iRobot - i7

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.

I disagree.. i have a roomba I7 and the brush design is far superior to toborocks.. Ya, hair neatly rolls up at the edges.. That is what it is supposed to do

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.

HI! I purchased my first robot (a roomba i7) in 2020. Since then, I've literally begun testing them for a living. The difference between 2020 and now is just absurd, and I mean that in every way. The difference between two years ago and now is fantastic. 1. Navigation- almost all robots now use LiDAR and some use LiDAR and AI assisted cameras. They map a room within seconds, and can tell what kind of surface is on the floor, where furniture is. The LiDAR makes obstacle recognition and avoidance a whole new ball game. 2. Extending sweeps and mops- You likely had a static mop pad and sweep. But now, they are on extending arms, and can reach under stoves, up to walls, and around spaces the robot can't fit. 3. Towers clean the mop- they sterilize, they auto dispense detergent, they can be piped directly to your water line. They're also modern and in some cases, beautiful. 4. The apps have better features, like remote control, pin and go, voice recognition, and a ton more map controls. 5. Roller design has improved 100x. Split rollers, rollers with razor cutters.... hair just isn't the issue it used to be. it's just not the same. Invest.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I haven't reset my i7 back up since they changed the damned software app. I've been happy with the hardware (enough to buy a second) but the software with its frequent inability to stay connected and constant shitty advertising has defeated me.

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.

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)

About a month ago I bought one of the new 705 models. I was excited to try the new Roomba’s because of the addition of LiDAR and an “apparent” over 100x suction than the previous Roomba I had. I didn’t have it more than 3 days before it went back to the store. My older i7 has stared having issues on carpet, leaving behind trails of cat hair it just smeared around the floor instead of picking it up. When I upgraded I thought that the new one would at least be a bit better, but nope! It did the exact same thing but I paid 900$ more dollars for the displeasure. The initial set up was painful, it got suck on the software update screen even tho the robot updated fine. It made me wait there 2 hours like that before I finally just reopened the app and it decided to work. Initial mapping run went fine and I was able to refine the set up. However I noticed the robot would go out to clean and it would go to the rooms I wanted but it would never complete job. It would return to dock to charge only to about 30% then head out and repeat until I cancelled it manually, sometimes it would show 5-6 hour jobs when nobody was home to stop it. This thing had way too many issues for being so expensive! I just returned it and that was that, won’t buy another one ever again. I also bot permanently banned from the iRobot subreddit for sharing my experience and saying Roomba’s use to be the high standard but have since fallen from grace.

I am considered (by my husband, who doesn’t care to clean at all) as a bit obsessed with cleaning. My 19 month old is a tornado barbarian who would only eat when he is running around. The food mess is a lot. It grinds me when i walk barefoot and i feel bits of stuff under my feet whatever it may be. We had the stupidest vacuum roomba i7 that was so loud when i am home i cannot hesr my toddler. It’s so inefficient i need to empty it after every use because the dust pocket smears dust at the base and my hair gets tangled in the rubber brush. Its so violent the side brush destroyed the interlocking foam mat which a large area of our house is covered in and when the robot is running around me it literally rams into my feet and cannot find its way again. It also has docking issues and when my toddler accidentally brushes his feet against that thing, it wakes up and needs to noisily redock again. I ended up having to clean the floor with a swiffer and handheld vacuum anyway because it cannot go on the foam mat, and it cannot navigate and gets stuck between chairs. I took advantage of Prime Day deals and got a MOVA p10 pro-ultra. (I am not paid by MOVA and i am not associated with them in any way). I am running my robot twice a day in a 900 sqm place. It is so quiet compared to the stupid roomba, it doesn’t ram into me or my toddler (it goes around us politely), and it self empties with no dust around the base. Never have docking issues, and have not seen any single hair and only need to spot clean when my son spills oily food or milk ever since. The best part is that it cleans the foam mat and avoids toys so so well!!!! Needless to say i want to throw the roomba and see it smash into pieces, that’s how much hate i have for that thing. And i wish i didn’t listen to my husband who said the roombs was “not that bad, you just don’t know how to use it”. Excuse me, this new MOVA is like 2000% better and it’s so easy to use, it mops, it dries itself, it self empties, and i barely have to clean my floors anymore! I realized this turned into a rant. Lol. I am just so happy and have nobody to share it with.

Used on ebay. If you have carpet, Roomba i7. If hard floors, Roborock S6.

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

I’m still rocking a roomba i7 I paid $400 for in 2019 or 2020. It does what it’s supposed to do and is pretty bomb proof. I want a nice new vaccum but I can’t bring myself to pay for one.

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 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

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

my i7 hasnt been working right since last year tbh

Been using roomba i7 for nearly 3 years now. Works well and does an excellent job in vacuuming. Needs filter replacement maybe once in 7-8 months. I don't recommend a robot mop. People in my family have it and it takes too long to mop and there isn't enough force on the mop head to remove sticky dirt

I've always heard bad things about Shark robot vacuums. We bought a secondhand Roomba i7 from Facebook and it was great at first but now I want to chuck it.

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.

My previous vacuum cleaner was a Roomba i7, and I never had any complaints about it. The robot was replaced by another brand, with a mopping function. I changed brands because iRobot has not been doing well since the failed takeover by Amazon, but the robot's reliability was good. I think that sometimes expectations are too high; a robot cleaner is an aid, not a total solution. Weekly maintenance also prevents many minor problems during operation.

I bought my i7 new in 2022 for €430, so the asking price is reasonable. I am very satisfied with my i7; it performs excellently. Keep in mind that the i7 does not use LIDAR to create its map, so it occasionally bumps into things.

I had the same combination and wasn't really that impressed with the Braava M6. If it works for you, I would recommend going back for an i7. The robot is solidly built and replacement parts are readily available. I switched to a Deebot X9 Pro Omni from Ecovacs and am extremely pleased with the improved mopping function compared to the Braava M6. I sold the i7 and Braava to family.

I have one basic Roomba that moves around randomly and another that supposedly maps the space. The cheaper, random movement robot is vastly superior in all ways.

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.

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

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