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 it's map to navigate. There's good and bad. The bad is that it will often go around the house as if it's a drunk bumping into furniture and objects. The robot needs to learn your floorplan and that can take a long time since it's 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, it's 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 it's lifetime so far and it has never gotten stuck. We have kids so there's a lot of toys and miscellaneous items everywhere so that's amazing to me. My LIDAR robot on the other hand navigates beautifully around furniture but it can't see cords or other lower to the ground objects and it constantly gets stuck on these objects. Also because LIDAR isn't 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 it's blocked in by the fabric when it tries to leave the couch area. The iRobot doesn't have this problems because whenever it's 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. It's more sensitive to changes because it's LIDAR hardware can detect small changes. This is probably more a software issue. The iRobot on the other hand, is very hesitant to change it's 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 doesn't discover all your rooms. Getting it to discover new rooms is more difficult since the floor plan is locked in. I've 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 can't 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. I'm not that sensitive to noise. The noise level is just a design flaw. I can't 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. It's louder than my large shop vac.

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.

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.

I purchased the J7+ in November of 2021, which was approximately two months after the initial release. This was definitely a mistake.... The Roomba worked well for the first few weeks but I have had constant issues ever since the first time I was informed that the base vacuum bag needed replacing. The base came with a spare bag, so of course I changed the bag even though the initial bag was only a quarter full. After the first day of running (with the new bag), the base/Roomba stated that it could not empty the bin as the bag was full. The bag was brand new and completely empty.... I took the bag out and realigned and wiped the sensors but still got the same issue... I was able to force the Roomba to empty into the base through the app but it would not do so itself. I even bought third parry bags and IRobot branded bags and neither fixed the issue. In the mean time the Roomba operated well enough. I had to manually empty the bin but that wasnt too bad. I say that it worked well enough though, as I bought the J7+ as it says it is specifically designed to go around pet waste and other objects, yet it was constantly vacuuming up my puppies waste, as well as sucking up the puppy training pad, which would cause the Roomba to beep until I manually removed the training pad from the wheels. I would have bought a less expensive, tried and true model, had I known the pet waste detection was not working well on this Roomba (even though that was what it said it was designed for). On many occasions the Roomba would run out of charge and die before it finished cleaning and before it could return itself to the charging base, most often under the bed, so I'd have to crawl under the bed to retrieve the Roomba and manually place on the charger. Not the worst problem in the world but for $800+ I did not expect to have this issue. I called and spoke with an IRobot customer service agent was from a call center and while the agent was pleasant enough and walked me through some troubleshoot steps, of course the agent could not resolve any of the issue and ultimately just had me do a fairly detailed cleaning of the Roomba, but not much more. The agent did not once mention that the Roomba was under warranty and that I could possibly get it repaired under warranty. I suffered through another year of issues with the Roomba, mainly manually emptying, not charging, not returning to the base (to charge), not being able to connect, issues with it getting stuck under objects or sucking up objects it should have avoided etc. The rare time the base worked, it was extremely loud when emptying from the Roomba to the base, which might be worse than manually needing to empty the Roomba ever few days. Finally, the Roomba completely stopped charging and connecting altogether. I again did a troubleshoot session with no fix and no offer for the parts to be replaced/Roomba to be repaired under warranty. I ended up unplugging the Roomba and and left it in a closet to die. I of course finally was motivated to try the Roomba again after 3 months of it being unplugged, just to see if it magically repaired itself and of course, now I have a new issue with it stating that it is on uneven ground and it cannot run until it is placed on even ground (even though it is). I again called the customer service line and spoke to a very pleasant 12 year old (or at least they sounded like they were 12) and the agent perfectly followed the pre-written script they had and walked me through a very detailed cleaning process, which of course did nothing to solve the issue/s. This agent then asked for my receipt and mentioned repairs under warranty, only to of course say the warranty was now expired, but for "Maybe" around $150 I could purchase an extended warranty and send the Roomba in for repairs. I was told that I could also take the Roomba apart myself and replace the wheels, which "hopefully, maybe" might be the issue and resolve the latest problems. I was told I could buy the wheels for $65 but "maybe" I could get a discount but that I'd need to talk to the sales department for that... When I mentioned that the uneven ground error was the latest issue, but that I have had at least a dozen other issues/errors prior, the agent said that I could return the wheels should they not fix the issue and then I could trade in my J7+ for a $100 IRobot credit and could buy a new Roomba.... Talk about depreciation, I bought the J7+ brand new (two months after the release) for $879 and now a year and a half later, the Roomba is worth $100 (but only as a trade-in towards another Roomba).. IRobot customer service did nothing to assist me and avoided mentioning repairs while the warranty was still valid, but then all of a sudden once the warranty was expired, they mention the expired warranty and pushed for me to purchase an extended warranty or a new Roomba.... Once again, I am left with a neat looking pile of plastic which does not work... I will not be back to IRobot ever again, and recommend looking at Eufy or some of the newer Robot vacuums. Not a happy experience....

