First this thing is loud. The rubber scrapers/rollers squeak on our floors. It's pretty annoying, I even use it a my alarm clock now. While it is loud when cleaning your floors there is nothing that compares to when it empties into the base. High pitched vacuum noise as loud or louder than my shop vacuum. I am not exaggerating. I had a $180 Shark that was dumb as a rock, banged hard into everything, not as loud and cleaned as well. This is supposed to replace the Shark. ___________________ On the Seventh day... After it woke me up it vacuumed for a bit and did it's 'I stopped vacuuming for a reason' beep. I had some things to do so I checked the app. It showed it was still cleaning. But it wasn't. Eventually I remembered it exists and found it. I pressed clean and it would not resume. So I put it on the dock and it still showed it was cleaning as it was charging. Came back and the Roomba didnt respond to either the app nor the 'clean' button. It needed a reboot. Held the 'clean' button for 20 seconds and it rebooted. Still nothing. I waited again. Pressed the 'clean' button again and it finally started to reboot. It told me it had an error 15, some internal error it was able to clear on its own. But no clue what it was. Finally it starts working again and I set it to clean again. Seven days and this thing already had an internal error. $600 gamble if this will happen again. I'm going to exchange this one. I don't feel like dealing with a deteriorating unit which may fail outside of the 30 day azon return period and get a refurbished unit from a warranty return with iRobot. Update: Since I posted I still ran the vacuum to see if things that happened were a fluke. Maybe my expectations were too high? I've come to find out they really aren't. So, the vacuum tried to 'mount' the dock. No, not in the I'm going home to charge and empty my bag. Nope, it decided to hump the dock at an approach angle of 45°, then after a minute of rocking up and down it backed off, spun around 360° and started it again. This happened 4-5 times before I picked it up and placed it away from the dock. Something else I've learned is that everytime something gets stuck in the brushes I need to clear the brushes and then put it back on the dock to 'reset' it. Pressing the clean button will not get it to start cleaning again. It just toots its cheery little tune and sits there. I did not have this problem with the Shark that the Roomba replaced. The worst part of it is that after being on the dock it will not pick up the job where it left off. So half the floor is clean. If I set it to clean again it starts with cleaning the area it has already cleaned. I run this vacuum once a day. I can count on my hand the number of days that this vacuum has run trouble free for me and still have 3 fingers left over. Update, again (2 months): Do not buy this junk. It literally said it was stuck on a ledge... In the middle of our hardwood floor. Nothing around it. Now it has taken to trying to empty it's bin before it starts a job, repeatedly. Today it was 3 times in succession before I pulled it off it's dock. What programming says keep emptying your bin multiple times before you start a job. And the vacuum's bin is already empty. Who programs these things? ------------ Update 11/24/23 It is officially no longer working. It had a fault stating that the bumper was jammed and to tap it a few times to loosen it. I tapped it, and tapped it and tapped it some more. No change. Put it on the dock. No change. Rebooted it. No change. Tapped it again. No change. Rebooted it again. Yes, finally change. It moved a few feet from the dock and spun in a circle for about a minute and then the error of stuck bumper is back. I give up. I will continue to update all the new faults I discover until Amazon makes it unable for me to edit this review.

Almost a year ago, after trying 3 different vacuums from their competition, a coworker who used his iRobot for the last 5 years suggested I buy one, so I did. Today I am absolutely bummed out. I ordered my iRobot almost a year ago and it has officially died. I was so happy with the my purchase, it was amazing, fantastic, and everything I had hoped it would be. I must have been responsible for at least a dozen of my coworkers and friends buying one over the last year. They always say that if you build a good product, the word of mouth will pay you back 100x over. As a disabled Army veteran, I can tell you that this product made my life so much easier. This was a fantastic product while it lasted. I really was expecting it to last for more than a year but about two months ago it began to make really loud noises and having power and charging issues. I used only iRobot accessories so I know that my parts were legit. Today, I have to spend more time trying to get it to work than it is worth. With that being said, it still did an amazing job, ran silently, without a care in the world and with only general maintenance was what I wanted. (I even named it and had my Alexa run it when I way away.) If I could afford to purchase another one, I wouldn't hesitate, it would still be the one I choose. I am sure that mine was just one of those rare duds.

Works great for me. Just changed the bag and filter after nearly three months of use. I have hardwood floors with rugs. Does a good job on both. If you've ever had all hardwoods or other hard floors, you know what a pain it can be to to keep the dust bunnies at bay. The Roomba works great for this. Also does a good job keeping up with the litter box. Fortunately our cat actually keeps his waste in the box and the robot has no problem keeping up with the track out each day. Having the robot has really kept the overall dust down in the entire house. I see quite a few review with complaints from people that I don't think have realistic expectations... even for a robot at this price point. Simply keeping anything off the floor that can tangle like socks or charging cords or shoelaces helps the robot do its job. Even using a regular vacuum would require some simple prep. You can't just run a vacuum over everything. About once every week or two I check the rollers. They are simple to remove with no tools and remove any hair built up at the ends. The mapping feature is great and the robot obeys all of the keep out zones once mapped. It's also nice to have some named areas that you can tell Alexa to have Roomba spot clean when needed. I'm also amazed that the robot doesn't get stuck in the dining table chairs. We have 8 chairs at a 7ft table so it's pretty tight but the robot manages to clean it all. The bad or less than perfect--- Yes it is loud... it's a freaking vacuum. There is a low noise feature that I haven't even tested. I have the Roomba run routines that I have scheduled for while we are at work/school so noise is not a concern. It doesn't vacuum close to the sides of the base for some reason. It occasionally shuts itself in a room if it manages to get behind the door and push it closed. Sometimes when you ask Alexa to have Roomba vacuum an area, Alexa says that the Roomba is not responding but the robot actually does start vacuuming. Maybe this will be fixed with a skill update. It's not a big deal but a minor annoyance. I'm happy with the purchase and would recommend to anyone. I've only had it for three months so I can't speak to long term reliability.

