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+

I’ve purchased 4 Roomba sweepers & a mop so far because I’m apparently stupid & don’t like to clean. Initially, this thing is a dream come true & you’ll love that it sweeps while you’re doing something else. I don’t use the programming app because I find that to be a bit much, I just hit the button & it goes. I can tell a huge difference with different types of dog hair. Longer dog hair gets trapped in the wheels & underneath and clogs the machine so I’m pretty good at disassembling the unit & cleaning/replacing parts by now. This newest j7 purchased 10/3/22 - 6 mos. ago - is already spouting multiple errors at me. I had 3 just today & cleaned it out completely. It still doesn’t work. I have 2 of the j7 self emptying & a 980 currently. The I7 Wi-Fi connected self emptying machine was thrown in the trash 2 years after I purchased it due to multiple issues, not limited to the fact that the design of the emptying dock was bad & they’ve since changed it but it was a complete loss for me. I can say that the most reliable machine so far is the 980 that you have to empty by hand. I’ve had it since 2017 and it still works well. The dust bins are larger on the non-emptying types and they hold a lot and pack the bin full. I purchased an extra basic dock for this machine & move it around. I think this is the best bet due to the fact that the more tech on the machines, the quicker they break down. I have mostly hardwood floors & some low pile carpet/area rugs so I’m not beating this thing up. Really disappointing longevity on the self-emptying styles.

We named her Hazel and she operates out of the Guest Bedroom away from being under foot or in constant view. Having mapped out the entire house, shes ready to head into specific areas (especially after the Grandkids leave) and make the crumbs and tracked-in dirt disappear. My wife has had breathing concerns for the past few years, but with Hazel now having removed 6-years worth of dust-bunnies from underneath the Master Bed, we both noticed a marked improvement sleeping in fresher air after just the first 2 days. Hazel also gets the dust out from under our sofa, coffee table, and leather chairs - and into the back corners of the walk-in closets. Shes much more thorough than the hand-pushed upright (now donated to charity) and dutifully vacuums multiple times a week vs. once a week (if I remembered to vacuum at all...). No turning back now!

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.

Does not vacuum rooms well. Constantly gets lost. Maps are terrible. iRobot Support useless. I had high hopes for my 1st robot vacuum, $600 j7+ . I found online & studied; Owner’s Guide & “Complete Guide for Imprint Smart Maps and FAQs” I ran many mapping runs & cleaning cycles. Wasted a huge amount of time trying to get this to work as advertised. I searched for online Roomba forums for help & tips. Finally, I called the telephone support & spent ½ hr. With a support rep, who was no help at all. The j7 is very inefficient with time & battery life which would be OK if it actually got the job done. Clean the entire room & do not get stuck. It maps & cleans rooms at strange angle, rather than following the sensible layout of the room, which again is OK if it ended up cleaning the entire room. It would start in one area & w/o finishing, cross over to the opposite side of the room & start there & sometimes, eventually go back to the 1st area to finish. Often leaving a corner or different area unexplored/uncleaned. “Keep Out Zones” Unable to rotate the Red rectangle to align with a sensible barrier. I could make the square as small as 8” x 8” but always at a 45˚ angle so my ‘do not cross’ line was always a series of pointy diamond shapes. This resulted in the keep out area being larger than desired. It worked to stop the j7 from getting hung up but left too much floor uncleaned. I could rotate the map itself but the rectangles rotated along with the map. Support rep unable to help with this. Extremely frustrating! Room Divider lines: Often initially wrong. I can move the line & rotate the line but cannot make the line shorter! In one case, to correctly set the line correctly, between my tiled Entryway & my carpeted Family Room, the divider extended ½ way into the FR at an odd angle. If I was able to adjust the length of that line, I could make it correct. I could not & neither could the support rep. Maps are not correct re depiction of carpet vs. tile floor. This was strange. Often at transitions between rooms the map would have a bizarre carpet area encroaching onto tile & vice versa. Also the transition between rooms was often geographically incorrect. Instead of two rectangular rooms connecting via a doorway in between… Some odd angle would be introduced, which was just… Strange. If you have one floor and the robot can get everywhere, this might be a decent Robo vacuum. I have a single story home with a raised tile entryway. This results in three separate areas that the robot must treat as three different maps. The home base station is only in one of those areas. No matter how many times I tried, following the suggestion from the support rep, j7 continually failed to make a separate map of the entryway! It kept adding the entryway as a new area abutting the living room. This was technically true except the tile is raised 5–6 inches… An absolutely insurmountable barrier for the robot! The instructions and the support rep both state you do not need to move the base home station to other floors or other areas. Simply place the robot in the new area and then either press the button on the robot or press begin mapping or begin cleaning on the app. The robot will map/clean the new area and then since it will be unable to get home to the base station, it will stop, make a musical tone and wait for you to physically move it back to the base station. This absolutely does not happen! What happens is it will clean/map the new area and then the App says: “heading home and j7 will wander around, bumping into everything, in a failed attempt to go home until it runs out of battery life. So, in summary, I wanted three Maps; 1) front house area, which has the home station, 2) raised tile entryway, no home station & 3) bedrooms and hallway (no home station) hallway is again blocked by the raised tile entryway. I would have no problem letting j7 clean the front house area and go back to the base station to empty the bin or recharge. But, then I needed to be able to physically move it to the raised entryway and tell it to clean and then when it was done to stop and let me move it back to the base station. Same thing with the back hallway/bedrooms. The j7 is incapable of doing this. It did map the back hallway & BRs ~ 75% accuracy but, after finishing cleaning would wander around, lost banging into everything, till battery ran down. I think it sensed when base station was only 20 or 30 feet away but could not get to it due to tile barrier so, kept retracing steps, wasting time & battery. I was relieved to return this overpriced toy.

