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3.8 out of 5 stars

iRobot Roomba j7+ Self-Emptying Robot Vacuum

$299.99
$599.99 50% off Reference Price
Condition: Factory Reconditioned
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Top positive review
280 people found this helpful
Read Up on SmartMaps and Manual Control B4 using - J7+ Roomba
By Lie2me on Reviewed in the United States on January 2, 2022
Context of this review: First time buyer of any model of IRobot Roomba vacuum. Purchased the J7+ that includes the robot and the waste station. I do like it. It is not perfect but after a couple of days of use, I am impressed. There is a learning period for both myself and the robot. 1) First off, after unboxing, put the station in and put the robot into position to charge for a few hours. While charging download the app to your phone and connect. Read the user manual about how the ring light on the robot works. It is context based - charging, vacuuming, etc. - and means different things based on the context. 2)The light on the waste station is peculiar and does not stay on when plugged in and charging. Nor does the light on the robot stay on when charging. There is a momentary initial light on each. 3) I should have read up on from their support website about Smartmaps first. After a full charge, I let the robot run through the first floor of my home. On the initial pass, It was able to do about 2.5 rooms before it needed to be recharged. While recharging, I mistakenly cancelled the initial full floor job. It worked out OK after the second full floor job - completing the first map and a new second map at the same time. Be prepared to walk around with your robot to train it where not to go. I was able to use the pause button on the phone and the top button on the robot. However, it may be better to hit the sense bars on the robot to initially avoid areas while you create the first couple maps. Subsequently, I plan to mark out the no-go zones. 4) Apparently, the position of the charge station is very important. You may want to plan this out in advance even before buying. The station needs to be near an outlet and have a clearance on each side of 1.5 feet, more distance is required if near a stairway. I am not sure how this effects your first maps if you move your station to another location on the same floor. iRobot advises getting a second waste station if you move your robot between two floors - one station for each floor. Clearly, the station position is important for the robot to know. 5) Preparation of your home for the robot can be important before using it. Pet food bowls, electrical cords, and floor mats are some of the things to consider. I found the robot had problems with a raised fireplace hearth. It was low enough to try to go on top of it but had trouble negotiating while trying to vaccuum along the edge. The fire place hearth is one area I plan on giving a no-go zone to, as well as the pet food bowls. Because preparation is needed, I am not sure how useful scheduling is going to be, unless you have a sparse home with no pets and little moveable furniture. 6) Maintenance - While on the first job ever, the vaccuum managed to wrap a cat play string around the rotating brush. I had to stop the robot and unwrap the string. (note to self - pick up all string) There was also cat hair around the rotating brush in the in joints of roller shafts that also needed clearing. I can see how maintenance is going to be a recurring thing with the robot, when you usually ignore your upright vaccums, but for emptying its bag and cleaning filters. Maintenance costs are going to be more than your upright vacuum, which you may want to consider with the upfront purchase costs. 7) Cleaner home? With hair shedding pets, I can see how one's home may remain cleaner if you regularly run the robot. The robot can also run under some things (some couches, some cabinets) where you cannot vacuum with an upright. However, there are likely to still be some areas/rooms where you don't want to run the vacuum robot - areas near food bowls, cat litter boxes, and bathrooms. 8) With a camera on the front of the robot, I think there is much that the irobot can do in programming it to clean better and navigate better. 9) I have much to learn about using the robot due to my inexperience. However, I think I can make this work to keep my home cleaner.