**** Updated 01/30/2021 **** I've now had the replacement s9 robot for about 2 months. Everything works great so far. Even the iRobot app seems more stable now. The robot seems to have incrementally improved a little on the learning & cleaning. Ideally, I'd like to increase the stars to 4.5 because at this point, I'm happy with the product. I still can't do 5 stars b/c it's not there yet. But if the robot continues to work at this level for a year without breaking down, then I'll do 5 stars. However, at this point I will recommend the product to friends & family. As far as vacuuming, it does a satisfactory job, but not quite as good as a human. But hey, at least I don't have to do it! The 3 areas I see it have imperfect vacuuming are: 1) Around the legs of unusual furniture that bulge toward the bottom to where the rotating brush can't reach 2) Under kitchen cabinet overhang that are not high enough for the robot to go under the overhang 3) Along the floor right at the edge of thicker rugs - where b/c of the height difference b/w the rug the floor, the robot's suction doesn't pick up any small debris on the floor right at the rugs edge Admittedly, these are relatively minor aspects (but still an annoyance). Overall, the robot does a pretty good job. Other than getting stuck a couple times on power cords (which I forgot to pick up), it's handled rugs and furniture, etc, just fine. I often use the robot map feature (on the iRobot app) to get the robot to only clean specific areas like the kitchen and breakfast areas. The robot has always found it way back to the base on completion of the job (or to recharge if I've asked for a larger area clean job). The battery allows operation of about 75 to 90 minutes before needing to recharge. Each time the robot returns to the base, the vacuum pump suctions out the robot bin to the vacuum bag in the base. Cleaning the robot brushes and bin is also relatively easy and takes only a few minutes. The vacuum bag in the base has so far not need replacement after 2 months of use (of course, we don't have much trash on the floor either other than dust, hair, etc). I will update this review again when I get to the 6 month point.... -------------------------------------------------------------- **** Updated 12/9/2020 **** iRobot sent me a replacement s9 robot - it arrived in 5 working days. I've run the robot multiple times over the last 2 weeks and so far it works without any catastrophic failures (which the previous robot had on the first run). Overall the technology is pretty cool - now that it's working. I've attached a video of the robot heading back to base to recharge between jobs (or at the end of a job). It's noisier than I expected - though, there is a lower noise option, which I assume runs the vacuum motor slower, reducing suction. The mapping feature is pretty cool too - allowing cleaning of only specific rooms, if desired. The iRobot App enables these map driven vacuuming features. When vacuuming, the irobot operates for 90+ minutes on hard surfaces (and less than 90 minutes on carpet) on one charge - after which it will go back to the base to recharge and then resume the job. The vacuuming done by the robot is pretty good (and it will reverse over an area if it detects extra debris). However, I've still only given the product 4 stars b/c of two reasons: 1) While the robot vacuuming itself is OK, the iRobot App is flaky - It works most of the time. But sometimes it can't connect to the iRobot cloud / server, at other times it can't connect to the robot. Thats poor design by iRobot (compared to so many other apps on the phone work without any glitches) 2) The vacuuming job the robot does is good, but not great (mainly around corners and under cabinet overlays where the robot can't reach) - though, there is an option to get the robot to do extra cleaning in areas of your choosing which I have not tried yet. Overall, I'm satisfied so far with the replacement robot. I will update again in a few months ---------------------------------------- Original Review 11/19/2020 ..... Died on the first vacuuming run :-( It died on it's first vacuuming run. I was very disappointed. The reason I even gave a 3 star rating was b/c of iRobot's response......To start from the beginning: I did some research and read that the iRobot Roomba s9+ (9550) was the highest rated robotic vacuum cleaner (including by Consumer Reports). So given the increased usage of the house because of the Pandemic, I decided to go for it and splurge on this robot. When the iRobot came I was able to get it set up relatively quickly and I had previously read that you can run it on a "map-only" operation (Vs. letting it map while vacuuming). The iRobot app didn't have that "map-only" option easily identifiable, but I was able to find it. The robot ran around part of the house on the map-only' mode and covered about 2000 sq ft in just under 3 hours by when it's battery ran very low at which point I was very impressed that it found it's own way back to the iRobot charger. The next day I ran the iRobot in vacuum mode and it started off just fine. It did have a bit of trouble with the tassels on both ends of one our large rugs, but it got by. Vacuuming seemed to be done OK (may be not perfect - but I was satisfied). Unfortunately, about 1 hour into the vacuuming run it suddenly stopped because of 'Error 31'. I did the reset that iRobot recommended and restarted the robot but it would stop within 3 to 5 minutes because of 'Error 31'. I went on-line and read that some other owners have seen this error and it was because of some 'Internal communication error'. The on-line comments were that iRobot eventually sent them a replacement unit. Anyway, I called iRobot's technical help. The person there had me reset the robot 3 times in a sequence and then restart the vacuum, but it stopped again after about 5 minutes with the same error. By the way, when you set up the iRobot account, iRobot can see all the data the robot collects (so plus was, the tech could see that there was an 'Error 31' reported). After this he told me to take the battery out, leave it out for 30 minutes and put it back in and then rerun the vacuum job....still had the same error after about 5 min of operation. At this point he told me, he would send a replacement unit out in 5 to 7 business days. I received an email with 24 hours saying they were shipping it out. UPS says it will be delivered within 5 business days. Hopefully the replacement unit has the hardware / software issue resolved. I will update this review once I receive it (and run it). After 10+ years of operation you'd think that by now iRobot would have figured out how to get a $1000 product to work robustly out of the box for customers without catastrophic failures. Imagine if my $1000 iPhone failed out of the box - but that just doesn't happen and I have bought a lot of iPhones.....

