iRobot Roomba j7+ (7550) Self-Emptying Robot Vacuum –Identifies and avoids obstacles like pet waste & cords, Empties itself for 60 days, Smart Mapping, Works with Alexa, Ideal for Pet Hair, Roomba J7+

The iRobot vacuum is amazing. We love it. My son had fun programming it and it is now the cat’s highlight of the day. It cleans well and navigates all the pitfalls in our home which is no easy task. That being said I am stupendously disappointed in the reply I received for the seller when asked about an owner’s manual. There was no kind of instructions on how to use the robot or to set it up. Thank goodness my son is pretty adept at these kind of things. When I sent a message to the seller about not getting a manual the reply was “Did you look on line?” !!!???/::!?- really! For almost nine hundred dollars I think it should include instructions. It was fun trying to figure out how to take the rotating bars apart when an object got stuck in it and it started to whistle. Now it’s telling me to replace some filter that I don’t know where it is what it is or how to do that because I didn’t receive any instructions Maybe I should have given this the title of what customer service. Bottom line the product is 5 star the seller is one star maybe

Had the 9 and watched it literally chew up the edges of some small carpets. 20 years of wear in a minute. Sent it back and got the 9j. It does not destroy carpets, does not get tangled in fringe and overall does a satisfactory job. It has a shorter run time than the 9 but like the 9 it comes in for a charge and then goes out to finish the job. It mapped the floor faster than the 9, but has a bit more hesitancy about darker areas. The vacuum bin sounds like a jet winding up but it only lasts a moment. The 7 is quieter than our older model. It might be just a bit less effective with cat hair, the jury is still out. Freaky feature-- it takes images of foreign objects on the floor and asks you if this is a temporary or permanent thing. You have the option to let it send the images to iRobot. I saw a shoe, a cat toy, a small ball, an extension cord dressed down a table leg, a wrapper dropped next to a waste can and the same wrapper pushed two feet away. After a brief discussion we decided not to send images to the iRobot database. Let them get their own cat toys and shoes. Alexa integration is never so easy as it should be but it works--mostly. You can name your robot during the setup and I named it Drudge. If I say Alexa tell Drudge to go home. Alex says Drudge go home. but nothing happens. If I say tell Roomba to go home, Alex says she will tell Drudge to go home and it does. The cat tolerates it, the other party at interest just wants the floor kept clean, and I much prefer that Drudge does the job. We are keeping Drudge. So all in all an improvemen

I have had this for a few weeks. It does a good job although to do the entire first floor, it takes most of the day. I have a long, ranch home about 2350 sq ft on the ground floor. It needs to go back and recharge when I set it to clean the entire floor. It does a good job about learning where the cat food and litter box are stored. It avoids cords and takes pictures of areas it is unsure about so I can tell it if the item in its path is there permanently or temporarily. The only problem I am having is getting it to clean specific rooms only. If I want just the bedroom cleaned, it cant seem to find the bedroom. It is marked on the map but maybe the distance from the base unit and my bedroom is too great. I am running a new map to see if I cant improve the map it has recorded. I am very happy with it but need to learn how to work out its quirks. It is likely human error. UPDATE: After using several weeks I need to update my review. This vacuum requires a great deal of patience. I direct it to clean the primary bedroom and it goes into the dining room and dances around there for a little while before finally going to the bedroom where it vacuums a few rows and returns to home base completed. It tells me repeatedly to empty the bin when the bin is empty. I did not realize until I removed the green rubber bars that the majority of the cat hair was clogging up the vacuum and never making it to the bin. I think it will require cleaning after each use, or at least every other use if you have a pet. I have 1 small, short haired cat, and the vacuum struggles with that cat hair. Some of the issues may be user ignorance and the more I learn the performance may improve, but I am not sure I would make this purchase if I had it to do over again.

Compared with a broom and a dustpan, it is OK; its cat fur-ball cleaning capability is zilch. (Use a Dustbuster for that). However, because it is so well designed for the lazy man, my hardwood floors and rugs get cleaned a LOT more often, so that is a big win--I wont tell you how rarely they got cleaned before. Also, like all carpet vacuums, it cant get the edges. Again, use a Dustbuster. UPDATE 6/22/23: If you have cats, expect to have to open and empty the bin on the Roomba itself weekly. The cat hair doesnt get sucked out by the base. I have short haired cats, if I had long haired cats I probably would be cleaning the bin on the Roomba daily.