Top critical review
101 people found this helpful
Roomba i7 Mapping Fails (4 mapping runs and 2 vacuum all runs)
By Merlin on Reviewed in the United States on October 19, 2022
01/02/2023 Update: I just had to provide this update for Anyone thinking about buying an iRobot device. Today I sent my J7 roomba out to clean the back bedrooms - which it has done on an established map many times before. On the first try - it wandered aimlessly, went back to the base station after 15 minutes and said "all done". NOT possible - the run time is typically 70 minutes - so I sent it out again. After 20 minutes it said "localization failed" - meaning this More Onic thing could not find itself on the previously established map. So - I sent it out a third time - which proved to be the charm - as it then completed the cleaning task. Of course because of the cheap battery (iRobot chose to send this vacuum with a wimpy 32 watt hour battery - oh yeah - for an additional $20 on this $600+ product they COULD have included a battery with TWICE the capacity - but Nooo- their hand in your pocket) it had to return to recharge after an hour, then completing the task in another 7 minutes. Just as another FYI - I'd previously noted a thin nylon line protruding from one of the main drive wheels. I am a pretty accomplished do-it-yourself-er, and after finding details on FixIt, decided to open the thing up. It is really quite straight-forward, BUT - the drive wheels were designed on purpose to prevent you from fixing them. The last gear on the drive wheel is pressed on over splines, requiring a lot of careful pressure for removal with a flat blade screwdriver to avoid destroying the gear. And even then, the wheel does NOT want to come out of the housing - I suspect because of the splines. Using 2 screwdrivers (one acting as a block) I was able to develop sufficient space between the wheel and the housing to remove the nylon tag, as well as a bunch of debris that had developed over the past year. Reassembly was a snap, and we were off to the races. As a part of this fix I needed to remove the bottom cover. After doing so, I noticed the battery only partially filled the battery space (see photo)!! The battery capacity on the OEM battery is listed at 32 Wh (watt hours), or 2.22 Amp Hours (Ah). Many on-line battery supply houses list replacement batteries up to or exceeding 5.6 Amp Hours - or almost 3 times the run-time of the OEM battery. Buyers scammed by iRobot again !! 10/19/22 update. One of the poorest performing mapping robot vacuums I've ever seen. Despite being in use for almost a year, it continues to bump it's way along the room maps - almost like it's never been there before. In addition, I've been unable to figure out how to add an unmapped closet to the current map. Just leaving the closet door open - the thing just pokes it's nose in, then ignores it. Battery life is pretty poor - it'll vacuum for about 1 hour, then needs to recharge (no change compared to when new). It sees wires hanging down along a wall, and marks them as obstacles, avoiding several feet of carpet in the area. Even on a new job - upon identifying - say a chair leg - it fails to remember that, and bumps into it over and over again. It takes over 30 minutes to vacuum around our kitchen table with 4 chairs. Although I like the self-emptying feature, most other robot vaccums offer the same. I found our previous square nose vacuum did a far better job in corners. To add insult to injury - when I made several suggestions to iRobot on how they might improve their mapping system, they pretty much yelled at me for making suggestions, claiming they could never use those suggestions as it might violate 'intellectual property rights'. When this thing dies, I'll be going back to Neato - or possibly Shark. Roomba i7 Mapping Fails (4 mapping runs and 2 vacuum all runs) (12/31/21) Very discouraged. Got a Roomba i7+ (Auto Bin Empty) for Christmas (actually well before but ran it several times to be sure it worked). I sent it out first on a mapping only run - and it ended with the expected first-run 'mapping in progress' notice. Sent on a second mapping run - same notice. OK - sent it out on a vacuum all run - error message = unable to complete vacuum all as requested (map still 'in progress"). Sent on the third mapping run - ended with the 'mapping in progress' notice. Second Vacuum All run - "unable to complete all as requested" (Mapping still 'in progress). 4th mapping run - ended with 'mapping in progress'. Sure - we have a 4400 SqFt home, but the Roomba reports only 1700 SqFt mapped. Watching the device - it shows NO EVIDENCE of having been there before - running the exact same search pattern as before, bumping over and over into the same objects it encountered in previous runs. It was unable to detect the 1-1/2" step-down into our laundry room (hung up there until I placed a barrier in the way (it failed to recognize my magnetic no-go strips)) Any suggestions would be appreciated. Given the size of my one-story house, I will close doors and otherwise create obstacles to make 3 separate maps. I spoke with iRobot Customer Service who confirmed that was the right approach. Reposition the base station within each of your 3 maps and create a unique map for each section of the house. When you want to vacuum that area, put the base station in the spot where mapping was begun, select the map of that area, and initiate cleaning. Kind of a kludge, but we can make it work. No excuse for them NOT including a simple hall effect sensor for magnetic strips.

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Read Up on SmartMaps and Manual Control B4 using - J7+ Roomba
By Lie2me - Reviewed in the United States on January 2, 2022
Verified Amazon Purchase