Disclosures: I reside in a 2- story home with wood and porcelain tile floors. The carpeting is limited to low pile area rugs within the bedrooms. I use the S9 on the 1st floor while a Roomba model 770 vacuums the upstairs. My review will be limited to the S9 performance on hard floors with little in the way of carpet. Pros: • The S9 has run flawlessly after solving a few initial problems (error codes for Roomba’s bin is full and close the lid when neither issue was in fact true). Cleans corners, moderately small sized rugs so much better than previous roombas. • More efficient, and therefore faster cleaning, with newer technology. Greatly improves cleaning on floors by systematically cleaning floors as opposed to previous algorithms that appear random, and unnecessarily time consuming. In my use, It’s been uncommon for the S9 to miss debris on the floor. • S9 does away with light boxes. Clean a single room of choice, such as the kitchen, by a few taps on the app. much less prep is required. • Ability to set up “stay out” areas where sensitive objects are positioned. • Object recognition: greatly reduces he amount of banging into furniture. Although previous roombas would slow down before contacting a wall, furniture isn’t as fortunate. The S9 is gentle around all obstructions. Although it might occur, I’ve yet to see the S9 run headlong into chair or table legs or other obstructions. • Self-cleaning: I didn’t think I would be as happy with this feature as I am. In fact, I think it may be the greatest improvement Roomba has made. The S9 and cleaning base has (when sold together, model number is S9+ ) practically eliminated the routine of manually pulling hair and dust out of the brushes. Although the time may come, I’ve yet to have to clean the bristles since its 1st run on Christmas day. I never knew how much I hated that chore until it was no longer required. • Much more, but these features are, to me at least, the most significant. It has (somewhat) won over my wife. She will now typically pay Roomba a grudging compliment after it has run. Cons: • Price. No way around it, this is an expensive device to vacuum the floor. And it will never clean baseboards or stairs or get into every tiny nook or cranny on the floor as a manual vacuum cleaner will. • Operating noise. Not much progress has been made by irobot in-regards to operating noise abatement. Don’t expect to get much sleep if the S9 is vacuuming in or adjacent to your bedroom. • Increased complexity. My S9 ran into several persistent error codes that took a considerable amount of time to solve. If you don’t enjoy occasionally tinkering and troubleshooting should your Roomba run into a problem, then purchasing a S9 may not be the right choice. On a positive note, Roomba customer services has been stellar, in my experience. Two calls were answered in under 3 minutes and the tech was professional and knowledgeable. However I recognize that it is difficult to make sweeping statements with a sample size of 2 calls; merely reporting my experiences as positive. after solving these initial teething problems, the S9 has run and docked without intervention and without any errors. If you aren't a fan of household chores, the S9 fits in your budget, and you don't mind or enjoy an opportunity to problem solve, then think you should consider it. be advised that the Miele C2 kicks butt for less hope this helps

I had a neato for 7 years or so but finally decided to upgrade it, after shopping around I took the plunge on my first roomba. To repeat many other reviews, this is a pretty flawed expensive device. I have a small, straightforward studio apartment, so it should be ideal for robot vacuums. But this guy gets stuck on nothing, gets lost for no reason, and fails to complete the job on a fairly regular basis. Weirdly, when I first got it, it worked great. It was consistently excellent for 4 months, but it has failed to complete a job since early February and I have no idea why. I've done all the troubleshooting, but to no avail. Contrary to other reviews, no one at iRobot has responded to my multiple e-mails and troubleshooting tickets. Whatever the failure is, it appears to be with the software's mapping feature, which seems to confuse to device more than help it (see the pictures for the accurate mapping in the first months, to the completely crazy mapping of its failed jobs these last few months). March 1, 2021 - still struggling with this stupid thing; just gets more troublesome. Firstly, setting up the maps (again!) is cumbersome. When you delete the map and try to make it relearn your space, it requires 3 tries, so that's what I'd do, but sometimes one of those tries would be wildly off base, so I'd delete it so it wasn't screwing up the map. Ok that seems simple enough right? EXCEPT if its the 3rd try that's a crazy incorrect map, if it happens on the 3rd try it automatically saves it all and that's your map, no option to delete the bad pass or correct the map, your only option at that point is to reset the mapping function completely and start the 3 tries over again. I probably spent 6 months deleting bad passes/starting over/etc just getting to the point where my apartment is correctly mapped. But then here's the best part, AFTER you have a correct map saved and programmed, any time after that if the robot comes up with a crazy pass that gives it a wildly incorrect map, it REPROGRAMS the map to the crazy incorrect one! You can't delete it the bad pass, you can't correct the programmed map, it just says "you have an updated map" and you're stuck with it...what's the point of programming the map in the first place if its just going to screw it up with any one bad pass?!?! (for real, why isn't there just an option for me to correct or at least delete the incorrect parts of the map?) So fine, the mapping function is a total waste, but maybe it still works like an old school robot vacuum, just move forward with suction, detect objects and move around them, going back and forth until its done? Nope! Without the map it appears to be totally helpless. It get los and stuck in areas where all it has to do is move to the left or the right, or my new favorite mishap, it finds a spot near the base and then just vacuums that single spot for an hour and a half until it says its battery is low. When I look at the map after its done, its not because it thought this was an especially dirty area, according to the map the robot appears to think its found a mile long section of my apartment that it has been going down (when in reality its just been sitting in one spot with the suction running - see attached video, it literally just sits there and does that until its battery runs down). 3.25.21: After relaying this behavior to iRobot, it was recommended I reboot the machine. After doing so, the machine continued to not work correctly. Because my machine was older than 1 year and not warrantied, iRobot's genuine advice was to buy a new one. No repair process, no diagnostics, they literally just sent me a link to drop another $1099.00 on a new machine because my 18 month old vacuum stopped working. Stay away from this one, iRobot is clearly not ready to be utilizing the mapping function of robot vacuums, go with the cheaper "dumber" options or just a different brand and avoid this frustrating over priced model. Side note, I took the neato vacuum I had been using for 7 years to my office and its still working just fine there, probably should have resisted the urge to upgrade and stuck with the tried and true device.

