iRobot - Roomba Combo j8 Enhanced

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 the Wyze robot vac and a roomba self emptying vac. I vastly prefer the performance of the wyze vac.

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.

Irobot has a camera for object avoidance. I think it works pretty great.  It worked perfectly in the beginning, but God forbid when you are training the ai(?) by reviewing the photos you ever allow anything as "not an obstacle" then it will run over similar things forever. Like string, after I told it a cord off the ground was not an obstacle. :(

We love ours. We have one for upstairs and downstairs. Don’t try to get a cheap one, we did that and went through a couple of them pretty quickly. Now we have two good ones (iRobot) with the bin that they self empty into when they get full. We have three kids, two dogs, and a cat that sheds more than both dogs combined, and having robot vacuums has been a game changer. Before we got the one with the bins, it would get full and need emptying before it finished a whole cycle. Now it goes and empties itself and then goes back to cleaning. It’s some trial and error at first. Just run it the first few times when you’re watching it to see where it has any problems. Then you can try to adjust any problem areas. Our upstairs vacuum doesn’t go into the bedrooms because the kids have lots of tiny Barbie shoes and stuff. We have them clean up good and just regular vacuum real quick every other week or so (and we keep bedroom doors closed so the pets don’t go in there to keep hair shedding out). But the robot keeps the main areas of the house from getting hairballs and dirty. We recently got a robot mop as well, and that has been awesome! I feel like it’s just like having any other vacuum. You have to get everything picked up off the floor before you start. You wouldn’t start regular vacuuming with things still on the floor. If there are areas that it gets stuck often, either block it off or try to adjust any problem areas. We usually pull all of the dining room chairs away from the table so that it can get a good clean under the table and around it. We run the vacuums & mop anytime we leave the house, and it’s so nice coming home to freshly vacuumed and mopped floors!

The later Roombas with a camera/vision system are pretty good at avoiding things that could cause snags/clogs. I used to be vigilant with clearing the floor and even putting dining chairs on the table, but now I just have my Roomba run every night with dog toys, kid toys, wife's shoes and purse, chairs, charger cords, laundry baskets, and everything else blocking its path. It probably only cleans about 60% of the area I want it to, but I can still feel a noticeable difference when I walk barefoot through the house.

I have a Roomba that I picked up from Costco. It can be controlled via app and it has a self emptying base.

We have the mop vac combo (forgive me, I don't remember what exact model, but I DO know it is the self emptying combo w\ the removable dust filter "trash' bags, and has a grey "tweed" designer -look on the top. That probably makes no sense). At any rate, I LOVE the vacuum feature, esp the self-emptying component. However, the few times I have attempted to use the mopping feature, it has not worked well at all. Admittedly, my model could be a slightly older model, like maybe last year's, so take that for what it's worth. It starts off fine, but after no more than 10 min if that, it seems to get stuck. What it's stuck on is beyond me because it happens in dining room each time & sounds like it's spinning it's wheels (like a car stuck in mud). There are no rugs, chairs are moved out of the way & there's no visible debris obstacles like  one of my son's marbles or a plastic milk cap or anything. Literally just hardwood flooring. I've tried rebooting, I've tried popping the water/mop pad on & mopping immediately (thinking it would help reduce soaking & "puddling" near the wheels), I've tried wiping the wheels and following behind it to wipe up the drag marks of water. But it still spins & does nothing. I can't complain too much as I won it at my husband's  Xmas work party raffle, and like I said the vac feature is excellent. Since we have a young son & a dog that sheds constantly, I'm ok w/just the vac👌

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 😅