Context of this review: First time buyer of any model of IRobot Roomba vacuum. Purchased the J7+ that includes the robot and the waste station. I do like it. It is not perfect but after a couple of days of use, I am impressed. There is a learning period for both myself and the robot. 1) First off, after unboxing, put the station in and put the robot into position to charge for a few hours. While charging download the app to your phone and connect. Read the user manual about how the ring light on the robot works. It is context based - charging, vacuuming, etc. - and means different things based on the context. 2)The light on the waste station is peculiar and does not stay on when plugged in and charging. Nor does the light on the robot stay on when charging. There is a momentary initial light on each. 3) I should have read up on from their support website about Smartmaps first. After a full charge, I let the robot run through the first floor of my home. On the initial pass, It was able to do about 2.5 rooms before it needed to be recharged. While recharging, I mistakenly cancelled the initial full floor job. It worked out OK after the second full floor job - completing the first map and a new second map at the same time. Be prepared to walk around with your robot to train it where not to go. I was able to use the pause button on the phone and the top button on the robot. However, it may be better to hit the sense bars on the robot to initially avoid areas while you create the first couple maps. Subsequently, I plan to mark out the no-go zones. 4) Apparently, the position of the charge station is very important. You may want to plan this out in advance even before buying. The station needs to be near an outlet and have a clearance on each side of 1.5 feet, more distance is required if near a stairway. I am not sure how this effects your first maps if you move your station to another location on the same floor. iRobot advises getting a second waste station if you move your robot between two floors - one station for each floor. Clearly, the station position is important for the robot to know. 5) Preparation of your home for the robot can be important before using it. Pet food bowls, electrical cords, and floor mats are some of the things to consider. I found the robot had problems with a raised fireplace hearth. It was low enough to try to go on top of it but had trouble negotiating while trying to vaccuum along the edge. The fire place hearth is one area I plan on giving a no-go zone to, as well as the pet food bowls. Because preparation is needed, I am not sure how useful scheduling is going to be, unless you have a sparse home with no pets and little moveable furniture. 6) Maintenance - While on the first job ever, the vaccuum managed to wrap a cat play string around the rotating brush. I had to stop the robot and unwrap the string. (note to self - pick up all string) There was also cat hair around the rotating brush in the in joints of roller shafts that also needed clearing. I can see how maintenance is going to be a recurring thing with the robot, when you usually ignore your upright vaccums, but for emptying its bag and cleaning filters. Maintenance costs are going to be more than your upright vacuum, which you may want to consider with the upfront purchase costs. 7) Cleaner home? With hair shedding pets, I can see how one's home may remain cleaner if you regularly run the robot. The robot can also run under some things (some couches, some cabinets) where you cannot vacuum with an upright. However, there are likely to still be some areas/rooms where you don't want to run the vacuum robot - areas near food bowls, cat litter boxes, and bathrooms. 8) With a camera on the front of the robot, I think there is much that the irobot can do in programming it to clean better and navigate better. 9) I have much to learn about using the robot due to my inexperience. However, I think I can make this work to keep my home cleaner.
Roomba i7 Mapping Fails (4 mapping runs and 2 vacuum all runs)
By Merlin - Reviewed in the United States on October 19, 2022
Verified Amazon Purchase
01/02/2023 Update: I just had to provide this update for Anyone thinking about buying an iRobot device. Today I sent my J7 roomba out to clean the back bedrooms - which it has done on an established map many times before. On the first try - it wandered aimlessly, went back to the base station after 15 minutes and said "all done". NOT possible - the run time is typically 70 minutes - so I sent it out again. After 20 minutes it said "localization failed" - meaning this More Onic thing could not find itself on the previously established map. So - I sent it out a third time - which proved to be the charm - as it then completed the cleaning task. Of course because of the cheap battery (iRobot chose to send this vacuum with a wimpy 32 watt hour battery - oh yeah - for an additional $20 on this $600+ product they COULD have included a battery with TWICE the capacity - but Nooo- their hand in your pocket) it had to return to recharge after an hour, then completing the task in another 7 minutes. Just as another FYI - I'd previously noted a thin nylon line protruding from one of the main drive wheels. I am a pretty accomplished do-it-yourself-er, and after finding details on FixIt, decided to open the thing up. It is really quite straight-forward, BUT - the drive wheels were designed on purpose to prevent you from fixing them. The last gear on the drive wheel is pressed on over splines, requiring a lot of careful pressure for removal with a flat blade screwdriver to avoid destroying the gear. And even then, the wheel does NOT want to come out of the housing - I suspect because of the splines. Using 2 screwdrivers (one acting as a block) I was able to develop sufficient space between the wheel and the housing to remove the nylon tag, as well as a bunch of debris that had developed over the past year. Reassembly was a snap, and we were off to the races. As a part of this fix I needed to remove the bottom cover. After doing so, I noticed the battery only partially filled the battery space (see photo)!! The battery capacity on the OEM battery is listed at 32 Wh (watt hours), or 2.22 Amp Hours (Ah). Many on-line battery supply houses list replacement batteries up to or exceeding 5.6 Amp Hours - or almost 3 times the run-time of the OEM battery. Buyers scammed by iRobot again !! 10/19/22 update. One of the poorest performing mapping robot vacuums I've ever seen. Despite being in use for almost a year, it continues to bump it's way along the room maps - almost like it's never been there before. In addition, I've been unable to figure out how to add an unmapped closet to the current map. Just leaving the closet door open - the thing just pokes it's nose in, then ignores it. Battery life is pretty poor - it'll vacuum for about 1 hour, then needs to recharge (no change compared to when new). It sees wires hanging down along a wall, and marks them as obstacles, avoiding several feet of carpet in the area. Even on a new job - upon identifying - say a chair leg - it fails to remember that, and bumps into it over and over again. It takes over 30 minutes to vacuum around our kitchen table with 4 chairs. Although I like the self-emptying feature, most other robot vaccums offer the same. I found our previous square nose vacuum did a far better job in corners. To add insult to injury - when I made several suggestions to iRobot on how they might improve their mapping system, they pretty much yelled at me for making suggestions, claiming they could never use those suggestions as it might violate 'intellectual property rights'. When this thing dies, I'll be going back to Neato - or possibly Shark. Roomba i7 Mapping Fails (4 mapping runs and 2 vacuum all runs) (12/31/21) Very discouraged. Got a Roomba i7+ (Auto Bin Empty) for Christmas (actually well before but ran it several times to be sure it worked). I sent it out first on a mapping only run - and it ended with the expected first-run 'mapping in progress' notice. Sent on a second mapping run - same notice. OK - sent it out on a vacuum all run - error message = unable to complete vacuum all as requested (map still 'in progress"). Sent on the third mapping run - ended with the 'mapping in progress' notice. Second Vacuum All run - "unable to complete all as requested" (Mapping still 'in progress). 