Bought this on Prime day since it was on sale and I love it. I was concerned that it wouldn't be able to go over a small hump in the floor, possibly thinking it was a threshold, but nope, it drove right over it. It maneuvers well through the house. Pros - Cleans in a grid pattern - see photo of nice lines left in carpet - Travels from room to room whether it's over carpet or vinyl. - Has good suction. I have thick/dense carpet and it does a good as my stand up vacuum - Very thorough. Does a good job of going around table legs (see photo with circle path around table leg) and even underneath couches that have a flap at the bottom - Can work in connection with the Bravva mop - You can direct it to clean specific rooms and stay out of others - When you select the rooms you want to clean, it gives an estimate of the time it takes to complete it. - You can choose from 3 suction levels - It empties itself, so no handling the dust can - No bad smell like my old vacuum Cons - Some rooms it vacuums against the grain of the carpet. For one room, I was able to place a divider in that room using the app so that it mapped the room differently. - It has had about 3 tech glitches, but that is expected because tech isn’t perfect. I either rebooted the bot, closed and reopened the app or gave it time to sit and then it worked properly. - When it does the hallway it goes over the thresholds to get the edges and slightly enters the other rooms. This is a con if it goes into a room where you don't want to be disturbed or go into a room where it gets stuck. So you h have to remember to close the doors. The only threshold that it has a problem going over is the bathroom (that threshold needs adjustment, not the bots fault) and if it's cleaning the hall it will go over it and then can't drive back out. There is a setting that says to get as close to the edge without touching edges but I haven't tried it yet to see if that helps. - October 2023 Update - Overall I'm still happy with this but since writing the initial review the vacuum has been giving me a bin error regularly since mid-September even after it is thoroughly cleaned. The app says they are working on a fix coming out in Oct but I've yet to see it happen.

9/18/2023 Don't even consider buying a Neato at this point. Sadly, the company has disconnected their customer service number. I'd wish you luck trying to troubleshoot by email, but it's something I wouldn't imagine working out at all. When I did call in to get some help, it wasn't uncommon to have a 10 min conversation by phone per event. Neato's choice to cut off their customers. Also, you now have to send them a message and wait for a response. No working out issues on your time table. 9/5/2023 The S9+ doesn't tell you the difference between the small bin in the robot being full, and the large bin with the bag. I ran into this issue a few days ago, and went through the common litany of (1) remove small bin in robot - empty it - put it back and try again, (2) clean all sensors in the robot, (3) take the bin out and wipe it down - put it back and try again, and can you guess what the real issue was? The bag inside the base had exploded! What an incredible mess! Something caused the bag to fail and leak dust and other junk all through the chamber, which is filled with quite sharp pieces of plastic (everywhere). It was quite an adventure trying to clean all that up, while keeping the number of cuts to a minimum. The people who designed the S9+ obviously don't use it. How about the Neatos? The three of them continue to be absolute beasts that our shedding Malamute, Rottweiler, and Pitbull mix simply cannot harm. The app still only supports one robot per devices, so any vacuum day involves my phone, my iPad, and my wife's phone. That's a pain, but it's better than cleaning a broken bag inside of a chamber filled with plastic razor blades. 6/24/2023 My three dogs are shedding now, and that's probably the best time to compare the two brands. The Neato D7's are simply beasts that can pick up any amount of hair with only a simple cleaning of the brush required. I ran the upstairs S9+ and had a hilarious result. Have you ever seen a farmer's field just after they start harvesting hay? There are hay bales behind the tractor, and that's what my upstairs carpet looked like, with literally 70-80 little bundles of hair left on the carpet along with random strings of hair scattered everywhere. It took me several minutes to pull all the dog hair off each roller and then extract the rest of the hair from inside the rollers. I think if you have very light jobs, then the S9+ is a good choice - short carpet, no dogs, live alone. You'll still have to pull your own hair out from all the strange places it gathers in the rollers and around them, though that's likely once a month or so. If you have a busy house, cats, dogs, or kids, then the Neato D7 is a better choice with its far superior suction levels and easy cleaning. It also doesn't have a camera broadcasting everything in your home to a company server somewhere. If you think your video is secure, then you might want to Google "Ring privacy issues" and read about all the employees caught watching people's home security feeds, taking pictures with their cell phones, screen shots, etc. 2/28/2023 My three D7's were reaching the end of their life, so I decided based on my experience with the S9+ to go ahead and purchase three new Neato D10's. My gosh, talk about a rough experience. Amazon sent me three D 10 boxes, but only two D10's and a D8 arrived (return, wait another week, etc.), then I spent all day with tech support on and off trying to set up three different Neato accounts (one on each of my Apple devices), because there's no way to put three robots on one device one one account. Then I find out the D10's are actually dumber in terms of cleaning routines and navigational intelligence than my much older D7's, despite the D10 being out for 1.5 years or so. I spent the evening watching reviews of other robots and determined that for my situation (three dogs and lots of carpet) that the S9+ was the best alternative in terms of being able to clean the carpets. So, I'm raising my review to two stars, and I'm recommending people weigh the costs vs headache that comes with upgrading to either a D10 or a S9+. The D10's I purchased on sale at $379, which means I can buy two of them for approximately one of the S9+ robots. The D10's are a work in progress that will be improving over the next 1.5 years if you have the time and patience. If you have more money than time, I recommend the S9+ which is a mature product with considerably better navigation software. Edit2/18/2022 I sure would like to write something positive about any aspect of my experience with this set of two S9+'s, but the company keeps making any experience with them quite painful. I received an email and a gift set in early 2021 apologizing for the company not being able to repair one of my robots, which they ended up keeping for almost two months. As a "Thank you" they graciously extended the warranty of that s9+ for an additional two years, though when I called to request service for that robot a couple days ago the company had no record of my extended warranty. Thankfully I had the email, but you wouldn't believe the