomba was still mostly just bumping around and a few infrared scanners)

Agreed. We had the i7’s for each floor (3) and none of them lasted more than 2 years. All required significant maintenance with almost no customer support. iRobots are absolute junk. We’ve had several years of trouble-free vacuuming with Eufy and Shark.

I used to have the i7 and felt the same. It broke a few months ago and i was done with Roomba’s bullshit and got a Roborock - it’s a night and day better productive. Incredibly quiet, doesn’t get stuck and the parts last 5x as long as Roomba’s. And it’s like half the price

I have an i7 combined with a Braava M6, and I'm satisfied with it. The predecessor was made by Ecovacs, and after a year, I incurred significant costs with it (which I did not anticipate). I have not regretted buying the iRobot Roomba and Braava; the devices have worked well for almost three years with few problems or costs. The i7 has cleaned for almost 500 hours, with only one exceptional cost: a new front swivel wheel because the previous one was worn out.

I8+ WAS GREAT FOR ME!

I get around ~~100~~ 10 hours from a roomba i7 or 980 before I need to do a deep clean and detangle. I measured it out with the home automation so it stops automatically starting them at that point, at which they can start getting hair into the gearbox or expand so the plastic breaks...

My first robot was the i7, bought in 2020 (with a matching Braava). I thought, at the time, this was the best of what robots had to offer. It wasn't until I started testing robots that I understood just how poorly iRobot was adapting to the changes in the industry. I recently tested the 205, part of the new lineup. I thought it performed abysmally. [https://lifehacker.com/tech/roomba-205-dustcompactor-combo-review](https://lifehacker.com/tech/roomba-205-dustcompactor-combo-review) The app kept crashing (I tried on a few platforms) and it wasn't my only complaint. In terms of apps, it depends on whether you're striving for simplicity or features. I enjoy little talked about features like Pin and Go and Remote Control, and kind of hate in app adverts. So Roborock is one of my favs. But Ecovacs and Dreame robots have a decent app as well. I would never, ever overlook Switchbot, btw.

This is the worst robot vacuume I've ever owned. It gets stuck on every single thing and finds ANYTHING it can to suck up and get disabled. It hasn't run a full cycle in months because of that. We have hardwood floors and rugs, and this robot seems to "sweep" all of the dirt and cat hair to the edges of all of the rugs for us to have to go and sweep up manually later. Obstacle avoidance is a joke. My last robot was a roomba i7 and it was great. We only upgraded because the mapping was better on this one, it had "better obstacle avoidance" (what a joke) and it could mop without intervention as well as cleaning the mop head on its own. The surface level stuff looks really good (like the maps and mopping stuff), but that stuff is worthless if it can't even do a single vacuume cycle without getting stuck. If I could return this, I would. I hate it. Not to mention the price...... sigh. Maybe I just got a bad one, but this thing is terrible, and I can't understand how all of these reviews look so good all the time. I can't wait to get something different. Let me know if you have any questions.

We have a Roomba i7+, so I can’t speak to the devices with a mopping feature. I think ours is just okay. We have a German Shepherd so I’m constantly cleaning tanged hair from the brushes. It does okay on our Ruggables but sometimes gets caught on the edges or leaves big tufts of hair behind. I think if I ran it daily, we might avoid it leaving the tufts behind, but I’m honestly tired of cleaning the brushes with a scissors 😩

Lidar is less useful for my use case. Or more specifically, some of my cats. Two of them will decide to lay in the way and the lidar kind of goes over them. One of them will start digging out all of his favorite toys and the Roborock will eat them. Having better luck with the camera models like the Roomba i7 most of the time. They'll still eat feather toys but they've been good at avoiding springs and puff balls.