4th mapping run - ended with 'mapping in progress'. Sure - we have a 4400 SqFt home, but the Roomba reports only 1700 SqFt mapped. Watching the device - it shows NO EVIDENCE of having been there before - running the exact same search pattern as before, bumping over and over into the same objects it encountered in previous runs. It was unable to detect the 1-1/2" step-down into our laundry room (hung up there until I placed a barrier in the way (it failed to recognize my magnetic no-go strips)) Any suggestions would be appreciated. Given the size of my one-story house, I will close doors and otherwise create obstacles to make 3 separate maps. I spoke with iRobot Customer Service who confirmed that was the right approach. Reposition the base station within each of your 3 maps and create a unique map for each section of the house. When you want to vacuum that area, put the base station in the spot where mapping was begun, select the map of that area, and initiate cleaning. Kind of a kludge, but we can make it work. No excuse for them NOT including a simple hall effect sensor for magnetic strips.
Good but awfully expensive
By Sarah - Reviewed in the United States on February 21, 2023
Verified Amazon Purchase
UPDATE #2: It has now been several more months. I love it I love it I love it. One major issue for me was that it was a pain in the butt to carry the base around in a multilevel home. After rereading the instruction manual I discovered that I’m not supposed to do that, that you can just carry the machine around and place it. As long as it does not have to empty the bin or recharge, it does not necessarily have to begin and end on the charging base. Ok so this has made my life so much easier. I did have to update my maps several times to teach it not to expect the base when it was done, and it has since behaved perfectly well. (The first few times it wandered around for a long time and the program said “searching for base” and I felt sorry for it 🤣. I didn’t want to delete my map that had the base on it and start over because I had to teach it to stay off of a shaggy rug and that took a lot of tweaking). I also have stopped being stingy with use and have given in and am carrying it around and running it more often and sometimes going over areas twice to get all the cat litter, and my house stays so clean. That means I will have to change the filters and rollers more often but oh well! UPDATE: It has now been another month or so. I like the machine more and more and am changing the review to 5 stars. I have continued to tweak the programs I have set up on the app, and its performance improves. Since we have a cat, a major issue is the cat litter which she manages to drag all over. The machine sometimes will miss some litter in certain areas, and since we have dark floors it shows up brightly and drives me nuts. I can tell the robot to go over certain areas twice and that solves that problem. (Honestly the cleaners we hired would sometimes miss just as much if not more because the tiny specks get ground into the carpet). Another thing is that on our smooth wooden floors, the edge sweeping brush sometimes seems to scatter small particles around rather than pushing them into the rollers, and I have to have it go twice in places for that reason too. But with these tweaks it has been doing a really good job!! The suction is very good and the machine is surprisingly quiet. Also I am getting used to it and learning to leave it alone and not follow it around, so I’m much more relaxed about it. Another good thing—in the app the machine will tell you when it needs maintenance. There is a countdown to when I will need to change the filter and rollers, and I see that I will not need to change them nearly as often as I thought! The manual says filter every 2 month and rollers every 6 months, but according to my runtime it is going to be about double that, so I’ve got that going for me, which is nice 😉. ORIGINAL REVIEW: I do like this little machine. I hate and I mean HATE vacuuming and my husband has a bad neck and can’t vacuum. We had hired a cleaning service but it made the cat go crazy and just became much more stressful than it was worth. So we decided to get this realizing it would pay for itself (in the absence of the cleaning service) after a few months. You need to pick up all your things and allow it to make mapping runs when you first get started. The interface is an app on the iPad and it is very straightforward to operate, and you can make detailed programs and constantly tweak them based on the machine’s performance. The suction power and ability to pick stuff up—including cat hair and cat litter—is excellent. It is not very loud. The cat is not bothered by it, and EVERYTHING bothers her, so I am kind of amazed by that. I love that it goes back to its base and empties itself when its little bin is full. I am giving it 4 stars instead of 5 for a couple reasons. It is godawful expensive. I have learned that the replacement rollers and filters are kind of expensive and have to be changed very regularly. Also—and I admit a lot of this is my issue due to OCD—so far I feel like I have to babysit it and be aware of where it is and what it’s doing, which defeats some of the purpose of getting the machine to do the work in the first place. I am hoping this will improve in time since I have tweaked some of the programs and the machine is learning, and I just need to get used to it. Some of this is due to the fact that I have a multilevel home and have to carry the base around and then tell it to go, rather than just setting programs and ignoring it, which can’t be helped. It would be much better in a single level. All in all it’s really good, and has the potential to be great, but time will tell. We will see if the rollers and filters have to be changed as often as it says. Probably the filters do, because of my cat, but maybe the rollers can last a little longer.