experience. Long story short, an hour and a half later, and after having to not only provide screen shots of the email, I also had to convert the format of the screen shots from .png to .jpg. If you buy one of these robots you had better make sure that your skillset includes being able to convert images from native Win 10 screen shots (.png) to .jpg, because the kind folks who can't speak English very well also have very limited computers which cannot open a default screen shot from Win 10. If your idea of a relaxing evening is pouring a glass of wine and calling iRobot tech support to solve what appears to be a simple problem with one of their robots, then this is the product for you - almost 30 min on hold, then had to try and explain the issue many times because of the language barrier, find the email, take screenshots, email them, learn that their support computers couldn't open the images at .png, search the Internet for an app that converts different types of graphic image formats, upload, convert, download, email again, and that was just to try and convince them they should be talking to me since they thought my warranty had expired. Good luck! Edit 8/17/2021 These S9+'s are such a pain and they require so much maintenance it's not even funny. Forget about them emptying their own bin. That's a non-issue, because you have to manually stop them, turn them over and pull out the hand full of people/dog hair that entangles their rollers before they ever make it back to empty the bin the first time. Keep in mind we have no kids, only a wife with long hair, one dog with longer hair and one dog with short hair, and I run the robots once a week, all day (multiple runs and recharges). The Neato robots can run twice as long as the iRobot, will complete their runs without breaking down due to pet / people hair, and their bin is probably 1.5 x the volume of the iRobot. If you have a very clean house and no one has hair longer than four inches, including the dogs, then maybe the iRobot would work for you, or if you plan on running the robot every day, then you'll likely only have a dead iRobot the first couple of days. Edit 3/13/2021 Still had the same problem. Spent 45 min on the phone with technical support and learned that iRobot has had all kinds of quality control issues, bad batches, etc., and that the issues with my robot are nothing new. It will take them 4-5 weeks to ship out a replacement. They were nice enough to extend the warranty by another year and to offer me some parts at NC, such as a set of rollers, and maybe a round side brush or something along that line. I'm going to raise the review back up to two stars, because this tech support person was much better and far more interested in solving the problem than the last support employee. This was actually a very pleasant phone call, and I could tell this employee wanted use reasonable troubleshooting steps to solve the issue. Edit 3/3/2021 I've taken this awful product from a terrible company with atrocious support back down to 1 star. I finally received the repair parts that I had to beg for, and to my surprise they come with no instructions. Now I have to call customer service and ask that they email me the instructions so I can replace the defective part myself. I can't tell you how disappointed I am in my whole experience with iRobot and the s9+ in general. If I had to do it all over again, I would have happily purchased five top of the line Neato robots and I would have saved quite a bit of money doing so. --It gets better. The replacement parts are made in China, and neither one fit well. Both had one screw that just wouldn't go in (three out of four screws went in well, but you need all four in for it to work). Clearly the replacement part was a poorly manufactured after-market piece. It took me several screwdrivers to finally get the last screw in place somewhat, and that's after several attempts at removing and reseating the replacement part, attempting to screw the four screws in using different combinations of all screws a little bit, then tightening them all evenly, to you name it. If you're bored and have an afternoon to spend in frustration because the parent company doesn't care about your life, then I suggest attempting to replace a part on an S9+. Oh, I just heard the upstairs robot die. Doesn't seem like this dilemma is over. Edit 2/26/2021 I've had all five robots for just short of a year now. Here's my final update: iRobot s9+ Huge disappointment. They started off better than the Neato, but they are poorly constructed and they appear to be built to last for about 5 months or so of regular use. After that the mechanism that drives the brushes begins to fail as it did in both of mine. Customer service is pleasant, but very reluctant to replace anything under warranty. In fact, I had to argue considerably just to get them to send me the parts I needed to be replaced under warranty. They denied the warranty repairs initially, leading me to ask, "So you want me to pay to repair a robot that is under warranty? I'm having a hard time understanding that concept." iRobot builds things that are perfect for the US military who seem to have an endless budget for replacement. If you're thinking of spending $1100 or so on a robot you want to keep longer than the one-year warranty, then look elsewhere. It's just not durable, and what I mean by that is if you want to run it once or twice a week, you'll have some serious issues with the poor construction in the near future. Neato - This one started out being a bit more of a pain, but it finished as the clear winner. Neato solved most of the chair leg issues and getting stuck in strange places issues over the last year and sent the info to the robots over the Internet. It's a beast that is many times more durable than the s9+, is less expensive to operate, is less expensive to purchase, and does a far better job of cleaning your house. It's also considerably more efficient than the s9+ because it uses the laser to map your house, and the application works better than iRobot's (meaning it delivers the correct info and is easy to use). My iRobot told me yesterday that it had been cleaning for 755 hours that day. The Neato is easier to clean and all three Neatos combined require less maintenance than the one s9+ that cleans the smaller upstairs portion of the house. Yes, the idea that you leave your house and you come home to find your robot has sortied out several times, emptied its bin and found its way back is a cool idea, though the technology for doing so reliably is simply not here yet. It will be in a few years, and my guess is that it will be Neato who accomplishes the task first. Buy the s9+ if you want, but be sure to keep their technical support on speed dial, and buy it with a credit card that doubles the warranty, because you'll certainly need it. Buy the Neato if you want a robot that will do the job right for a few years until someone comes out with a reliable, sturdy, robot that can clean your house and return to empty the bin, and last longer than 5 months or so. As a side note if you Neato breaks, the company will pay to ship it back to them, repair it, and ship it back to you at no charge. When my iRobots broke, I was told that I get to be the mechanic and they would only be