iRobot - Roomba Combo j5

The j5s are great for pet hair, but unfortunately they’re dumb as rocks and lock themselves in rooms all the time. They’ve now been replaced by Roborocks and confined to the basement.

I bought Roomba j5 vacuum/mop combo few years ago. It’s not bad and does good job. The reason I love it’s the only one that will get under the beds and couches. I have hardwood floors, no other vacuumed is that low. It keeps my floors clean. It’s easy to get part off the app. The only thing I don’t like is that it disconnects from the wifi ogten

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.

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.

I have the Roomba J5 and it works wonders. We have a husky, a husky mix, and a long haired supermutt and it's a trooper

I have booth! I have the roomba for my office and the shark for my home. I’m happy w my shark. Have had it for about half a year at this point and it runs daily because I have a cat. It’s not as smart as they advertised it as. It won’t detect the cat nor my legs 😂 most of the time. But it will detect furnitures. The cat isn’t a fan of it so he doesn’t go around it when running but because it doesn’t detect him I don’t run it when I’m not home. It’s fairly a good vacuum. But the app is stupid. The roomba is good as well we have had it for around 2 years at this point. We have the j5 not j5+. The shark dose a better job of noticing obstacles. It dose a nice job of cleaning the office. But we have to make sure there is no cable on the ground. I say go w shark. The shark has a better tracking futures tho the app sucks dick.

Thankfully my cat hasn’t had an accident yet but I have a feeling the shark won’t detect the poop. simply because if my cats toys are smaller than a certain size it usually tries to run them over so I’m not sure. That being said it’s really good at picking up cat litter and cat hair. My girl is sensitive on that and we hardly notice any hair on the ground. Remember roomba has a camera system and shark has lidar. Lidar is good at detecting the house layout, mostly big enough objects and furnitures. Camera is good at detecting obstacles like poop

I see so many positive reviews of it. I want the e25, but I really want it to go on sale before pulling the trigger to upgrade from my roomba j5

I got that exact one a while back. Fyi it is not the self emptying base version, no matter what the description says 😭

That's correct for the self-emptying version. However, they simply did not ship the self emptying version. :( (If you get the self empty version, I'll be livid)

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.

Roomba’s aren’t terrible, just other companies have surpassed them. iRobot has a big 2024 with a lot of change in the c-suite and mid levels which should change the trajectory. The j series aren’t a bad robot there are just better ones out there. I say keep the j5 because iRobot has always made robots that are easy to fix and/or replace things. Their customer service team is usually pretty good as well. I admit, I am biased. I’ve had Roombas since 2017. Sure, there’s a glitch or a bad software update every now and then but I love having something to do the light cleaning so I only have to vacuum with my fill size vac one or two times a month.

Combos from iRobot aren’t that great, to be honest. The i5 as a vacuum isn’t bad at all. It’s the lower mid level but no less cleans decent. J5 and j7 are great mid to middle upper levels. I have limited experience with a combo and I wasn’t a fan. The vacuuming aspect of things is great.

Agreed, I had to have my j9+ replaced once because of several issues and the replacement dock they sent me doesn’t even work! The J5 has been great though, these combo robots are not very good IMO

Is there a robot vacuum that doesn’t use a camera but still maps? I got the iRobot roomba combo j5+ with smart mapping and a mop. I loved it but my partner hates that it has a camera

Roomba j5 has POOP promise: for the first year of ownership: if the Roomba does not avoid poop and goes on top of it iRobot would replace it.

A roomba. We have a J5. You can run them every day with minimal effort, and they do a pretty good job, and then just go over once a week with your regular vacuum. We have tiles, and it does a great job. But this week, through a series of unusual events, I ended up using my roomba on medium pile carpet that is original to our late 90's home, and omfg the hair and dander is pulled up is insane. I'm disgusted. We vacuum it once a week with an upright bissel, but apparently, the roomba is so so so much better. For the couch, I have a handheld pet bissel and a reusable lint roller which work amazing. I have 2 blue heelers and a cat.

Hi, I live in a condo two floors. 2 bed 2 baths I recently got the Roomba J5 at first I was skeptical about it since some people have horrible experience with it. But I’m really happy with it, it works just the way I wanted it to. Now maybe because I have no kids and no pets only me and my spouse it’s probably more suitable for me. I just wanted it to maintain my floors cleans and that’s exactly what it’s doing. Hope my experience helps you decide 😊

Read the reviews. I had a couple of Roombas that were very unreliable. A vacuum one and a mop one. Both broke after just a couple of months. I finally got a vacuum one on Amazon made by Eufy that got excellent reviews and it lasted for a couple of years until I moved and didn’t take it with me.