Good at cleaning but loud and the app is not as good as others I've used
By DAMON - Reviewed in the United States on June 20, 2025
Verified Amazon Purchase
This robot never gets stuck and works well, and does a good job of cleaning. I love the fact that I can set it and forget it. It does a great job a cleaning and gets over thresholds and rugs. The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars is that it is very loud and can be a little rough when it bangs into the walls. So much so, I will cancel the cleaning if I'm going to be around it. The app is not as nice as the other vac by Eufy that I own. For example, you have to pause the job first, before you're able to send the vac home. With Eufy, I just click the send home. When the vacuum is in the middle of job, it's hard to see where it has vacuumed and what's left in the app live. You have to wait for the job to finish.
Best thing I ever bought!!!
By G. Mcleod - Reviewed in the United States on December 6, 2022
Verified Amazon Purchase
I was SO reluctant to try this technology, but a Cyber Monday deal made me finally take the leap, and I am so happy I did!!! After one mapping run, the vacuum had my whole downstairs mapped perfectly! I was very surprised at this give that we have a lot of square footage & rooms. It did take all day to map it though. Afterwards, it took only 5 minutes on the app to move room dividers & label the rooms, and the next day she started cleaning at a set time exactly where I asked based on a schedule I set up. It was flawless! A couple of very important notes to help others: 1. The day of your mapping run the vacuum does NOT clean, therefore it is quieter & you won’t see anything in the dust bin! 2. Your vacuum is afraid of the dark! You need to turn on lights (if it is dark) in rooms & hallways she is in, or she gets lost & does not function properly. I would have thought she was broken had I not looked that up online & realized my mistake when I had her vacuum in the dark several days later & she suddenly couldn’t find her way out of a dark room she was cleaning! Lights have been on every day since & no more issues whatsoever! 3. When setting permanent obstacles be sure you don’t want her to vacuum even close to them or she will avoid that area all together. I found labeling everything “temporary obstacle” a better solution so that she still gets close but then pulls away before there is an issue. 4. Before your 1st mapping run pick up as much as you can so she draws a perfect map. I listened to the manufacturer on that & my map is flawless. Then on subsequent runs you can be not quite so picky & she will adapt without changing your core layout. *FYI: this would be an AWESOME gift for an elderly or disabled person! The cleaning is super detailed & would be adequate in that situation, if run every day, to avoid using a traditional vacuum. For everyone else, I think a regular vacuum would be in order every other week for a deep clean (especially if you have carpets). I use my iRobot to do touch-up cleaning every other day & after dinner, but vacuum with a regular vacuum once at the end of the week because I like a super clean house.
Handles well, does what it advertises, and is my new friend
By Past_DVO_Present - Reviewed in the United States on June 10, 2025
Verified Amazon Purchase
This was an upgrade from the original i3 that I used to use, I didn't realize how much I would grow to love the self-emptying feature, the onboard camera, and it's ability to alert me of items in the way, being able to set up off-bounds, places to avoid, or places to clean more on the map feature. I have found the following: The camera originally identifies allot of things as obstacles at first, this is easy remedied by going on the app and marking what was, and wasn't an obstruction, obstacle, and what was. The self emptying feature is great, but small rocks, pieces of sticks/grass longer than one inch won't clear the flap and get's stuck in the bin, or in the flap itself. The robot still gets stuck sometimes, I figured with the camera this would be less of an issue, it doesn't happen all the time, and it is less than my old one, but it happens from time to time. The robot will fail to dock sometimes; I am not sure why, this happens occasionally - it will be within inches from the dock. It misses poop, but not pee - this isn't that big of a deal for me as it has happened only once and my dog is usually house-broken and very good about using the doggy door, but I just kind of hoped it would have avoided it. Overall, I am very happy with it, I found that still turning it upside down every week to clean the contactors, emptying out the bin from any small rocks or debris, and removing hair from the rollers and the front wheel maintains better function (it won't tell you if there's an issue until it stops charging. The charging base/self emptying canister is pretty impressive, I have already had to change the bag, and was impressed on how easy it was to remove and re-load the new one, the process only takes one hand, and the filter/bag assembly includes a handle that seals the opening shut when you remove it, so not to spread dust on the floor/air. I am very happy with this robot, and can't imagine going back to a non-self emptying featured vac again.