shipping me the parts. Edit 2/16/2021 I have lowered the rating to two starts now, because I'm finding these iRobot S9+'s to be far inferior to the Neatos. So what's changed? Well, iRobot is constantly sending firmware updates and they are little older then when I first bought them. I've cleaned all the sensors, and I change the filters after every run. I also have to stop and clean the rollers after every run or every half-run (one run = one battery charge or around an hour), and these just aren't doing the job they once did. If I had to do it all over again, I'd have five Neatos and zero of the s9+'s. Yes, you have to babysit the Neatos and change their bin after each run or sometimes halfway through the run, though at least they will complete a battery charge without encountering problems. Yes, if they do die, you have to search the house for them, because they don't make any sound, and yes, the app is from the dark ages, but at least they work. The s9+'s will start when the app tells them to start, or they app will show they starting and actually they haven't moved off the base, or they'll move off the base and go two feet and then have an undocking problem, which when you check on them doesn't make any sense, because rollers are clean, sensors are clean, etc. Neato does actually leave the charger and does start working when you tell it to. Edit 1/4/2021 I'm lowering my rating due to all the difficulty I'm having with Malamute dog hair. Neither of the iRobots make it a full battery cycle before they die due to long dog hair fouling the debris extractors (rollers). The second worse thing is that they won't tell you their dead - no noise - no indication. Both of them are such an incredible pain in the rear these days. My take on things - If you have a dog with short hair, then no issues. If you have a longer haired dog, then stay away from the iRobot. As a side note, the Neato robots are a beast. They weight 1/2 as much as an iRobot s9+, and they can pick up just about anything. The iRobots are great if you don't have pets, or if you have pets with straight short hair (Dachshund, Doberman, Rottweiler-short and thick coat, Labrador Retriever). Examples of dogs with hair that would be long enough to wrap around the rollers would be a Collie, German Shepard, Afghan, Malamute or an American Eskimo - really anything with hair longer than 3-4 inches or even in that range. Edit 12/26/2020 Our malamute mix started shedding in September and has continued through December, which is the first time he has shed since I purchased both of the newer iRobot S9+'s. I have to say the Neato robots handle the long hair far better than the iRobots do. I'm cleaning all the brushes now, though I have to clean the iRobot brushes every single cycle, while I only clean the Neato brushes once a day. One really irritating development happened with the iRobot. it does a very poor job of judging when the robot's bin is full, and will usually only empty once the cycle is complete. It also turns out that the channel the debris has to follow from the robot to the bag in the base is far too narrow for a lump of dog hair. This catastrophe of poor engineering results in the robot trying to move the fur ball multiple times through the impossibly narrow channel, leading to an error message and a robot with a dead battery. I have to lift the robot, then remove the dog hair manually, then clean the "debris extractors" or rollers under the robot, then wait far longer for the next cycle because the battery is beyond dead. I'd have to say when it comes to heavy shedding dogs, that the Neato wins hands down. The iRobot S9+ didn't have any issue with Doberman or Rottweiler hair, but Malamute hair is killing it every cycle. Edit 11/08/2020 I looked at the new Neato D10's and nothing in my review changes. Maybe the D10 has a longer battery life than the D7, and maybe it's a bit better at handling table legs, but it's still a robot you have to maintain, including emptying the bin about 1/2 way through the cleaning cycle and cleaning the dog hair off the brushes. Once the bin in full, it's full, and giving a robot a longer battery life doesn't make it clean any better if you don't have any way to empty the bin because you're at work. Buy a robot that fits your lifestyle, either working at home or going to work outside of the house. I mostly work from home, and when I have calls into the office that day, I'm very thankful that the D7 cleans so efficiently because I don't have all day to wait for the s9+ to finish. When I don't have to take calls, then I'm glad I don't have to micromanage the S9+, and I run the Neato's less. I have three Neato D7's and two iRobot s9+ robots, currently, cleaning a two-story house (2300 sq feet) with three large dogs. In a nutshell, if you work from home and want minimal interruption, and you're available to go robot hunting when the Neato gets stuck, then the Neato is the better of the two. If you don't work from home, and do want to come home to a clean house, without playing "find the robot" for 20 min, and you don't mind the fact that the iRobot s9+ takes all day to clean what a Neato D7 can clean in two hours, then the iRobot top of the line for twice the price is the way to go. D7 Pros + Cleans in two hours what the s9+ takes all day to do - far more efficient cleaning pattern + No camera connected to the Internet + Picks up twice as much hair and junk from carpet as s9+ in the same amount of time D7 Cons - Have to empty the bin, usually right around the 50 min mark (1/2 battery), or you're wasting your time due to full bin - Takes three times as long to clean as an s9+ (hair stuck on roller, empty bin, wash bin and filter) - App doesn't really let you stop the robot mid cleaning - You can send it back, but once it's charged it will start again - Likes to play "Find the robot" when it gets stuck in strange places, and app doesn't have "locate robot", so if you like frequent Easter egg hunts, then maybe this is a positive s9+ Pros + Rarely gets stuck, once you figure out what kills it + Empties bin by itself, and I empty the bag about once a month + Pretty flexible when it comes to moving furniture and chairs around - doesn't get lost + Recharges at base nearly 100% of the time and empties bin when necessary + Handles chair legs considerably better than Neato D7 + Easy to clean, especially with dog and long people hair + Rarely needs maintenance + shorter than D7 with huge laser on top - can more easily get under sofa and around dining room table / under cabinets + App has "locate robot" which is fantastic if it ever does get stuck somewhere strange. Takes as much time to find the robot as it does to walk to the location, unlike Neato which is silent when dead and app has no feature to cause the robot to make noise Cons - Dumb as dirt, when it comes to efficiently cleaning a house - Will eventually hit every room if given enough time - Have to buy bags (12 or so a year for us) - Takes all day to clean 2/3 of downstairs (master bedroom, exercise room, two bathrooms, walk-in closet, grand room, kitchen and a couple of halls) Neato D7 accomplishes the same task in about 2.5 hours - Big Brother is watching you - Video camera connected to the Internet transmitting who knows what to whomever is watching at iRobot or ??