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 - Id 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 Ive ever seen. Despite being in use for almost a year, it continues to bump its way along the room maps - almost like its never been there before. In addition, Ive 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 its nose in, then ignores it. Battery life is pretty poor - itll 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, Ill 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.

We considered the more expensive S9, but decided on the j7 because we primarily have wood floors with some area rugs. We live in a tri-level and have moved the vacuum & stand to each floor for mapped and cleaning. OBSERVATIONS - The cleaning performance exceed our expectations - Quiet when cleaning except when complete the the base suctions the debris out of the j7 It is so quiet that we are surprised to hear it GENTLY bumps into things - we forget it is running - The methodical approach to covering the entire floor is refreshing compared to previous random pattern vacuums. - The mobile app is excellent. It shows a nice graphical representation of the cleaning after completion. I just wish it would show the coverage as it cleans (vs waiting until the end) - It detected and avoid electrical and USB cords. This is especially nice because we forgot what was under the couches & beds (out of sight out of mind). it NEVER ONE got tangled or pulled on the cords. - Faster at cleaning than our old random pattern vacuum. Those would run until they were nearly out of power verse knowing they covered the entire floor. With the mapping this vacuum knows where it needs to clean avoiding unnecessary vacuuming time. - The short squat base fits nicely next to dressers, night stands, and couches. While Roomba recommends space to either side of the base I ignored that recommendation to hid it away from casual viewing. It worked perfectly always finding its way home. - transitions over thresholds without an issue. Wood to carpet, wood to tile, tile to carpet, it never had an issue scaling the threshold. Interestingly it did not scale the padded mat I use at my standing desk. It somehow figured out it was not a threshold and vacuumed around the small pad. Nice! - The attached wall brash was deformed because of the way it was packaged or moved during shipping. I replaced with the included second brush and will try to straighten the brush arm after heating up with a heathen. It is not badly deformed and Im going to try to straighten simply because I have a heathen handy. - The packaging was good with minimal use of non-recyclable materials We are happy with the j7+ and will likely purchased an extra base or two to leave on the different floors of our house.

If you have a dog, it is a must! great vacuum! Better than I expected.

I bought my wife an i3+ for Christmas. It was cute and we named it WALL-E but that’s where the charm ended: - Had trouble staying connected to Wi-Fi (and didn’t support 5 GHz - only 2.4 GHz) - Setup was clumsier - Would abort about every 3rd cleaning run on average by getting stuck and throwing an error code - Took 5+ hours to clean 1000 sq feet We upgraded to the j7+ and it’s like night and day. J7+ just works. Period. - Supports 5 GHz and stays connected to my Wi-Fi - Connected without fuss; very easy setup - Has a camera and navigates much more confidently - Mapping works better - Identifies carpet automatically and adds to map - Identifies obstacles like cords and loose objects; supports “keep away” zones - Vacuums in half the time of i3+ - Finds home base far more reliably and quicker - Quieter Very happy with this j7 purchase after an initially disappointing experience with the i3. Researched the j7 purchase heavily before buying and it was consistently the top performer. I can concur now having owned for a week. Will come back for an update after 6-12 months to give feedback on performance over time rather than just week #1 impressions.

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.

It definitely works better than the last robot vacuum we had 7 years ago, but after about 10 days it started having sensor issues, emptying issues, couldnt find home, dog hair wrapped around the front wheel, etc. Familiar problems from the past, but at a higher price tag. Cleaning the vacuums sensors and resetting it seems to resolve the problems for another week or so. I guess I was just expecting less trouble for the price. Going to demo another make/model and keep the winner. Update: we tried a few different brands, and this device was by far the best performer due to the built in camera. It still needs attention every 5 days or so, but it beats vacuuming the old way, no question. If youre not in a hurry, considering waiting to see what other brands come up with once they start integrating cameras as well.