iRobot - Roomba j8+ (8550)

I’ve had the J8+ from costco. It lasted 6 months. It kept on having problem docking, or some weird red ring of death. It says it has stuck debris in the machine, so I opened it all up and cleaned it up even though there was nothing visible. I decided to pack it back up in its box and returned to Costco. Piece of junk at over 700$… I’m back at vacuuming manually with handheld vacuum and my central vac.

My J8 leaves hair clumps even when run daily.

J8+ is meh for Pets. Have a yellow lab and the j8+ barfs hair clumps all over one of our rugs.

J8+ barfs hair clumps over one of our rugs

I maintain it routinely. Filter, rollers, brush, etc. it’s a machine that doesn’t have enough suction.

What kind of dog do you have? We have a 62 lb Lab who seems to shed constantly. If I run the vacuum every day it’ll do the rug just fine. May leave 1-2 ropes. If I don’t run it every day, there will be more. The borders of the rug is where there are always ropes. I can run the robot twice and there will be ropes. I can run the Dyson then the robot and there will be ropes. I can pull the edges up, dyson under the rug, then Dyson the entire top of the rug and the robot runs—guess what I get along the edges? Ropes. Watching it carefully, the robot runs along the edge and there is a gap that it doesn’t have enough suction to pull a quarter ounce rope of dog hair. And when it passes by and the side brush pulls it under it’s a 50/50 chance for the robot to suck it up—on a hardwood floor or short nap rug. You can say what you want that Roomba has the best suction and if you look at Rtngs or vacuum wars they may in those particular test environments. However in real life my J8 is a fail in this use case. And if I run my 960 in the same area…no ropes. This is rug that’s about 3/8” and is light in weight. Roomba as the market leader should have a machine in their current lineup that has enough power to complete this mission. For a $500 machine to fail this is a design failure. I’d take it back to Costco but at a year, I’m not that type of person. I may buy a S9 but it’s not a great solution either as it’s no longer supported by Roomba, the J9 may or may not be suitable, the Dyson 360 would be worth a shot with its powerful vacuum but the navigation seems to still be a work in progress and for some reason, I’m hesitant to buy a roborock. I’d test them one by one but am not into tying up the capital. Roombas have been around for 23 years. For apologists to say they are still working the kinks out in the vacuum function, is a bit of a stretch at this point.

Coming in late. This helps on the main rug but we still get ropes around the edges and I can run the J8+ twice or three times and it will leave some every run. Thinking of trying a J9+ as they are supposed to have more suction.

I have a iRobot j8+ from Costco. Works great for my needs. It only vacuums and has auto-empty and obstacle avoidance.

I got J8+ for $399 from my local Costco last month.

Me too. It was right next to the J6 for the same damn price. It did have the star and the price ending in .97 though, so I think we got a deal.

We have the Roomba j8+ from Costco. The first one was glitch so we exchanged it and the new one seems fine. Definitely not noisy like yours.

Full carpet… ooof. My J8+’s do really well on GSD(2) hair, double coats and all. But we are 80/20 Hardwood. I may be the weirdo and recommend a bi weekly maid that knows you have a fantastic fluffball, so they can deeply check the carpet for hair.

Same story. Replaced j8+ (costco's version) with qrevo master when moved into hard-floored place and needed mopping feature. I immediately noticed how bad obstacle avoidance is on the master compared to j8. iRobot was a no-brainer in this part. No prep is needed. Just hit the button and it vacuums everything and avoids every small item like a phone cable or a sock. No idea how the heck it has such good reviews on Youtube.

Of course, the dock also charges, so any robot you’d get would also need to have a place to plug in and without a dock, you’d need to plug and unplug it manually every time you use it. The batteries in the roomba don’t last all that long, but it doesn’t matter when the roomba takes care of charging as needed on its own with the dock, so it’d be pretty tedious. Honestly, I had an older roomba years ago without a dock and it just wasn’t remotely worth the trouble and I never used it. I love my roomba (a J8, I believe, and it has a dock) but being real-these vacs can’t clean everywhere and they don’t even clean that well-they can’t get behind doors, in between smaller gaps in furniture, they just randomly miss big areas, etc. They really only make sense because they do a decent job cumulatively keeping your floor 80% clean when they can frequently run themselves unattended, getting the places they missed the day before, powering and emptying themselves as needed. In my experience, these things are just not worth it unless you have the dock. Robot vacuums were interesting but poor-functioning toys before docks. They’ve graduated from toys to tools BECAUSE of the docks. IMO, you’re probably better with a stick vac given your small place and how much you’d have to manually babysit a roomba without a dock. Not to mention you still need a stick/hand vac with a roomba to hit the perma-missed places now and then.

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!

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.

Roomba J series would work

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

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

It's hard for people to recommend since few people would test their vacuums with this much fur. Picking up hair from hard floors is easy for any robot vacuums, even on low suction settings. I think the challenge will be keeping the bin from filling or the dock from clogging. iRobot roomba i+ and j+ series are suited for this as they have sensors that detect debris building up in the vacuum path and send the bot to the dock to auto-empty and resume. Whatever you get, you will likely need to run regularly and maybe one room at a time.

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

I’ve had a Roomba for over 10 years now. It’s 100% worth it. I got it when I was a single cat lady in my 20s working long hours. Now I’m married and we have 2 kids, a cat and a dog. We upgraded to the Roomba that maps the house and empties itself in the docking station. It vacuums the whole house 3x a week and does the high traffic areas 5 nights a week after the kids go to bed. I do wish the mop version (Brava) worked better. I have not gotten that damn thing to properly map my house to mop for me and the solution that they sell for it makes all of our house shoes squeak for days.

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.