This is going to be a VERY long review (longest I've ever written, so if you don't have the time to read this and want to throw away your money, don't read this. :-)) I have VERY mixed feeling about this vacuum. For the PRICE and it so far has not impressed me. I watched videos and read a lot about this machine, and I was really excited when I got this. When it works, it's very cool... but when it does not do what you want it's a pain. I have had this thing in my home for almost a week now, and on several occasions I've been ready to pack it up and send it back. It is frustrating at the least. I would say the BIGGEST downfall of this product is the APP. It is not user friendly, it leaves a lot to be desired, and has major issues. Here's a short chain of events (well not really, but): Got it in the mail. Took it out of the box, put the base stand in an area suggested by the manual, CHARGED it for 3 hours as recommended, downloaded the APP, connected it to my Wi-fi... Oh wait that didn't happen... It would not connect to my wi-fi. Reason UNKNOWN. Called Roomba support, and the woman on the phone VERY promptly informed me that they have a know issue with the APP and it would be fixed NLT end of day, but I could still use my roomba by pressing the clean button. Ok. After pushing the clean button, the unit took off all over the house with no plan of action and direction. It would vacuum one area then stop mid stride and go to a completely different part of the house, then later return to the same area and redo it again, then take off to another area. No rhythm or reason to it's motion . NEVER did it actually finish the main floor of my house (1800 sqft), after emptying the bin multiple times, recharging 4 times (an hour and 40 mins), and over 8 hours later. Oh ya and that's not counting all the times I had to go find it, because the dust bin was full and it didn't go back to empty itself, the rollers got stuck FOR WHATEVER REASON, and it got stuck in a corner somewhere or under a piece of furniture. So that was the first experience and I should have packed it up right then. The next day the APP was fixed. (haha). Well it connected to my Wi-fi with no issues. After fumbling around with the APP for hours (it is NOT user friendly and NOT very well designed), I figured out that I had to map/train this stupid thing for it to work better. Hmmmm. I say fumble because the APP nor the manuals (which are worthless by the way except for maintenance and parts. For operation there is NOTHING) NEVER say how to program or train the unit or how to use it. Anyways... I figured out how to map my main floor. 4 hours later it was done. Great I thought. So I went into the map it created, edited it, and saved. Cool. The next day I took it down in the basement and mapped it. Easy, but again took 3 to 4 hours. Then later that day I sent it via the map to each area in my basement and had it clean it. Worked as advertised. (of course I had to empty the bin every so often because the base/bin unit is on my main floor, but OK no issue there I get it.) After every job, the roomba returned back to where I first started the map. Great. I got this figured out... I thought. Today... I decided I needed to let the roomba clean a few rooms on my main floor. I started a new job and selected my laundry room. It started up and started wondering around my hallway (which is where I have the base/home unit). After a few minutes it returned to it's home and sent me a message saying it could not clean the area I requested. Why? It NEVER TOLD ME WHY. (Tried to look up why, but could not find anything meaningful on the web or the stupid APP) I figured out finally that it was still on the map of the basement, even though I selected the main floor map and the laundry room. Why? Don't know. How to change to the main floor map? Hmmm the APP is not only confusing, it would not let me change to that main floor map. It would not let me edit the map, it would not let me change the map. Why? WHY SO DIFFICULT!!! Don't know. After fumbling for a while I finally got that APP to let me change to the main floor map. Oh wait... it says the map in incomplete. WHAT??? Every time I selected a room it would say learning and would not let me start the vacuum or do anything on that screen/page. WHAT??? Finally figured out that it wanted me to REMAP the ENTIRE main floor AGAIN. So that is what I am doing now. Already told the wife that when this REMAPPING is done, that if this thing does not do AS ADVERTISED, it's gone back to Amazon. I am SUPER DISAPPOINTED in this vacuum. However if it works THIS time I'll give it another chance. More to come I'm sure... UPDATE 21 DEC 2020: OK... iRobot sent me some new rollers (free of charge as they should have... Applauds there) and so far the Roomba has gotten better in operation. Still calls out the stupid roller error, but not as often. Also since I've been running it EVERYDAY, it is working better. NOT 100%, it still has issues once and a while with getting stuck (in places it never got stuck before), calling out roller errors (personally I think the back roller is of poor design), and it has issues staying out of "RED" zones. This I attribute to the poor APP that come with the unit. Anyways... looks like I'm keeping this after all. (Heck I fought with it enough) I'm lazy, LOL, and when this thing works like it should, it's good. If they could work out ALL the bugs, this would be a GREAT product. NOTE: To future buyers of this Product. This thing needs time to roam you house REPEATEDLY for about 2+ Weeks before you will feel it's doing it's job. Also... Map you house/main floor before you send it on it's way. Without an initial map (even though it supposed to not need it) this thing gets LOST all the time. And do yourself a favor and watch it for a few times. Not that it's hap-hazarded movement won't drive you crazy wondering "What the heck is it doing now", but because this way you'll know where it's having issues and setup your "Red Zones" - No go areas. Also I guess be patient. If you expect this thing to come out of the box and run like a dream, "Good Luck" with that. One last thing... if you have deep carpets, this thing will not impress you. It does not like deep shag or any rugs that are plush and small (like the ones it your bathroom in-front of the toilet). Hard floors or tile, NO ISSUES. I guess my final review point is this: The APP that comes with this and controls it, NEEDS MAJOR HELP. The unit itself, while it has bugs, works great when it does what it is supposed to do. (Needs Major help/improvements with deeper carpets.) Would I buy this again after knowing what I know now. NO! I would probably try one of iRobots competitors or wait till the technology gets better. Like maybe 5 years from now. 28 Feb 2021 UPDATED REVIEW: I wanted to update this review for whomever is thinking of buying one of these. DON'T! That simple. This thing has continually given me NOTHING but grief. Bottomline... It's movement is hap-hazard... cleaning an area that should take no more than 20 mins takes over an hour because it has a mind of it's own. Untrustworthy... It will stop working and give errors for a number of reasons 7 out of 10 times you use it. It constantly has issues either with the rollers, the bin being full (even though it's supposed to empty it's own bin), getting stuck in between chairs or tables, forgetting where it is and not being able to find it's home (I've watched it go hap-hazard through the house for 10 or 15 mins and still not find it's home. And no my wi-fi is GREAT.) It constantly has issues getting onto it's base unit even though I've cleaned and reset the thing numerous times. To this day (OVER 3 months now)... it has never cleaned my living room completely without errors, running out of battery, getting lost, and a number of other issues. (my living room is not that big) I will NEVER buy a ROOMBA again. I'm even thinking about getting rid of it and buying a Shark or another brand, Except the fact that I already SPENT WAY TOO MUCH ON THIS PIECE OF JUNK. Sorry Irobot... but that is how I feel about your product. For the money this thing cost I should have NO issues. Instead that is not the case... I HAVE ISSUES EVERYTIME I USE THIS THING!!!!! Enough said. To whomever is reading this. Do yourself a favor and buy something other than IRobot.