I'll start by giving my past experience with robot vacuums. I first purchased an entry level Roomba about 6 years ago. After finding a lot of frustrations with the random cleaning patterns I decided to upgrade to the Roomba i7+ and M6 mop. The Roomba i7+ is a great machine and enjoyed it's use over the past 3 years unfortunately the M6 mop is and has always been a completely terrible machine. Now my first impression of the S8 max is amazing. It arrived very well packaged and was easily set up. The first mapping was very quick but did miss a few things, this was sorted by allowing the machine to do a complete clean of the apartment. This will improve with a few more runs :) Compared to both iRobot machines the roborock is a much quieter and performs a much deeper clean. I found the auto cleaning of the mop pad between rooms to be very fast and efficient. Once the robot had completed a complete mopping session the pad was completely washed and dried to the touch, only time will tell how is holds up. My apartment is mainly made up of hardwood floors with a few rugs so I'm very much looking forward to having clean floors and not being asked to fill the tank every other day. I will edit this small review if any problems arise over the next few days of running the robot but so far I'm very happy with the purchase and it's incredible how far these machines have come.

You have definitely picked a very good model to start in the robot world.  I've had mine now for 1 week and it's leaps and bounds better than i7+. My favourite function is the washing of mopping pad between rooms. I've checked the dirty water tank and very surprised with the amount of dirty removed. 

This is the main downside for me as well. I will probably sell them to a friend for 100 or 200 just to get them into the robot game 😂 I was surprised how well it avoided cables I forgot to move but my apartment is very much robot safe these days because of the i7+ With the i7+ I had set no go zones but the S8 dealt with these areas with no problems without the use of no go zones. As for the mopping feature it doesn't spray water like the M6. It has nozzles on the underside which keeps the mop wet so danger of the nozzles becoming blocked plus the robot empties itself between uses.  You can also select how often the robot will return to the base and carry out a clean of the mopping pad meaning floors get a deeper clean.  I'd love to hear your thoughts when it arrives 

Anecdotally, I got about 8 months out of a roomba before the thing went feral. It would try to get out the backdoor and down the deck stairs. After awhile it would just come out of the dock, spin, and go back home. Support was useless and felt more like a scheme to get me to buy more bits and add ons. I have friends who have told me the same.

It was a Roomba i7+ that I bought in the summer of 2022.

Yeah maybe pets has something to do with it. We have dogs that shed a lot. It just got to the point where I was doing more babysitting of the vacuum than actual vacuuming.

I can't tell you what the best is, but there are numerous testing videos on YouTube that pit the vacuums against each other in various categories. What I can tell you is our Roomba i7 did quite well with two domestic shorthairs in our old carpeted apartment as long as we had it running three times a week. It isn't a substitute for an initial deep clean with a regular vacuum or service, nor will it replace quarterly or so deep cleans, but it maintained very well. You will likely have to clean the rollers once a month or so, but that was more due to my SO's hair than the cats. Now we still have the i7, but with hard floors and we've added two huskies, one being a wooly. It still does very well with the cat and dog hair, but still requires cleaning of the rollers from my SO's hair. We don't get to run it as often as before since we now both work from home and that would get annoying, but we are playing with ideas. Also looking to add a Braava to the situation to complement the Roomba. Generally speaking I clean the Roomba every time the bag in the base is full. Way better than vacuuming manually all the time. Occasional deep cleans are handled by a Dyson cordless that we (thankfully) got for free.

I have two huskies and two domestic shorthairs, and my Roomba i7+ does a good job. I do have to clean the rollers every month or so, but aside from that it works well.

I had a Roomba (i7+) and now have a Roborock (s7 Max Ultra) and I'll say that the Roborock appears to vacuum better, but the Roomba was **WAY** better at navigation and not getting stuck in fun and interesting places every day.

Yes worth imo. I just went from a Roomba i7+ to a Roborock Qrevo Curv. Night and day difference compared to clean. Also the stations keeping the mop pad sanitary was the thing that made me finally dive in, and I’m glad I did. I enjoy not having to vacuum my main floor, and it’s given me a hour or two back in my day.

I currently have an Roomba i7+. It works fine-ish, but has some problems with navigation in my house, and its getting old. We joke that it's going blind in its old age. (we recently gave it a deep cleaning; and that seems to have helped some, but I worry it won't last) So I'm looking for a new robot vacuum. I'm not attached to iRobot, and would be happy to switch brands. The biggest thing is that *I don't need a mop*. I have nothing I want the robot to mop, and the area to clean has a lot of carpet I'd worry about getting wet. To be clear, this isn't about doubting they work or any technical concerns. I just have no need for mopping on a robot, and I won't be enabling it or using it, to the extent that's possible. I've noticed that nearly all the newer models have some sort of mopping. Is it possible to completely disable that or will most models get angry at me for being on floors that it think it can mop and not mopping? Are some of them just glorified Swiffers? I value navigation, app/smart home integration (Home Assistant) and how quiet it is, probably in that order.

