I have had several Eufys over the years and I always swore by them as a great little robovac. The Eufy is half the price of the Roomba and I always thought a robovac is a robovac, right? Wrong! The Eufy does a good enough job, wandering aimlessly around sucking up dirt and getting stuck… a lot. I finally got tired of going to help it and realized I may as well vacuum myself if I have to keep going to help it out all the time. The Roomba was on sale and I was so ignorant of what it actually brings to the table that I bought it because it was thicker so I figured it wouldn’t get stuck under as many things. Little did I know, this thing is on a whole different level. There is plenty of information out there on how to do mapping runs and design your layout etc. and I admit I didn’t do any of that and still don’t understand it well enough to explain it to anyone else, so I won’t try here. In “Eufy mode” I used it the same way and just set it going in a room. Only after it finished did I realize it was learning my floor plan and after a few times it had enough information for me to name rooms, set no-go areas and set up favorites etc. The first time I looked at the app and realized it was sending me pictures (pictures!) of obstacles and asking me whether this was a permanent or temporary obstacle and what area was carpet vs non-carpet, did the penny drop as to why the Roomba was more expensive. Through trial and error I now have a fully mapped house with named areas, no-go zones (such as under the treadmill) and known obstacles. I LOVE this thing! Where I have had issues (not sure they are serious enough to be called “cons”) I explain below. It never gets stuck under anything. In a month of running it almost every day, it has only twice sent me a message saying it was “near a cliff” which I eventually figured out was because it was on the edge of a rug with a light border and a darker inside pattern. It relies a lot on light to make its judgements so if the light isn’t terribly good in the room a thing like the floor going from a light to a dark color seems to confuse it. On brighter days it has made that transition without issue. For the same reason I figured out why a couple of times it returned to base without finishing the job (you know this because it tells you - the message was "path blocked"). I came to realize it doesn’t like to run in the dark. On both occasions I had left it running overnight and when Alexa turned off the lights and it couldn’t “see” it gave up and went home. When I first got it, it would stop and tell me the bin was full when it wasn’t and I thought this was going to be the most serious downside, because it had not been running very long when it would think the bin was full, even though the bin is quite large (larger than the Eufy). I have two long haired dogs and I found that the dog hair was obscuring the sensor for the bin, making it think it was full when it wasn’t even close. Setting it in the app to run with a full bin fixed that and unless you have either a really large area or a lot of pet hair in one run, I don’t believe it will end up getting clogged running with a truly full bin. Lastly, yes, it is noisy… but that is a small price to pay for such a time saving way to keep my floors in such good shape. I have come to like the sound of it, knowing it is running and makiung my life easier :) I haven’t tried it yet with Alexa, so I don’t know about that. The battery life could perhaps be a bit better, but if it hasn’t finished (I have one large area where this happens) it just goes back to base and recharges before resuming and completing the job. Again, you know this is happening because it tells you. Definitely a good buy and (sorry Eufy!) I can’t believe I waited this long to get one.