For starters this unit was purchased during Prime Days due to a rather deep discount making it cheaper than the i7+ by over $100. Full intention was to purchase another i7+unit to work double duty with my current i7+ unit. One of the units working the downstairs and the other upstairs. Prior to getting the new s9+ unit I would just put the i7+ upstairs when needed and it would happily take care of the jobs I gave it. This brings me to the reasons for writing this review. The i7+ has been working flawlessy for the last 5 years and minus a few quirks, it has only needed wear items replaced and just recently a new battery. This is to be expected after such hard work for 5 years, so no complaints. I decided to put the new s9 downstairs where the older i7+ resided and the i7 upstairs. The first quirk I ran into was sharring the already dialed in smart maps for both levels and found that it would not work at all eventhough that was a selling point for me. I was almost defeated about to delete the maps and start over when I decided to use my burner phone, one with iOs instead of Android and found that it was an issue with my Android phone. Crisis averted! Smart Maps transfered, on to seeing what this new unit can do. Here is where things fell apart quickly for me. My downstairs is a combination of tile, carpet and throw rugs and the first thing I noticed is that the s9 was getting stuck everywhere on the slightest of things. For example, its upper mounted forward facing Infra Red unit is just a hair higher off the ground from the i7 and I guess that is just enough for it to bang into a certain part of my lower edge kitchen cabinets. A wood file later and that was solved! It also is getting stuck on transitions of throw rugs to carpet or throw rug to linoleum. The i7 is a tank and just flat out didnt care what it ran over, small children, toys, pets etc. Joking aside it never got stuck on anything. For navigation the s9 does have obstacle avoidance, something the i7 didnt really have fully baked outbut could have if they updated the software. In the APP there is an option for being gentle on furniture or walls and it is stated that it will attempt to get as close as possible without touching. While this is for sure true and it did do this, the distance that it was keeping itself from this was the lengt of the bot itself. This is absolutely unacceptable as it causes the actual footprint of the vacuuming area to be much smaller than is needs to be. LOL! The i7 did just fine occaasionaly bumping into things harder than it should even scratching some things but a smart map no go zone fixed that bumper car driving quirk of the i7. As for the odd shape of the s9, square in the front and round in the back. This is due to it having a wider vacuuming path than the round units and still being able to fit on a previously engineered dock. You would think this is a good thing; nope, it just adds to the navigation quirks of getting stuck since it turns on itself like all of them do in a 0 degree turning radius. This makes the squared off side make a larger arc than the round side and consequently swing faster when it does than the round side. It manages to get itself stuck next to walls where where throw rugs are, if the throw distance to baseboard is a little less than the robot width. Again, the i7 just didnt care. The s9 is also much more stubborn than the i7 constantly going back to places it got stuck, presumeably to "Just make sure of things" who knows but frustrating as an owner. The s9 is quite a bit more appealing in the design category and does have a consciderable amount more suction power. This being said, it is way louder than the i7 and the i7 did just fine cleaning with its inferior sucking power even on carpet. The APP does allow for you to chose from 3 suction powers of Eco, Standard, or Turbo. I chose Standard since I figured that would be comparible in suction and noise to the i7 an I was correct, except the s9 had other ideas when it found a dirtier spot than normal and decided to go jet fighter mode in one spot for like 5 minutes! So much for me chosing what to do. Another quirk is sending it out on a job that would have taken the i7 about 24 minutes to do with the same vacuuming pass settings. The s9 took over 4 times as long, so long infact I just cancelled the run wondering what the heck is this thing doing? Children need to learn? It's like this thing has to learn all over again eventhough its older brother gave it lay of the land. If this is the case, what was the benefit of sharing Smart Maps? The side brush desing on the S9 is horrible. It spins itself in to an unrecognizable ball once on carpet and actually becomes useless, it does settle itself back to normal again after a while. Again the i7 side brush was just as happy on carpet as it was on tile and as effective too. The s9 dust bin seems to be a bit larger than the i7 and that is great since fewer trips to the base station will be required. The return air filter is also much larger than the i7 about 3x as big and this is also a plus. The interactive lights on the unit are much better since they are much larger. They surround the copper colored lid on the top of the unit and do look quite nice. Because of the shape of the unit and how it turns I found that I had to move the docking station from its original location where the i7 lived downstairs since this new s9 was unable to figure out how to dock itself for over a 1/2 hour. Infact all it had to do was go back the way it started from and it would have been fine lol, children! Also at some point these devices become part of your decore so that was a bummer having to move the dock. As you can read at the moment I am not sure how to feel about my recent purchase for a unit which was to be a flagship upgrade of a previous flagship. It does have some upgraded things about it for sure, but others seem like they are downgrades; so much so infact that they are taking away from the primary purpose of this unit existance to begin with and that is to be an interim vacuum in between normal vacuuming. I will give it more time and see if things get better but judging from how its older brother hadnles things I am not sure that this is going to change. Would i purchase again? Sure if the price is good, which it was when I purchased and also if I was my first robot vaacuum. As a current owner of the previous flagship this thing just aimed in a differnt direction. It's on the board just not a bullseye.