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Top Pros
Top Cons
Reddit Reviews
The mopping performance of their current bots (505 Combo and 705 Combo) is actually very good, arguably the best on the market due to the Y pattern movement.
Push for the 505. Although it does have lidar, the 405 does not have the obstacle avoidance tech of the J9. The 505 does.
Personally, I would only consider the 505 mop combo at this time. At $599 currently, it’s discounted but I wouldn’t say extraordinarily so. The 405 mop combo is similar to the 505 and has a much better discount at $399. For me, though, the lack of obstacle avoidance in the 405 is a deal-killer. The 505 also has heated drying of the mop pads and can swing one of the mop pads out to reach corners, something the 405 also lacks. Not as big of a deal to me as the lack of object avoidance in the 405.
I got the 505 its just as you say too wet at first and I'm worried about my floor
I just bought the 505 a couple of weeks ago. And I’m returning it. The side brush keeps falling off while vacuuming. This is our 4th or 5th Roomba. And this new model is the only one where the side brush snaps on, instead of using a screw. Our house is new, we don’t even have furniture yet, and still the Roomba keeps losing the brush mid job. I’m bummed because I was really liking the way it avoids obstacles and how good the vacuum feature is, but without the side brush it just leaves all the corners and edges dirty. I can’t be looking after it monitoring where and when the brush falls off.
I was torn between this and the 505 but it seems like all the 505 has is heated pad drying which I don't really think is all that important. But yeah It goes back constantly to refill like every 10 minutes for about 6-700 square feet. So it works but definitely adds time.
Just exchanged my 405 for a 505 and I gotta say the object detection is much better. The 405 did pretty well but the object had to be tall enough to get detected by the lidar. The 505 was able to completely avoid a sock, cord and flip flops I threw on the ground. Also shows avoided obstacles in the app.
It's much much quieter is the first thing I noticed the 900 was so freaking loud on carpet. I couldn't hear anything and had to scream just to hear what I was saying. I could easily be on a phone call while 405 is going on carpet and barely be bothered. Can't tell how well it vacuums yet it has 4 different settings of suction. It defaults to the third highest and I just left it at that. It did pick up some test things I threw on the floor just to see. So I think it's probably pretty good at least as good as the 900. Might try out the high suction tomorrow to see if it's really loud. The mopping I'm undecided so far. I've never had a mopping robot so nothing to compare it to except good ole elbow grease mopping. Which I know is going to always be 10x better. But it seems like it doesn't store water it just wets the pads because it starts off out of the machine with decent wetness but then as it goes you can see the water decrease that it leaves behind. My floor is also reasonably clean right as I used my bissel vac mop the other day. But I did clear out the dirty water and it was pretty dirty so it's doing something haha. Will it lift up some caked on mess I don't know.
I upgraded to the 505 shortly after this. But the 405 was great the whole time I used it the 505's been really good. I had to replace it once because one of the mop spinning motors stopped working but it was pretty seamless replacement process
I just got the 505 upgraded from the 405 and you couldn't convince me to buy anything else I love this thing. And it's not going under no way no how.
Bought this same Roomba a couple of weeks ago, before I had heard of anything related to the bankruptcy, got it on sale and thought it has really great performance for the price. I'm a little worried about what happens if they do go bankrupt but I have to assume another company will just take over and keep some of these new devices running. These new models are Chinese made so they are pretty good, have had minor software glitches that require me to reboot the Roomba but otherwise performance has been great. Disclaimer, I have no experience with the other brands of robot vacs Oh on the hair issue, the hair gets coiled at the end of the green brush and it's easy to remove the cap and remove any caught hair every now and then. There's a video online on how to do this.
My J7 also quit a couple of weeks ago. We are 1 week in to a new 505. It has a slicker app. Always knows where it is. With the lidar, it barely hits anything. All that said, it's not cleaning as well as the j7 did. We have all hard floors with area rugs It turns the suction up and down (I'm assuming to save battery) as it transitions from hard to carpet. In effect it just leaves a pile of junk next to all the rugs. It does a slightly better job in the kitchen where there are no rugs, but it always leaves noticable missed dirt that it has hit, but just pushed around. Not sure that I would not recommend, but I also wouldn't actively recommend either
I have a 505. Which appears to be very similar to this one. It replaced my dead J7. J7 had 2 rollers , and cleaned better than the 505. 505 is much better at navigating, but the 2 rollers seems to make a difference in cleaning ability
I would recommend a roomba model that detects stuff, from a J7, J7+ to a J9, J9+ (the do detect pet "presents"😅) not the J9+combo, (that units dock had plenty of failures) I would also go for a Plus 505 combo if you also want to mop the floor, because It has the laser view but also a front camera. J7 J9 send pictures of obstacles and asks you if they're permanent or not, you could ask an AI to compare those models to better pick what suits you best, hope I've been helpful.
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