The robot vacuum features 100 minutes of run time and 1800 Pa of suction power. Speaking of pet hair, this robot vacuum is a great choice for pet owners. This smart vacuum includes iRobot’s P.O.O.P., or the brand’s “Pet Owner Official Promise.” Your Roomba J7+ is guaranteed to avoid pet waste — or iRobot will replace it for free. Ultimately, it has passed the wife test, as while she is naturally suspicious of gadgetry has commented how much time it is saving over manual cleaning.
The machine bumps around the floor like a slow-motion ping-pong ball, changing direction when it encounters an object or obstacle. As a result it took a long 91 minutes to finish its cleaning cycle in our test room. For a dependable, versatile, and affordable cleaner, we prefer a bagless upright, but we have recommendations for other types of vacuums as well. We also tested the EcoVacs T8 AIVI, which did not avoid any objects. It just informed us in the app, after the session was over and the Nutella smeared everywhere, that there were many objects on our floor and that we should pick them up.
Cameras and optical sensors can help with obstacle recognition, and LiDAR-based navigation uses lasers to detect objects. These capabilities aren’t perfect, but vacuums are now more adept at finding their way back to charging docks than they were even a few years ago. Another new feature is self-emptying bins, which suck the debris out of the robot and into a canister in the charging dock. For example, I have several radiators in my house with a 3.5-inch clearance irobot vacuum cleaner that slim vacuums can get under, while just-slim-enough models sometimes get stuck, and too-thick models bump up against and go elsewhere. If you want your robot vacuum to get under your low-clearance furniture, make sure you choose a model that is slim enough to do so. Whereas some robot vacuums sense carpeting and boost suction, the i3+ EVO provides consistently strong suction, and when it detects excess dirt, it automatically performs multiple passes.
Roomba, the iconic robot vacuum from iRobot, is in some ways as ubiquitous a term as Kleenex. If you’re looking for your Roomba robot vacuum, here’s how to sort through the current models. Another robot vacuum, the Jet Bot AI Plus, is also billed as being able to avoid pet waste. Unfortunately, the robot consistently failed to recognize one out of our three gag poop objects. Often the machine would push the piece of fake poop from one end of our test pen to the other. Aided by multiple sensors and lasers, efficient navigation is the S7’s strong suit.
If you somehow stumble across a good deal for an old Roomba 800 Series model, that’s also very similar to the Roomba e5, but may not have Wi-Fi. The first is that the robot doesn’t differentiate between floor and carpet, so you’ll need to do that yourself using the rooms and no-go areas feature. It is possible to set areas that are vacuum only but it’s a bit hit and miss getting this exactly right if, for example, there’s a rug in the middle of a hard floor.
Hands-off cleaning can create problems when a Roomba encounters something it shouldn’t roll over, like cords or animal waste. In addition, besides the initial cost, some Roombas require ongoing cost in the form of cleaning pads and fluid for the mops and dustbin evacuation bags for the + models. After setting up a keep-out zone with the iRobot app, the robot will steer clear of these rectangular areas no matter what cleaning cycle is chosen. The brand’s additional device can also create virtual barriers to fence in a Roomba. Roombas use “dirt detect” technology to focus their cleaning efforts, so a unit may spend longer in one area until the sensors detect fewer particles. Models will have varying placement of the sensors and will therefore move differently.
Prices for robots with sophisticated navigation and smart-home features have fallen by half compared with just a few years ago. And the category hasn’t been hit too hard by the product shortages or price increases that have affected loads of other consumer goods in 2021. We actually recommended the semi-random style for most people up until fall 2021, but it became clear from analyzing user reviews that the zeitgeist has shifted.