Roomba 770

I still have my Roomba 770 that I bought at a Best Buy in 2012 for $450 🤣. It lives in the basement now, and I go down there every now and then to empty it and blow out the filters. I run a SwitchBot mop/vacuum on the main level now. I don't really need a robot vacuum down in the basement, but as long as it still works that's what I'll use it for. I've replaced the battery pack a couple of times since I bought it, and when this one wears out (or something else stops working) I'll send it off to recycling. At the time I bought it, it was the way to go. But by modern standards it's extremely primitive.

First bought iRobot 770 in 2015, worked great but died in 2020. Replaced it with roomba 692 hoping for an upgraded experience…so much disappointment; stuck constantly, poor performance, loud , etc. now it is just decorative. Not sure I’ll ever get another robot vacuum.

Strange, I have a J7+, i5+, 985, 980, 770, 694 and Discovery that all perform correctly and other then standard maintenance and replacing consumable parts have been running without issue since their initial launch year purchase. I’m about to try out my new 505 combo this week.

I have an older roomba(700 series something or other, 12 years old now I think). It also has a documented interface that you can connect to whatever you want(such as an esp32 board) and control it yourself It may not have fancy doodads but it’s built to last, easy to disassemble, has ready parts availability even this late, and doesn’t depend on any cloud bs. If this dies I’ll probably try to repair it first. Failing that I will try to buy a used one. Because like op said, if it depends on the cloud it’s not yours

Your experience must be with the cheaper Roombas. I bought a $500 Roomba and base and my experience was the same as yours. Hot trash. Sent it back and even that was a bad experience, they never refunded me and I had to do a credit card charge back. But then I bought a $250 roborock + base. Wayyyyyy better. Never have to tinker with it. Completes our kitchen, dining room, main bedroom, and living room in 35-40 minutes. Does multiple floors/mapping. Vac and mop. A lot quieter than the Roomba. Very clean floors, like I'm blown away at how well it vacs, the Roomba left little crumb piles  everywhere. I have not manually vacuumed anything since I've bought it other than to spot clean when my dogs destroy a toy or something. Overall there is a reason irobot is going out of business. Roombas are overpriced and perform poorly. But not all robot vacuums are created equal and other brands are both cheaper and higher in quality.

I bought one a while ago for the novelty since it was a black Friday sale (and I suck at keeping a schedule to vacum. Didn’t have mapping but I thought it would be smart enough to still navigate just fine. Instead it just rams into things then randomly changes direction. Meanwhile, a coworker bought some  bootleg that cost a fraction of the price and it runs flawlessly. All the extra shit that roomba charges for in it’s higher tier models are included for free.  Never buying another roomba product. They’ve clearly just been coasting off of brand recognition.

We named our Roomba Harry. We have a lab/beagle mix.