I’ve owned 4 iRobot products and each, except for this one, was almost totally worthless. Prior products were variously stupidly loud, made of poor materials, apparently designed by Radio Shack, and doomed to failure within 1 year. I’ve had the Roombas that used those irritating ’fence’ beacons; and iRobot floor mopping products that had software failures within 3 months. But now, finally, iRobot produced a well-designed mini vacuum that does NOT require manual intervention at every turn, is paired with an exceptionally good app that maps and has very useful features, and which can be automated to run when you leave home (and stop when you get back). Did iRobot hire someone new? Remove the previously cloddish team from the enduser experience? Sure seems like it. I want robotic devices that are easy to set up and which are not a regular time-sink. I want to be able to mostly forget about them. And iRobot finally made one that I do not have to think about much at all. The floors are merely cleaned of small debris that accumulates in regular living. Now if they could only do the same with an effective floor mopping automated robot that is not just dragging a wet towelette across the floor. Alas: Not yet. The price is steep, but they’ve always been steep for their latest innovations. This time — for the very first time — it has been worth it. Finally. Sure took you long enough, iRobot. Congratulations to whoever it is you hired to make a mini, light-use vacuum that delivers on promises you’ve made before, but did not keep.

All floors are pretty clean after use except for carpet. It struggles and doesnt clean it well at all.

Roomba does not have LIDAR navigation. I do have another robot that is LIDAR so I can give a rough pros and cons of the two type of navigation system. Roomba relies more on bumping into things and its map to navigate. Theres good and bad. The bad is that it will often go around the house as if its a drunk bumping into furniture and objects. The robot needs to learn your floorplan and that can take a long time since its bumping into everything. It took me about 5 runs of my whole house. Each run took about 3 -4 hours since my house is 2500 sq ft. Prior to it learning my house, its navigation looked like it was non existent. I thought I had just bought the dumbest robot especially compared to my inexpensive $300 LIDAR robot. However, once the robot declared that it had learned my floorplan everything changed and I began to see the benefits of the iRobot navigation system. Even after learning my floorplan, the iRobot still takes forever navigating around table and chair legs. Bumping and taking multiple attempts to escape the forest of chair legs, but surprisingly, it has never gotten stuck in my house. I have set it to vacuum my entire house several times and in total it has vacuumed about 20,000 sq ft in its lifetime so far and it has never gotten stuck. We have kids so theres a lot of toys and miscellaneous items everywhere so thats amazing to me. My LIDAR robot on the other hand navigates beautifully around furniture but it cant see cords or other lower to the ground objects and it constantly gets stuck on these objects. Also because LIDAR isnt bumping into things to navigate it gets stuck under my couch because the fabric under my couch sags and the LIDAR robot will travel underneath the couch but then think its blocked in by the fabric when it tries to leave the couch area. The iRobot doesnt have this problems because whenever its in doubt it just goes barreling through and utilizes the bump sensor to feel around. The other problem with my $300 LIDAR unit was that it would sometimes do a cleaning run but mistakenly think that there is a new floorplan and erase the old one. Its more sensitive to changes because its LIDAR hardware can detect small changes. This is probably more a software issue. The iRobot on the other hand, is very hesitant to change its map. That is good in that it has never erased my current floorplan or made incorrect modifications, however, the initial learning of the floorplan is a bit harder if it doesnt discover all your rooms. Getting it to discover new rooms is more difficult since the floor plan is locked in. Ive found the best way to get it to discover new rooms after it has learned the floorplan is to do an area clean and just draw a box where to new room should be. Once I did that, it would explore that area and declare it found a new space and then it was added to the floorplan. A few other more minor issues is that the Roomba software is polished but also very limited on options as compared to my inexpensive LIDAR unit. For example, I cant set how often the Roomba should self empty or the quiet times (they removed the beta feature for quiet times). These are important features since the self empty dock is very loud. Much louder then my LIDAR robots self empty dock. Im not that sensitive to noise. The noise level is just a design flaw. I cant imagine going forward they will keep this design. If you live in a small apartment then you should definitely be aware that you will be disturbing your neighbors or yourself when it self empties. Its louder than my large shop vac.

I like it a lot , does a good job easy to work the app ,4 stars not 5 is because of the battery life, I have an older model that I use in a lower level and runs twice as long, I guess if it has to empty the container then it may as well charge at that point but still my house isn’t that large with a better battery it could do the whole house

Compared to my iRobot roomba model 980, this J7 is not as loud. It has a strong light and looks like a drunk locomotive in my home. The vacuum chamber in the J7 is smaller than the model 980. When the j7 empties itself to vacuum bag in the top of the dock, it is loud ; very loud. So, I recommend you tell Alexa to activate Roomba while you are aware. Would not recommend running at bedtime unless you like horror films.

Got on Amazon sale for $599 then they had another sale month later for $499 thank you very much Amazon for the Fin. Any way the jury is still out with this unit. Battery doesnt last Im having to find it in the house dead and take back to dock. It does avoid objects like advertised but it doesnt avoid liquids. It does clean carpet as well but Ive noticed it wearing out the rollers quicker. liquids make a mess with it turns the dirt into well you know mud then sticks to rollers filter and the waste bin Now you has the clean everything and new filter. I glad I got it for $599 really would have liked $499 at this point not sure its worth the money . Also I had the E5 Roomba prior to this one it performed as well as this one only upgrades Dock station vac, obstacle avoidance and the picture mapping. And I only paid $300 for it. so are the upgrades worth it? Yes for maybe $200 more not the $300 I paid