iRobot - Roomba® 105 Combo Robot

I bought Roomba 105 combo vacuum after reading that roombas are the best for pet hair and seeing that it has LiDAR navigation which I thought was great. Well it has been completely nightmare. I’ve called customer service four times already and I’ve had it for a week!!! I had a VEAVON robot before we bought for 100 bucks which they don’t even make anymore and that worked better then this Roomba! I am looking for a recommendation on a robot vaccum that is not insanely expensive. Also it seems this Roomba vaccum is 7000 Pa suction which is much higher compared to so many others like Roborack. Is there really no better vaccum out there for picking up German Shepherd hair? These are the following issues I have been having with Roomba which I would like to minimize or avoid: 1: the brush roll that claims not to tangle with hair is always tangled with hair and I have to manually remove the hair after even one room clean. It even has the dock that sucks the dustpad but clearly it doesn’t touch the hair from the brush roll. 2. The mapping is absolutely terrible, it’s wrong and when it claimed to “discovering “ the room that it missed almost completely, it still did not put it on the map. My old VEAVON literally just added a map as it went alone if it was able to see it, even like the patio that it saw from the screen door. And then simply if it couldn’t reach the room, it would move on but it was still on the map. This Roomba will keep trying to reach a room and would get stuck all the time with unable to reach error. I just closed the doors on my VEAVON for rooms I didn’t want to clean before, much faster than selecting rooms. This Roomba doesn’t seem to like that function, BUT when I select to clean one room because mapping is so wrong it does not clean the room like it should but goes into another area or missed a big chunk of room. 3. I thought Roomba is suppose to avoid cords, it eats the cords all the time. Not a huge issue as my VEAVON had that problem, but would be nice if a robot could not do that so I don’t have to unplug things everywhere. 4. ***HUGE ONE** The vaccum cleaning performance on my thin rug is absolutely horrific, I don’t see how it’s 7000 Pa suction. It leaves chunks of hair all over the rug. It doesn’t even look like it’s been vacuumed all the way. 5. Spot cleaning: why can’t i send the robot to spot clean on vaccum only function?? It says to attach the mop. Stupid, as I mostly need it for vaccum only and I use spot clean a lot. Yes I see you can customize frequently used places but still not same as random spot cleaning. 6. The battery was stuck at 93% charge, once again customer service told me to reboot. I have literally reboot the robot about 8 times since I bought it a week ago, not exaggerating! They said it was a bug. What vaccum does not have all these constant issues requiring rebooting? bought Roomba thinking it will make it easy for me to keep floors clean without doing anything. Since it has the tower to empty dustpan I thought great I only have to tend to it once in a while. I have a baby and I really don’t have time to be cleaning the brush roll, calling customer service, resetting the robot, helping to move it when it’s stuck on a rug or tangled, customizing the map for milllionth time. SOMEONE PLEASE HELP, I really need a robot vaccum that can be more help than headache and be more independent without breaking a bank, I think I am returning the Roomba. Also, I would prefer one with a mop but not absolutely necessary if it can do really good job independently vacuuming.

Thank you for your awesome response! The battery would not go past 93%, it did before but now it’s stuck there no matter how long it was charging. Seems like the reset didn’t fix it. Also I just realized which I don’t know how to add to my post but the battery on the Roomba sucks. It vacuumed the living room only and it needed to be charged. I did have it at max suction to see if it does better on my living room rug. It’s been charging for 2 hours and still only at 30%. I need a vacuum that can clean most of the house in couple of hours. One room only is insane to me

Roomba 105 said “docking? never heard of her.” If nav + no-go zones matter, go Roborock Q5 for laser brain, pet-hair beast. Shark Matrix is better than old Shark, but still a bit lost sometimes. Just pick the smart one.

I just got a Roomba 105. The app works 1000x better than my old ecovacs. it's a bit louder, but the app is less frustrating that's a win for only $179 I'm happy.

I don’t have a cat anymore, but I have a german shepherd, and my wife has long hair. I bought a Roomba 105 Vacuum (only vacuum, no mopping) a couple of weeks ago and it cleans our house quite well. The nice thing about the vacuum only model is that the dust bin (for dirt, hair and whatnot) is nearly twice the size that it is on the vacuum/mop combo model. I paid $179 at Amazon for this, so it’d be well within y9ur budget. Oh, also it has Lidar mapping so it won’t go down the stairs.

Yes. Roomba 105 navigates smarter but sucks (negatively) at vacuuming and would be a nightmare with hair tangles in the brush. Roomba i5 has more basic navigation, but is a much more "thoughtful" machine in terms of actual cleaning capabilities.

Oh finally we're speaking! - Roomba classic dual rubber brushes - DirtDetect - PrecisionVision RGB camera Seems like a mix of iRobot IPs on a Picea-iRobot jointly designed shell. Looks like there is no side wall sensor (unless it's hidden behind the black number) which would be a downside for me. But overall, much better than the initial series Roomba 105-505. Will there be a Combo version of 705? Curious to see 805/905/1005.

We have the Roomba 105. It's great on hard floors but doesn't do much on our living room area rug. I'm pretty disappointed with that. We have 3 cats, and the fur and cardboard bits from their scratchers are always left behind on the rug after vacuuming.

Yes. The mapping is actually really good!

I had a 105 and that does not avoid any cable / plant obstacles, in this respect the j7/9 are way better. The rest of the time the navigation on the 105 is sensible, only on 1st run did it behave really oddly. I returned the 105 for 505.

Those are the exact same robots afaik, doesnt mstter which one you get tbh.

??? Anyways The L60 and the 105 are the same exact robots. Just get the L60, or whichever is cheaper

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)

I Jumped the Robo Vacs wagon with a cheap " bump and go " to see if it was a fit for me.. Finally gave up after 3 years, RIP, so decided to get into the new Roomba line with Lidar and " advertised" better bells and whistles.. My dead $80 Vac beats the hell put of the $250 I paid for this crap and the headaches I endured with the software wasn't worth it.. Still after many updates, my Lefants software was better than this one.. Roomba is on it's way out and rightfully so..

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.

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.

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👌

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).

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.