Very poor performance and reliability
By Running Rabbit - Reviewed in the United States on May 25, 2023
Verified Amazon Purchase
Within 3 weeks of purchase, started to have problems. Robot would suddenly decide to stop during a cleaning run, state it was blocked (nothing there) and die on the spot. Lots of reboots and resets for weeks. Robot refused to work. Along the way, the robot would not clean stating the bin was full. It was empty. Discovered via Google search (since iRobot doesn’t provide real answers) that the problem had to do with the bin sides not being clean which did not allow the full bin sensors (long black bars on the robot along the bin’s location) to transmit a beam. If the beam did not make it through from one side to the other, regardless of the bin’s actual empty/full status, the robot would assume (incorrectly) the bin was full. The bin needed to be cleaned often if it had accumulated lite amounts of dust on the side. If not, the errors took place. Didn’t matter if the continue to clean if bin is full option was selected. Robot would ignore the selection and just not move. This is a very poor engineering and software design. Other manufactures, according to others and manufacturers don’t use the same design as iRobot due to such false errors taking place. Getting service folks to provide service and solutions is a goat rope indeed. Have to jump through hoops in order to get attention and then, have to start all over again because service folks just follow a script and don’t listen/pay attention to the problems taking place in the real world. After 5 months of trying to get the robot to work properly, having 3 replacement robots and 3 replacement clean bases, it appeared the 2 finally were communicating with each other and worked. Nah, just an iRobot mean joke. Within a week of the 3rd round of replacements, the clean bin issue came up. No matter how many times the bin was cleaned, no matter how many reboots, and changing bins, the robot refused to work. Too late to return to Amazon and iRobot will not refund money due to having purchased the robot system via Amazon and not directly from iRobot. The iRobot punishment for purchasing via Amazon? No refund and just provide (maybe) another (4th) dumb robot and clean base. Had enough of the robot and iRobot. Got so frustrated I provided the robot and the clean base a new home where the two can live together in peace and not mess up ever again. The home – the landfill. No more iRobot robots. As time has gone by, have gone through several models. Progressively they have gotten more technologically “advanced” but not smarter. They run into things more often, forget where they are, forget where the base is and are not consistently reliable. The engineers don’t have regular people test the robots before they are sold. Theory and reality don’t mix at the robot factory. They sure have gotten more expensive. Have noticed they go on sale often; guess iRobot can’t sell them due to problems along with competition getting more sales. Awaiting my new Roborock. Has lidar (iRobot doesn’t believe in it thus need to have lights on for the robots to find their way) which allows the robot to work without lights. I had to buy lamps and timers so the Roomba could work. An added expense. iRobot never disclosed prior to the sale light is a requirement for the robots to work. The light near the camera does not provide enough light for the Roomba to work properly. Even with lights, the Roombas get lost or don’t work properly. I hope the Roborock works. While all the robot brands have problems (ratings are about 4.3-4.5), crossing fingers this one excels over the Roomba. Thus, after over a decade of using only Roombas, we have parted ways permanently and do not recommend to anyone that wants value for their hard-earned money when purchasing a floor robot. I’m sure the Roomba and its base now have plenty of dirt covering them from the hot sun in the landfill – where they belong. UPDATE: 8/25/2023 The second J7+ began failing more often a few days after the first J7+. Gets lost, stops all of a sudden and dies. Sometimes it said it is stuck, it's not, sometimes is said out of power, yet about 2-3 feet from clean base and sometimes just stops, ends job without a reason. Have had to replace the battery (robot about 2 months old). It sometimes forgets to clean per the clean map guidance. Speaking of clean maps, it has lost the maps several times which forces me to remap the entire floor. It, like its twin, no longer provide a means to add favorites to the routine. iRobot technical support have no idea how to get the feature back even with all of their "research". What I have been able to determine is that this same issue has occurred and is occurring to others. iRobot is busy lowering machine prices but not as busy fixing existing problems. The Roborock we purchased to replace the J7+ has been great. Not only does it vacuum very well, it mops too. All in one machine. The machine is quieter, doesn't have problems and gets the job done in about 40% less time (the robot uses more intelligent algorithms to move to clean). I no longer have to go around turning on lights to help the (Roomba) robot find its way. The Roborock uses lidar which does not require lights and is much more efficient and effective in its journey. We should have tried out the Roborock instead of the falling apart and unreliable Roomba. Would highly recommend to those who want to spend their money wisely to try the Roborock with the features they need and not look at the Roomba. The Roomba was a pioneer back in the day of robot cleaning but those years (ag0) have long past. All of the competition proves the Roomba is no longer as good as it used to be. Now, just lots of marketing/advertising to make the it sound and look good but from the real world of a purchaser, that's not the case. Save your money and frustrations, look elsewhere other than iRobot.
