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+

Ive 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 vacuums ability to traverse various flooring scenarios as well as its 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 dont 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 wouldnt call it a deal breaker, and the feature certainly seems to work very well, but you should be completely aware. I also dont 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. Ive 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 its tricky. The refills are pretty affordable, but still... With regards to obstacle avoidance, its what youd expect. You really ought to follow it around and supervise on its first vacuuming run, because there are just some things it avoids, and others it simply steamrolls. You wont know if it can avoid your charging cables and shoelaces etc until you try. As for the software, its 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 its 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 its 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 its pretty reliable. Ive seen it get stuck in a mess of dining room chairs that its explored a dozen times before. Ive seen it take the alternate long way around when a baby gate was closed. Ive 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 cant 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 its worth the investment as a helper (not a sole vacuum) and I dont regret the purchase!

Not sure about it

This is my third robotic vacuum. The first two were epic fails (neither of them had the app for home mapping, which is a feature I feel is a *MUST HAVE* if you want your vacuum to run correctly.) I cant believe I actually paid $650 (with tax) for this one, but I have to say Im pretty happy I did. Overall, the Roomba j7+ is an awesome way to keep your house tidy—with a few exceptions. See below: The good: The first day was intense. It took a total of 8 hours (including two breaks for a recharge), but I finally got it to map out my house. Its an open concept design and on Roombas map, I unfortunately couldnt tell where some rooms begin and others end. The placeholders (rugs, doorways, etc) arent set to scale, and sometimes my estimations of the boundaries were way off based on Roombas diagram. Part of the problem was my fault because I was so picky about getting the boundaries accurate. Once it was all set up, Roomba and its software really showed its strength. I was very impressed with how efficient it was at cleaning. It even readjusted and learned better ways at cleaning tight corners after taking a few trips around the same space—proof that the vacuum truly does get smarter over time, as is promised. This was a welcome surprise because I usually have to vacuum daily due to our pets. The bad: The living room is the only room where the Roomba completely failed. I tried running 8 separate cleaning sessions on this room, and it only seemed to get more confused over time. Its your typical rectangular room with a couch, multiple chairs, end tables, a few planters, and a coffee table on a rug in the center. The rug is a high pile, so I never expected the Roomba to be able to tackle it (even traditional vacuums struggle with it). Surprisingly, the Roomba *was* able to make its way over the rug, but only after fighting and curling the rug every which way, which I fear will damage it in the long run. ... AND... It never correctly identified the rug on the map. If it had marked it as a rug, I could have drawn a shape over the area and marked it as a zone to avoid. But without the map, I have no idea where the rug is in the app. I tried making an estimated guess, but it ended up missing important parts of the living area off the rug. And each time I edited the rug, I had to run the vacuum again to re-map it. I finally gave up. This will just have to be a room I continue to vacuum manually. The fugly: After cutting my sons hair, I figured Id let Roomba clean up the mess instead of cleaning it myself. MASSIVE MISTAKE. The Roomba gathered all the hair into a tidy pile on the bathroom floor, then proceeded to mow right through it and drag huge clumps onto the rug over by the shower! Then it backed up and ran more clumps over the rug again. After it had sufficiently painted the rug with hundreds of tiny hairs (which I swear Ill never be able to get all out), it went outside its boundary and spread more hairs into the bedroom. I was convinced that Roomba would somehow fix this based on its dirt detect technology. But no, instead of going back and cleaning up the mess it made, it traveled merrily back to its home base, leaving a long trail of hair behind it. On the clean-up summary, there was no mention of dirt detection, and no indication of an irregular cleaning session. Lesson learned, and I was the idiot for sending a robot to do a humans job. I wont make the mistake again. All that to say, I wouldnt trust Roomba again if there was a mess to clean up, such as spilled chips. Id be afraid the vacuum would just crush them and spread the bits all over the house. Where it really seems to excel is cleaning small day-to-day things, such as dust and pet hair. It does a really solid job of this. My house was already clean when I started using it, and Ive watched each day as it cleans up new clumps of pet hair and little bits of dust and debris. Overall, Id say its a good vacuum for maintaining an already clean home. For that, Im still pretty happy. It saves me a lot of work. I run its cycle daily and its so much nicer to not have to do the work myself.

We have pets, so I got this, so it would avoid them love the self empty. It’s great at avoiding obstacles, but it’s quite a bit noisier than I thought when it empties it sounds like a airplane taking off I would recommend, but do not use at night when you’re sleeping it will wake you up.

This docs and empties much better than prior version. Great battery life. For some reason it gets lost from time to time.

So, we have coretec flooring all throughout our house. We live on the water with a lot of sand and that’s the reason we didn’t want carpet. When my wife first asked me about this little machine I said, “let me do some research first.” I run the vac in our house because of our golden retriever. She’s a shedder for sure! Please don’t think that this vac will 100% replaced your upright vac. It’s good. Really good. Probably a 9.7 out of a possible 10. The reason I give it a smidge lower score is it is obviously a robot and is not perfect. I can’t type the whole name that I’ve labeled mine in the app but suffice to say it is “HouseVac*itch.” Yes ladies…my wife didn’t like that name, but it did stick. We run this thing 2 – 3 x’s a week in our home. You will be absolutely amazed at how quickly the small collection bag in the base fills up. Why? Because this robot is going underneath furniture that we all probably rarely move. I know I don’t move it every time. There were one or two times that HVB got stuck in the pantry, but it was not really the unit’s fault. We had put too many things in there on the floor. Would I purchase this again? In a heartbeat. I may go and purchase another one to keep in the master suite. That way, I can run them both and try to keep up with the dog hair! (This dog should be bald by now! LOL!) Good luck!

My first robotic vacuum and Im a fan. Have used for about 7 months now without issue. If only it would do stairs.

Like the ability after cleaning to clean out the bin.

The navagation and AI on this vacuum are insanly good. IT doesn’t vacuum or have adjustable power levels but it is very quiet and very smart. Would highly recommend to people who have multiple rooms and need a bot smart enough to navigate anywhere and be dependable. Has not got stuck yet.

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.