Do you need the J7 model or a different Roomba model? Had the J7 for a week so far with excellent results. I experimented first with a 600 series Roomba but realized I needed the more advanced mapping, front camera, obstacle recognition features of the J7. it recognizes charger cords, sock, boxes, or stack (and is even guaranteed to recognize pet pooh and avoid it). For me this higher tech mapping and recognition lets me not worry if household projects mean I have left out a box or shoes, whatever, in the room. The J7 recognizes stuff like that and cleans around it without getting stuck. Some other models, including the higher end S9 I think, require you pick up more and tidy more before you clean. That's just fine for people whose house stays more organized all the time than mine does. Meanwhile, the cleaning features of the J7 work brilliantly. The S9 has more suction power, and more edge cleaning intensity, so I wondered if I'd be regretting that, but the J7 cleans my hardwood floors and my low pile area rug brilliantly. I've read that deeper pile carpet will benefit from more suction, but my house is mostly hardwood floor and the J7 is brilliant at that my one 10'x16' rug is spotless too. Do you need the self-emptying feature, the "+"? It's such a good feature that it was tempting. However, I was upgrading from a 600 series and wary of spending the high premium for the self-emptying feature when I was finding a good discount on the J7 by itself. What I have found so far is the J7 can easily clean the three large rooms I use it for, clean them fully three times before I get a message the dust bin needs to be emptied. Roomba customer service explained you can expect 800 sq ft of cleaning before you have to empty the bin. This varies probably and that's square feet as measured by the Roomba's cleaning pattern which won't include some of your furniture and fixtures so the cleaned footage measured will be lower than your actual room square footage as measured for the property. Also I wanted to put the Roomba's dock in a spot against my wall where I didn't want the taller self-cleaning box to stick up above the dock. It's a well designed box and not as tall as the i4 model's version, so that shouldn't stop you if you have a spot for it. Worth noting: you need to locate the dock against a well where you have at least 18" or so of space on both sides, and four feet if room in front of the Roomba. That's for navigation. The J7 dust bin is so easy to remove, empty, and replace, that it's just not an issue for me--certainly don't regret not having the self-emptier at this point. The dust bin parts are designed well: a button on the side pops the bin out the side of the machine; another button opens the bin so you can dump it once you have it over the trash. The filter comes out easily too so it can be tapped on the trash bin to clear it. Customer service tells me the dust bin can be washed in warm water and soap too, so you can get it quite clean if you want. They said not to get the filter wet though. One thing to consider is that the Roomba sides can get dusty too from cleaning, even the top can get a bit dusty because it cleans under couches so well and under cabinets, when there's room for it. That means that I've been wiping down the J7 after a full clean of all three rooms. Maybe this won't continue--my rooms were neglected for a while so my J7 may be cleaning more dust this first week than it will clean in the future. In the two rooms it's cleans several times now, it doesn't' get dusty. Even if the outside of the Roomba stays clean, however, the dust bin itself will be be a bit dusty when you remove it. So if handling the bin while you empty it bothers you, then the "+" self-emptying feature is for you. If you have the "+" feature, the dust from weeks of cleanings empties into a collection bag you eventually pull, discard, and replace with a new bag. Mapping: One of my rooms is two steps down from other two. The mapping is so clever I just lift the Roomba down to the lower level and say "Siri, tell [J7] to clean the [room]". The J7 figures out where it is in the room and cleans it fully. When it tells me it's finished, I put it back on the higher level and say "Siri, tell [J7] to go home" and it heads for its dock to charge. Customer service: easy and quick to ask questions.

Products like this live or die on the software and the software for this is terrible. I've spent several days running the J7 for dozens of hours trying to get it to map my home. It's a simple one story house with no steps or complications. The mapping runs constantly fail for various reasons. Sometimes the J7 loses connection (I have strong wifi throughout the house). When that happens, the only thing that will fix it is a reboot. When you do that, you lose the hours of mapping that preceded the failure. Sometimes it's the dreaded "Map Unavailable". When the mapping run fails, there is no way to recover the mapping that has been done so far and you must start over. There are countless other failings in the software such as a missing feature to simply show you on a map where it is and what it has covered thus far in its run. Then there's the cleaning. It picks up some dirt, I'll admit that. But the dirt it leaves behind or just pushes aside equals the dirt it picks up. I've noticed it's incapable of picking up any dirt from the floor that is an inch or two from the edge of a rug. Roomba support is a joke. Their support site is full of missing documents and broken links. The documentation that is there is hilariously wrong. One sign that something is seriously wrong is: an entire industry that has built up around people trying to get simple Roomba technical support questions answered. Google for any of the many common problems with the Roomba and you'll see pages and pages of google results that are links to useless AI-generated pages titled with the question that you're trying to get answered, but which do not answer that question. If an entire industry is built around your failure to support your customers, you know something is wrong. Many fans of tech are very forgiving and will overlook serious flaws because they really want products like this to succeed. That forgiving attitude is just enabling Roomba to continue putting out junk.