I have limited experience, but my Roomba usually empties its internal bin into the dock at least once per run, sometimes twice. Maybe the auto empty version has a smaller internal bin? I wouldn't want to have to empty it manually.

I have the i7 still I’m so far behind haha

Interesting to me because I also have an i7+ and an M6 mop. I’ve had these since 2019, but have a cleaning person come over once a week. The robots usually just keep it tidy in between since I have pets. I ordered the s8 maxv ultra yesterday so it should be here Monday or Tuesday. I honestly didn’t do very much research. I basically just said give me the best Roborock you’ve got and hit order. Hoping that it’s not a mistake and I can actually see a real benefit to switching. The main things I liked were the heated mopping, the longer battery life so it could actually clean the entire apartment without having to charge half way through, the little arm that supposedly gets corners, and the LiDAR system to (hopefully) not eat cables and avoid some furniture. The m6 was also a pain because I would have to wet the mop, fill the tank, let it do it’s thing, then wash the mop pad, take out the tank, etc. I’m hoping that I can leave the water in the Roborock for more than a day without it clogging the nozzle like I experienced with the m6. I laughed when I read that it can go find my pet. Will try this out and see if it really can next week. I’ve also got hardwood everywhere except for a couple of short pile rugs and a single room that is 90% carpet. Hoping that the mop raises up enough and doesn’t get it wet when traveling. If I can set up an automation to have it vacuum every couple of days without needing to worry if every single thing is picked up off the floor then I’ll be extremely happy. Only downside is that the i7+ and m6 are basically worthless. I may be able to get 300 for both if I’m lucky, but it’ll be a hard sell.

I have an I7 Roomba and it runs just fine for my GSD. If I had 2 or more dogs I would probably have at least 2 and run them daily and twice daily for the shoulder seasons when they shed the most.

I am trying to look for one too we have a Roomba i7+ and it is not good with our 3 goldens. The only one I hear to get almost 0% tangle rate is the robrtock qrevo curv and it's 1300$ im waiting for it to go down in price

We have 6 fur animals and 3 long-hair people here. My Narwal Z Ultra has been running daily for 11 days now. This morning it ran over some paper business cards and threw a "roller tangled error" because two cards got stuck in the roller. It managed to take itself to the base to dry and decontaminate the mop pads. Why am I recommending this unit? Because when I opened the roller to remove the business cards, it was completely devoid of any tangles. No fur, no hair, no cords. The roller was clean, and just the business cards were stuck in there. I have: Two Roomba i7+ units (also great with hair, but not as good as the Z, since long hair makes its way to the axel on the Roombas, where as the Z sucks it into the chamber) The OG Freo with anti-tangle roller (not as good as the Roombas at vacuuming or tangle-free operation) I also have a shark regular vacuum, and was considering their robovac before I got the Z but the Z is fantastic at both carpet and mopping. If you don't need a mop, the Roomba J7+ or S9 would be good. Not sure about newer ones. The roborocks are also very good. Check out the VacuumWars YouTube channel if you want to make comparisons

I have the freo Z now. I love everything about it. My second Freo unit, started off with the original Freo, upgraded when it got an auto empty dust bin. Also has two Roomba i7+ units and a braava M6. Love the roomba's too but the Freo Z is hands down just an overall better unit in every way. I also have the automatic water exchange unit for it. Absolute game changer.

THIS. I'm not looking for a robot mop because I leave my floors filthy with caked on mud and dried grape juice and coffee spills. I want one because I have dark floors (never again) and cats...I don't wear shoes inside my condo, nor do I allow anyone else to; my i7 Roomba is great for getting the floors free of dust and light debris; now I want those occasional kitty foot prints mopped away by something that mops the floors just as well as my Swiffer Wet Jet does without me having to hunch over 1,300 sq feet twice/week. There seems to be two groups of people who shop for these machines: folks who think they are competing in Robot Wars and folks who just want to make their lives a bit easier lol

I have a Roomba i7+ purchased in 2021. We run it 6 days a week for our shepherd mix who sheds like mad. As others have said, it's not great on the rugs but the daily run helps keep it manageable, and then we use our upright once every 2-4 weeks for rugs and baseboards and a deeper clean. Imo having the base where it can go back and empty itself is key. On its usual run of our main floor (maybe 800sf) it will empty itself mid-run and then finish. I do perform regular maintenance every month or two to make sure the brushes and rollers aren't clogged. I also clean the sensors and filter maybe once every 6 months or so. Still going strong!