Great, But 5 Months in having to replace a major part
By AmazonianWoman - Reviewed in the United States on December 16, 2024
Verified Amazon Purchase
I will preface this with saying that I still give this 5 stars even though we have run into a problem. Set up was pretty simple, mapping is what takes the longest the first time that you run it. But as long as you have all your areas mapped it starts right away. You can schedule it to do cleanings on certain days, specify what areas to clean on specific days, and the option to run a job if something comes up. You can set up rooms or zones if you have a smaller area that just needs a once over. You can also set Keep Out zones if there’s an area you want it to avoid. I specifically chose this model because it has a feature to avoid pet messes. We have not had any problems with it yet, although it does not avoid wet messes (only liquid). We have a cat that vomits every now and then in the most in opportune places and so far it has avoided them all! Sometimes they are all liquid so I set the vacuum to run while we are home in areas the cat has access to to avoid this being a problem as liquid can damage the vacuum. We run it almost daily in our living room and kitchen and until very recently we have not had any problems with the device. We have a double coated dog and a long haired cat that shed year round and it has greatly improved the cleanliness of our house. I was very shocked when I changed the bag out the first time (we had to do it within a month of having the iRobot because of so much shedding and not having a vacuum in a while so you can imagine how much pet hair there was). It was cram packed with mostly hair but all kinds of things. For a little bag, it really did hold a lot, even more than a full sized vacuum in my opinion. We have run into a problem 5 months in with it not suctioning, we changed the brushes out but ended up having to contact Roomba support. They were phenomenal and within 30 minutes we have a new cleaning head module being mailed to us, so I highly suggest registering your product with Roomba upon receipt. So even though it’s only been 5 months and we are having to replace a major component, I still highly recommend. Roomba customer service is top notch, and I recommend the extended warranty as well for “just in case”.
Good But Some Glitches
By Experienced Reviewer - Reviewed in the United States on February 28, 2022
Verified Amazon Purchase
I got this J7 plus on sale for $599 so for what I paid it's a really decent vacuum. I've owned a lot of iRobot Roombas for the past 20 years so I consider myself sort of an expert. Also keep in mind I do not hand out 5 star reviews lightly. This one gets 3 stars because I had some issues with the app, and getting it set up. I also can not use the function where you look at the photos with my iphone 11 pro max. I was finally able to do the set up using my OLD ipad air 2. I find it unacceptable that the app will not work for one of the main features or to set it up, using my newish Iphone on the latest iOS software. In talking to other users this problem is common. Had I not had the old iPad I would have had to return it because without connecting it to wifi via the app, it's worthless. Once I got it set up, I can do the schedule etc from my iphone but it won't show me the photos for the obstacles it finds. I get the error message on my phone but if I open the app on my iPad I can see the photos and deal with them. I do not like that I have to go get out an old device to do it and do not understand why iRobot does not deal with it. I also tried to contact them about it and got no response. I might end up just turning off the feature because it's not that big a deal to me. I did try turning it off and was hoping it would shut that light off but the light still is shining even with the feature turned off. It seems like it would waste power having that light on all the time and if I don't use the feature why is the light still on? Ok so on to the actual vacuuming. This model does an great job on hard surfaces but does not really do the greatest job on carpet compared to my older 980 which had a carpet boost setting that most of the other 900 robots lacked. I also liked that I could set my 980 to focus on cleaning and could turn off edge clean. It's probably silly on my part but I like to see the neat lines on my carpet after it cleans and it seems to do the back and forth cleaning with the j7 and then go around the edges so I see these deep marks on the edges and going around any furniture. I liked that I could turn that off with my 980 so I just saw neat rows. I could always go turn it on once in awhile but honestly that edge feature is more important with hard floors, than it is with carpet. One other thing I find odd is that the app shows me carpet the robot has detected, yet there are no settings for changing vac power level and it does not act differently on carpet, so why is the thing worried about detecting my carpet? I ended up having to set it to clean twice once one way and once across what it vacuumed to get it as clean as it got it with my 980 alone. I probably would have been better off going with the s9 for carpet but I did not want to pay that much and upstairs there is not as much dirt so it does and acceptable job. I just think they could have given it a little more power and more settings. on vac power. I love that I can set it to do certain rooms, and no longer need those dumb walls. In that respect it's so much better than my 980. One other thing it seemed my 980 did better with was area rugs in the bathroom. My 980 used to knock them around a bit but did not get stuck on them. The j7 gets hung up on the little cotton rugs on the floor. I'm not sure how I'm going to deal with that. I want it to clean our bathrooms but it's a pain to have to pick up the rugs each day so for now I turned off the bathroom cleaning. The self emptying feature is great. I do not have to empty the bin and once I do have to empty the bag it seals and goes in the trash without me having to get a puff of dust all over. I also love that they lowered the height with this self emptying bin so it's not a huge tower. I've been running it 3 times a week upstairs for over a month and have not had to empty it yet. I'm thinking I might just change it at 2 months if it does not give me a notice that it's full. I can feel stuff in there but I guess there is room for more. I'm not sure what has to be in there to trigger it needing to be changed. The bags to me seem reasonable. Even the irobot bags are only around $5 a bag which seems reasonable considering I'm not having to change it often, and it's worth it for me to not have to deal with the dirty dust puff all over my cleaned area. It makes me want to upgrade my s9 to the self empying base and I might do it at some point if they lower the height of that self emptying base too. Over all this is a decent robotic vac. It's great if you have hard floors but with carpet it's just so so. I'd prefer a deeper vac power for carpet, but it's passable. Thanks for reading my review
Overall, pretty snazzy.