Big thing is solely let it map to properly get a good map cause letting multi task doesn't turn out well. Next big thing is clean the unit, make sure camera is clean with a micro fiber, base's rubber seal where it connects to the underside is clean, and most importantly clean the roomba unit tank out along with that seal. The base doesn't get the heavy stuff out like rocks. The unit isn't a set up and forget about it like the cheap 690 series where just empty it and it's fine. It will work fine if you clean it. The big flaw is it's not good in carpet, like at all. The 690 series does a better job which is sad since theirs about a 400 dollar difference. So only get this unit for alot of hardwood flooring and have it avoid carpets. It will clean husky hair perfectly off hard flooring but the moment you get to carpet it clumps it up and throws it. Last big thing is it's good for maintenance cleaning not deep cleaning. You still have to use a upright vacuum properly clean. This unit is wonderful for just keep dust and air off the floor so the weekly heavy cleaning isn't a nightmare.

Purchased in May 2023: iRobot Roomba j7+ (7550) Self-Emptying Robot Vacuum. It does a good job overall, and if it ever bites the dust (pardon the pun) -- I'd be buying another one - the latest model :) We have wide plank flooring, no carpet, no pets, no kids. We no longer use our upright vac. However, the dust mop is useful to get where the robot can't. 1. If you have uneven, bumpy floors, those spots will be missed. 2. Some spots you'll need to dust/clean, like around toilets, behind open doors, and under items that don't provide enough clearance to go underneath. 3. Long haired households will need to remove some hair from underneath the robot after each cleaning or two, but don't worry, it's really easy and quick to remove it. 4. The software app isn't the most user friendly, but eventually, I managed to create a decent map of the whole house and figure out the rest as needed. 5. The BEST MAP I got, was the one mapped with the least amount of stuff on the floor (an empty room is best but not practical) so, pick up everything that could possibly be picked up off the floor. For me, removing chairs, end tables, coffee tables, floor lamps, ottomans, etc., created a better map. 5. If furniture is moved, removed, or added back, it will clean where it can go, and it notifies you if it finds a 'new space' because you rearranged the furniture and exposed the previously unmapped space. 6. I found that keeping wires and cords permanently off the floors, or bundled in a tube made for that purpose, or secured with velcro wraps made for a better cleaning experience (and dust bunny management). The ability to create favorites and mini-areas to clean instead of whole rooms or the whole house, saves on the maintenance of replacement parts -- which are based on hours of use.

The fact that Roomba can empty his own dustbin and then go right on back to cleaning is a game changer in my opinion (we started referring to the self-emptying feature as ‘goin potty like a good boy!!’ so our 100lb Doberman knows Roomba is a friend, not a scary bad guy). And if you’re already upset I’ve gendered Roomba as he/him, it’s probably best for you to move on to a different review—No disrespect intended whatsoever— it’s just that in our house, for whatever reason, Roomba’s a boy robot (but for the record we’d love him no matter what). Moving on. We’re in a single story house w/ mostly tile & rugs in the areas Roomba ventures (I use a regular vacuum for the carpet in the bedrooms). In all truth I could probably let him explore the bedrooms cause he seems to be pretty powerful & effective, we just hadn’t needed the extra cleaning power in those rooms since the doors mostly stay closed. The main concern was the tiled areas since that’s where most of the day to day traffic is… especially from the aforementioned sweet monster puppy, Rambo, who often comes barreling inside w/ 4 dirty monster puppy paws. Thus, for our specific needs, Roomba has certainly *understood the assignment*…or whatever the Gen Z’s say? **side note: this is the first time I’m realizing the ‘Roomba’ / ‘Rambo’ name combo. It’s like they’re siblings. Cute….? Weird…? Okay, once again—moving on. Sure, there might be more ‘tech savvy’ options for robot vacuums but I tell ya what, this lil dude WORKS & he don’t call it quits til’ he’s FOR REAL finished w/ the job. Like, one day over the holidays I made a huge mess w/ some glitter & other crap while decorating & poor Roomba was working so hard he had to stop cleaning, go back home to his charging station, go potty, & take a lil nap. THEN!!! Yall! he woke back up on his own & went straight back to cleaning until he’d completed the entirety of his map!! I was so impressed!! like dang what a responsible, reliable hard worker! AND independent! He doesn’t require much support or guidance at all, he just figures out where he’s going & uses his robot brain to generate a map that you’re able to edit & label within the app (if you want). Speaking of which— the app is very user friendly & has lots of options to customize Roomba to function however you choose. The single time I had to contact customer service was a positive experience- they were great. This purchase was a good one!! No complaints from us— I love this robot vacuum and I feel like the price is reasonable for the high quality & reliability of the product. Except Rambo still doesn’t trust him b/c Roomba sucked up some of his kibbles (told y’all Roomba don’t care!). But Rambo is the one who slung his food everywhere & made a mess, so that’s on him not Roomba.