The comment about robot vacuums only being for small places is probably based on the old random pattern robots. Most robots now map and do well in large houses. It sounds like most mapping robots would work for you, since you don't want mopping, have hardfloors, and no pets. So anything with lidar (prefered) or vslam navigation. Obstacle avoidance might be a useful feature for cords, shoes, toys etc. left on the ground. It might be worth looking into a Eufy L60, iRobot Roomba j series, Roborock Q series, or shark. I'm biased because I have three robot vacs (Roborock S6, Ecovacs x1 omni, and iRobot Roomba j5+ combo) and my roomba j5+ is the only one that is reliable and working at the moment

iRobot is likely the longest lasting brand, there are many accounts of people having these bots for so many years and well over 1k hours.. iRobot are still providing parts for 12+ year old bots. Where is the planned obsolescence there?

The combo 10 max (almost the same obstacle avoidance as all other modern/j-series iRobot models) initially scored in vacuum war's top ten for obstacle avoidance. It's also the only brand that guarantees avoidance of pet poo. Battery is debatable, but it's also a non-issue for most because of charge and resume

I have three robots (Ecovacs x1 omni, Roomba j5+, and a Roborock S6 Pure). When my Roborock had constant issues I looked into durability and longevity as the number 1 criteria and found that almost all comments from owners with high hours (maybe 800+) were either roborock S5s, old random pattern roombas, and i series roombas. I'd recommend an i7+ or j series Roomba (for obstacle avoidance and more reliable dock). They are well suited to hair and heavy use because of the dual rollers, bin design (reduces filter clogging/motor strain), bin sensor for auto empty and dirt detect, modular design (fast replacement parts), part availablity, and reports from owners. VacuumWars also found that cleaning performance of 2.5 inch pet sized hair on carpet was 100%, unlike many modern flagship models. My j5+ was been flawless for 270 hours so far. The only issues I have seen online relate to cleaning of bin sensors and charging contacts. Hopefully this helps

All have pretty poor customer service. I have three bots (Ecovacs, Roborock, and iRobot) and recommend the roomba i or j series for vacuum only (especially if you have carpet). It's designed for longevity rather than features. My j5+ has been reliable and kept up with 2 shedding dogs (long hair border collie cross) and two people

I have a Roomba i7+, I got used a few years ago. When I got it, it seemed like it was in good condition. But there were problems like the wheels spinning once it was the base, for eternity. And the rubber brushes would just spin up my Bernese mountain dogs hair into little ropes on our ruggable. The rotating brush that pulls things to the brushes spins so slow it’s not effective. This is true before and after cleaning dog hair out, which is annoying as is. My Dyson doesn’t need to be pulled apart to get hair out of it. So I’m not 100% against the brand if they’ve fixed these issues, but I’m not interested in more of the same with a new model. Open to other models as well, budget up to $1K, although preferably less. Please comment both things you like and don’t like about yours if you recommend one!

Yeah I really tried all the things that customer support suggested, replaced the rollers and brushes, etc and it’s the same. I was watching some vacuum wars videos and I guess the hair entanglement stuff is a problem for all but very few exception vacuums Non stick tape is a good idea! Although I still have the problem of general not cleaning that well

We have a Roomba i7, do not recommend. It needs to be emptied multiple times per run during shedding season, gets lost and it randomly decides to go out of it's way to attack the source of the fur. My girl didn't appreciate her tail being sucked up.

All the i and j7 and below series vacuums have the same motor. Only the s9 and j9 have more suction, the s9 is actually better suction. On hard floors any of them will pick up the hair. The s9 will do very well on the area rugs. Not worth buying the combo models.

The I and J series clean so much better than the 2 Essential. Even the lowest priced I series is well worth the extra money.