I have decided to return it, at first. I didn't like how it was not able to pick up cat's hair; created not very precise layout. Then, I asked other buyers a question about instructiong iroomba to clean area rugs only. It took A LOT of tries and time to modify the shapes of three "clean zones" due to iroomba lack of precision. At the end, using a combination of "no-gone zones" and "clean zones" I was able to create a pretty accurate layout of what I wanted iroomba to vacuum. It required a lot of patience, wow. During setting up areas I have decided a few times - "this thing goes back, it's ridiculous!" Long story short - I was determined to get the areas right 😉 Conclusion - iroomba does clean cat's hair as you can see on the bin photo. It also leave some hair behind on the carpet (shown on two pictures) but,considering how much is vacuumed successfully, I believe iroomba is worth to keep. I wish the suction was stronger. As to loudness - I don't believe it is a nuisance. Totally acceptable level of noise, in my opininon. Cleaning the bin is slightly messy but the bin is full of cat's hair and dust, therefore no way around it. I would recommend iroomba to (patient) potential buyers. It will make you happy at the end of setting up process 💪

I love this robovac!! I’ve had another brand for years and it would get stuck under the furniture or in the closet. It broke all the time, I had to replace the bumper and reboot it often. It would get strings stuck in its wheels. This one ignores paper or clothes on the floor; it never gets stuck; it leaves the cords alone. It keeps going till it runs out of battery, charges itself and then finishes the job. It gives me pictures of things it went around. One small complaint. It doesn’t stop when it’s full and it gets full very fast because I have 3 dogs with lots of hair. I have to pause it and empty it several times when it’s working. I should’ve bought one with a bigger tank. But that just shows how great it is at picking up the dog hair and dirt!

Update#2: The robot continues to improve. Truely no precleaning needed. The cleaning is not as good as our old Neato, but now that the Roomba lets you default to 2 passes its about 90% as good. The electrical contacts on the base tarnish and prevent recharging, fixed with finely sanding the contacts (this fix was recommended automatically in the app.) Bottom line: It gets our hardwood clean enough and only very, very rarely gets stuck. This is our first iRobot after 3 generations of Neato's (Most recently the D7 connected). The cleaning performance of the j7 is FAR inferior to the Neato. Even running the J7 twice, the hard wood floor with lots of chairs and stools is not as clean. However, the J7 is ultimately still an upgrade because we don't have to pick up before running. the robot successfully cleans around socks, shoes, toys and 5 kids worth of debris. We have had it 6 weeks, running it most days, and it has only gotten it's brush stuck once, and been stuck on an obstacle maybe twice-- something that happened with the NEATOs frequently despite precleaning. Other positives: Quiet, easy to schedule, easy to empty bin. Negatives: Seems to transport a bunch of debris to its base and not clean around the base well. Only cleans about 80% as well as our NEATO on hard wood. If the robot gets bumped off the base you have to go into the app to get the robot to charge again. Frequently, the robot won't start a cycle for mysterious reasons-- the robot will say "see the app" and the app will have no information. Some suggestions for the manufacturer. Add a front spinner brush to both sides or else have the robot go around the edge of the room counter clockwise so that the spinner brush consistently cleans edges. (The edges of the room are clean wherever the robot's right side hits them and not clean where it doesn't. Increase suction power. On hard wood, the spinner is too powerful for hard debris (cheerios) and throws the debris across in front of the robot rather than into the main brush. Make the obstacle "review" feature-- to my mind this robots killer feature-- more front and center in the app so the robots can get smarter together faster. Update: Robot now goes around the room edge counterclockwise, cleaning still not as good as Neato, but good enough

I'm downgrading to 3 stars after a couple of months of use. New comments at the end. The vacuum itself seems to work as advertised. All my issues are with the App, the irobot website, and the documentation. The getting started card says to go to the website for an owners guide and provides a link that does not exist. The web site does NOT work with Firefox; you MUST use either Chrome or Microsoft Edge. The web site documentation is poorly organized and it is difficult to find useful information such as how to empty, clean, replace parts, etc. Most of the documentation is web pages without a PDF version which makes it cumbersome to download and print to have at your side while doing something and attempting to view it on a phone is frustrating. The App is a bit quirky and often does long pauses, particularly when using map features. There is no way to edit the map layout. If the wheels slip on something during a mapping run, it will generate bogus areas which you can not delete other than to delete the entire map and do it again. As it takes over an hour to do my small house that is a giant PITA. Zones are often impossible to accurately generate and place. Zones, including those suggested by the App, are often rejected without any explanation why but only after you try to save it. I repeatedly tried to do the initial network configuration from another room and it always failed with no explanation until I moved next to the vacuum. Once setup, the App works from anywhere in the house. The device is highly dependent on a reliable internet connection and often gives useless failure to connect and map not available messages when my crappy internet provider has a network slowdown or glitch. The app does not seem to retry when this happens unless I totally shutdown the app and restart it. The error messages are useless as they do not differentiate between WiFi and internet connection. The obstacle learning is so so with certain things, especially with feet, as I have LOTS of photos of someone's foot walking past the robot. Getting correct positioning for recharge is very touchy no matter how much I clean the sensors and contacts and the robot does not have an unambiguous display that charging is occurring nor does the app indicate that charging is or is not occurring.