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

We tried iRobot Roomba j7+ for 5weeks on hardwood floor/tiles, low pile rugs and mid pile carpet for1 month. I' comparing it to the much simpler Eufy RoboVac 11S (Slim), 1300Pa w/out self-empty ($109): - Suction: it's definitely better than the cheaper Eufy, however Eufy's suction is enough for common debris and pet hair on hardwood floor or tiles! The Roomba suction was still not sufficient to pick up 50% of needles from our Xmas tree! The cheap Eufy didn't get any needles (maybe due to single brush vs. Rooma's double roller) but Roomba's 50% is still not enough for me! - Low-pile carpet/rugs: Both vacs perform well, 90-95%, on rugs. Using the Clean Zone feature of the Roomba in the entrance area did not make a difference. - Mid pile carpet: Roomba outperforms Eufy however, cleans only 75% of debris. This is likely due to the missing brushes. The rollers are made of rubber and have no bristles. It makes it easier to detangle hair from the rolls but it makes carpet cleaning worse. - Straight line vs. randomized vacuuming: Roomba is less likely to (but still does) miss dirt . Randomized vacuum cleaners (Eufy 11s) are meant for daily vacuuming and eventually they get all the dirt after a few runs. However, Roomba has some mapping issues with furniture (discontinuing a line after obstacles, hence missing spots), especially if objects are moved from day to day (chairs, other objects). Roomba's greater power and suction make it more likely for obstacles to be pushed or cords to get sucked up/stuck. Not a problem for us and cords were easy to detangle. - Edges/corners: Eufy outperforms Roomba with it's dual (instead of one sided) rotating side brushes. They are attached lower to the ground and will bring dirt out better. Eufy also has a hugging kind of movement along walls, Roomba a simple straight line that is less effective. Roomba will sometimes discontinue a wall, especially after an obstacle, and dump a dirt pile before it turns around. - Noise: stronger suction means more noise but Roomba's is OK during cleaning, however very loud when self-emptying - Self-emptying: is a huge plus, it worked generally but obstructs when dirt includes pine needles - Avoidance of pet feces/vomit: Doesn't work and Roomba drags it all over the place! - Stairs/objects: both vacs avoid those well, Roomba bumps objects and walls hard though - Climbing thresholds: Roomba is supposed to climb 20mm thresholds but it often fails depending on the angle of approach. We have a diagonal threshold between our 2 rooms - the angle is not favorable for Roomba's straight wall to wall motion. Roomba takes several minutes of trying, resulting in a lot of noise (sounds like damage is being done to the Roomba), sometimes it fails to cross the wooden 19mm (standard) transition strips (from hardwood to tile or between rooms) altogether. If it makes it then mapping is off, so it turns, runs right back over the threshold and has to start anew. Needless to say, the areas near transition strip doesn't get cleaned. The Roomba will hang half elevated, suction is not strong enough to pick up dirt near the strips and Roomba doesn't clean along the strips either. - No clean zones: nice concept but it only works if your zones are horizontal or vertical to your walls. Since one of our transition strips is diagonal, the no-clean zone could not be set to keep the vac out of the 19mm threshold (that it should be able to climb in the first place but can't). - Looks: Roomba looks super beaten up after the first 3-5 runs. It runs into objects much more forcefully than Eufy and seems to be made of softer plastic. My 3yr old Eufy looks brand new compared to the iRobot, Eufy is more shiny - easier to wipe. The Self-cleaning station of the Roomba is obviously bigger but doesn't look horrible. Biggest Con: - Eufy 11S did not have mapping, hence the Roomba purchase. I wish I hadn't switched because no matter how often I let the Roomba re-map, it was always off. Map included the bathroom on it's first mapping run but set a wall where there was none in the living room. It never corrected the error on consecutive cleanings (as is described). After remap trials and eventually erase and mapping, the wall error was corrected but the bathroom was now not included, and sure enough the iRobot wouldn't try to go there on consecutive runs (even after I carried it in). Another mapping run later, it placed a diagonal object 2ft from a wall where there isn't any object, then Roomba never cleaned there on future runs etc. - No return button: Eufy can be turned off with one click of the button on top of the vac, a second click will make it go to the charging station. The iRobot has to be picked up and carried back! Summary: Too much money for too many things that should work but don't! I expected more from this brand! I will go back to Eufy brand and try their equivalent model!

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!