It is 100% worth it. We got it on a Labor day sale and we got the one that can "see" poop and avoid it so it doesn't track it everywhere. It is such a nice time saver. We run it three times a day and it really helps with upkeep. We still vacuum the carpets once a month with a regular vacuum cleaner (oxy clean pet powder that lifts the dog hair and dirt) because the Roomba doesn't have the strongest sucking function in the world, but for dirt/hair maintenance it is wonderful.

must…..resist….robot vacuum. I got the Roomba like $8-900 combo mop/vac recently and am not too impressed with it for the retail value. I’m half tempted to try this one as it’s in my RFY, but I’m hoping someone else claims it as I don’t really need it 🤣

There’s actually a roomba that does both vacuuming and light mopping (think of it like roomba swiffer). It has a reservoir of the liquid at the charging station and a bag dispenser for the dust as well. I never felt older than when I got genuinely excited for a roomba like I would for a console when I was younger. That’s my “treat yourself” buy when I get my next bonus lol

iRobot already did that with their first generation iRobot Combo (R11xx). The Roomba Essential was also not made by iRobot. Now it seems none of them will be. I just don't understand the end game for iRobot. Are they just gonna be riding on the brand name from now on and slowly disappear into nothingness because why would OEM give 3rd party better tech and design than they use in their own robots? iRobot, as much as they've been weird and stubborn with some things, I still love their core design of robots since introduction of E series and later i. I loved how they ALL had identical main roller brushes, identical side brushes, identical filters, identical dust bins, identical almost everything. Not only it's cheaper for them to supply 1 type of each part, it's easier for users, for regular maintenance and repairs. I work in this part of the industry and I can't stress enough how many times customers/consumers have no clue what device they have, be it robot vacuum or a regular vacuum. If you just need to tell "I have a roomba" and that's all it's needed to know which part you supply. So many Chinese robots as well as ones from other well known brands like Electrolux, Philips and Rowenta have different parts for almost every model and it's soooooooooooo annoying.

I’ve had robot shark and roomba. I believe running them daily has prevented us from being buried in dog hair and 100% recommend a robot vacuum. My dogs are very housebroken and I’ve never had the poo every where situation.  Overall, I think the shark works a little better, but I think the roomba’s features and app are better. I just upgraded to the dual vacuum/mop roomba and it’s not perfect but I’m happy. I still have to real vacuum once a week as it doesn’t get all the hair all the time, but the literal basketball was of hair I pull out of the canister every few weeks tells me it’s working pretty damn good. 

We started with one iRobot, it worked great! Later decided on a brava (iRobot mop) and it worked amazingly! I was in my doctorate program and didn’t have time to clean the floors. We have two small dogs and five children. The floors are one thing I don’t have to worry about anymore. We recently moved and purchased two combo vacuum and mop, one is iRobot and the other is ecovacs. I like the ecovac more, it seems smarter, however they both do a great job. We have three stories so there are robot vacuum on each floor, they run every day, this keeps the stairs pretty clean and I vacuum the stairs once a week. Our original robot is eight years old and runs fine with daily use.

I have a Roomba and their mop version too. love them, been working well for two plus years with regular part replacement (filters, rollers etc).

Just gonna tell you, the mops work very very well. Not sure where you heard they don’t, but if you wanna if you insist on going vacuum only, I recommend iRobot. They are the best at vacuuming and have great customer support. I’d say j5, j7, j9, will all be great.

Oh ok, I can’t argue with that logic. If you have pets I’d suggest you go the extra mile and get the j9+ since it’s very good for pet hair. Regardless, you’ll love the j5.

YES. It is most definitely that bad. It’s bad on hard floors but god forbid you run it on a carpet. I have a video of it just plowing through fake dog poop on carpets. Edit: I have owned both the roomba j series and dreame l series, and both are so so much better.

Mine is named Robbie, I can’t keep the floor clear enough to use him. My goal for the weekend is to clear his path. Wish me luck!

Yeah, Roomba’s been coasting on name recognition for years. Hardware’s fine, but the software is way behind Dreame, Roborock, even Ecovacs. J series especially has dumb pathing issues. You’re not crazy though. Plenty of us jumped ship 😅

The IRobot J series is quite terrible. They don't seem to have enough traction while mopping even on their lowest setting and using plain water, it'll just start sliding and not go in a straight line. Then it'll give up and be in the middle of a room. Also, the vacuuming is good with its dual rubber brushes but it seems the brushes pull up some of the moisture from the mop and then dust will clump up along with pet hair and clog before getting into the bin. I should've done more research than going with a Roomba. But I do like the obstacle avoidance.

If you don't care about mopping, then I would suggest considering a roomba j series. The dual rollers, bin design (reduces filter clogging), dirt detection, and bin sensor for auto empty make it well suited for pet hair. Hair will still accumulate inside of the rubber rollers and require maintenance. VacuumWars recently found that the similar combo 10 max picked up 100% of 2.5 inch hair from carpet, which was much better than many modern flagship models from competitors. I have 3 robovacs (Ecovacs x1 omni, Roomba j5+, Roborock S6 pure) and rate the j5+ highly. I have 270 hours on it so far with no issues

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

I have a j series its super easy to get long hair out of the rollers/wheels/whatever. Wife went through chemo and it was a test for the robot...both survived!

Roomba J series would work

I have a roomba we named homewrecker because it leaves a trail of destruction behind it. It always knocks over something or gets tangled up in wires.

I had a Roomba, and it did a good job. It died after 2 years though, and they don't sell repair parts. I kept it limping along for another few months until I gave up on it. I don't think I'd ever get another Roomba, but I would like to try another brand.

We got the Costco iRobot Roomba on sale (just sweep function) and it’s been really helpful. Definitely worth the time savings and it probably does a better job than our manual vacuuming. We don’t care for the mop function that much, just don’t want to deal with the water compartment

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.