By Robert - Reviewed in the United States on February 15, 2023
Verified Amazon Purchase
I've been watching these robot vacuums for years and finally decided to take the plunge. I know myself well enough to admit I would benefit from one that self empties, for a while at least. (For reference I have one child and one small dog in my household.) The vacuum seems to be very well built and designed. Same goes for the base. I am impressed by the vacuum's ability to traverse various flooring scenarios as well as it's capability to pick up debris. It cleans remarkably well on hard floors, but carpet is a mixed bag. We have a Persian area rug, various shaggy bathmats and runners, as well as some wall to wall carpeting. Pet fur tends to stay pretty well velcroed to the Persian rug until I break out the upright vac. To be fair, we have another rug with tassel edges, and it amazes me that they have caused zero issues thus far. Some notes: It may self empty for 60 days for you, IF you live in a NASA white room. Otherwise, expect notification of "approaching capacity" within a week or two if you have pets, children, or just generally live in reality. Not a deal breaker, but don't glaze over promises of "up to..." If this vacuum picks a fight with a high-pile or shag rug, expect the vacuum to become disabled, lost, or confused, and be prepared for your rug to take significant damage. Granted, most of our bathmats are of the pretty economical variety, but be warned. They are fraying rapidly at the edges where they were in pristine condition previously. Also- I do not feel that this is adequately addressed in any advertisement, question or review so I will state it as clearly as I can: when the vacuum self empties, the base is LOUD AF. I have read it described in many delicate and generous manners, but it only sounds and EXACTLY SOUNDS like one thing: someone running the average shop vac for 4-6 seconds. Fortunately our base station could not physically be any farther from our bedrooms and still be in the house. This was not a result of the noise, just preference, but it still helps a great deal. I wouldn't call it a deal breaker, and the feature certainly seems to work very well, but you should be completely aware. I also don't love the size or proprietary nature of the waste bags. They seem to hold a fair amount, do a fair job of filtering during empties, and are certainly easy to remove and install. But it would be nice if the manufacturer would accommodate recycling the bags at least once or twice by offering some intuitive method of opening or disassembly. I've been using some long forceps to fish the larger eggs/pellets of fur out of the filter bag now and then to prolong the life of the bags, but frankly it's tricky. The refills are pretty affordable, but still... With regards to obstacle avoidance, it's what you'd expect. You really ought to follow it around and supervise on it's first vacuuming run, because there are just some things it avoids, and others it simply steamrolls. You won't know if it can avoid your charging cables and shoelaces etc until you try. As for the software, it's pretty impressive but still needs a little love. I set the vac up, and sent it for a mapping run a few times. I picked up some trash cans and hampers and such to give it a broad picture of the physical furniture. I was surprised and intrigued at it's accuracy and thoroughness. Then I realized two bedroom doors had been closed. I ran another DOZEN mapping runs, specifically "updating the existing map," and even after finding and searching both rooms several times, the app refused to add them. Finally I decided to shake things up, so on the last mapping run, I moved the dock before the vac returned. Whoa buddy was that hilarious to watch. It did finally manage to find home, and on the next mapping run it was entirely discombobulated for the first few minutes... then it seemed to realize where it was... then it rescanned the two missed rooms again... then it returned to it's dock without too much consternation... THEN it recognized both new rooms with no issue. The ability to label rooms, define borders, create sub-zones, schedule jobs, and so forth are all pretty cool features. I use my Google ecosystem to send it to specific areas regularly and it's pretty reliable. I've seen it "get stuck" in a mess of dining room chairs that it's explored a dozen times before. I've seen it take the alternate "long way around" when a baby gate was closed. I've seen it aimlessly banging against a corner it has turned many times flawlessly. I have also noticed that when it "fails" on a job, it seems to sit and pout, then spitefully run the battery down to nearly dead until I cradle it in my arms and gently nestle it back in the dock. It confuses me why I can't just set it near the dock and tap the top button to let it know everything is hunky dory and it can return home. I say this because when manually docking this bad boy, it *is* just a little quirky and you *do* have to make a concerted effort to confirm that the contacts are indeed making positive connection. Having said all that, I still think it's worth the investment as a helper (not a sole vacuum) and I don't regret the purchase!
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