You can name it. I named it "The Butler" so when I drop some crumbs on the floor I can just say "The butler will get it." I've got to find the joy where I can, okay? I like this product. It runs every day for me and keeps my floors swept. It gets stuck in a few places pretty regularly. It doesn't like my bathroom rug. Tall transition strips (3/4") are a challenge for it but it makes it with some effort. It can usually finish my floors with one charge but if it cannot then it will make it's own way back to the charger, dock itself, and then when properly charged, finish the job. I did have to turn off the feature that stops it when the bin is full. Let me tell you, it's not full. It's fine. It would need emptying at least once in the middle of doing my floors, and we were often not home for that. When I turned off that feature, it finished the job just fine without me emptying it. Also, the HEPA filter has a shockingly short lifespan. I'm experimenting with just blowing it off and reinstalling it to see how it affects the product. They're expensive and a broom is far cheaper. I do recommend this product. We have 5 cats and hair is a non-issue for us now. I wish I'd grabbed the station that lets it empty itself, because while it makes it through just fine, I still have to empty it daily (first world problems, right?).

Replaced an older model Roomba with this product. This product was easy to set up. Seems to be mapping and cleaning without issues. Be aware that the product description of the J7 states it is self-emptying...it is not. The J7+ is self-emptying. Bought extra self-emptying bags per product add on recommendations which will be returned. Hoping the pet waste detection function does it's job as our previous Roomba did not have that feature.

As a non-pet owner the j7 model does almost everything I want it to, though not quite the way I want it to. It detects toys and cords...sometimes. The first time I ran it to test it out, it detected a toy, went around it, and promptly ran over the toys behind the first toy (I've since set the "play area" as a designated keep-out zone). Since it wasn't possible to designate keep-out zones prior to training (kind of a chicken-and-egg situation), the initial training was a little frustrating and required some babysitting, but after setting up rooms and designating keep-out zones, it's pretty rare that it runs into issues when cleaning. This is leaps and bounds better than our Roomba 980, which while itself was quite low maintenance compared to our old 690 (due to the rollers being much easier to clean), had a tendency to trounce the play area (even with a virtual wall barrier) and hide our shoes. The mapping features also allow scheduling room-by-room cleaning (or clean specific zones), as well as approximate times for each job, so it's easy to schedule jobs according to how disruptive they might be. There are a few things I don't really like about it aside from the training frustrations, though: - If the Roomba gets caught on an obstacle that it didn't detect, there doesn't seem to be any way to train it to avoid the obstacle. It keeps getting caught on our Fisher-Price infant-to-toddler rocker. - There doesn't seem to be a way to toggle keep-out-zones, or create cleaning jobs with certain keep-out-zones disabled, which could be useful for some keep-out zones which are only sometimes bad to clean. - It seems to me the dust bin and battery are smaller. This could be due to additional hardware components to help with the obstacle detection, but they probably don't lose sleep over this since the Roomba pauses and returns back to home base to charge if the battery runs out during a cleaning cycle, and the smaller dust bin might nudge users to the j7+. - Since this basically lets iRobot (or any potential hacker) peak inside my house, this is a downstairs-only Roomba in my opinion. Good: - Obstacle detection and keep-out zones allow this Roomba to complete most jobs without need of rescue - Cleaning for specific rooms/clean zones adds a lot of flexibility to how the Roomba can be run. Bad: - Obstacle detection can be hit-or-miss, at least so far. It seems to have trouble with many obstacles (e. g. toys) clustered together. Note the P. O. O. P (pet owner official promise) if you're a pet owner; it doesn't cover damage/cleaning of floors/carpets/other objects. Not sure if it applies to the replacement as well, but I expect you'll be making use of it at least once (until they inevitably either improve the obstacle detection logic or cancel the P. O. O. P for new owners). - No ability to report on obstacles the Roomba failed to detect, such as cases where the Roomba got stuck. - Still need to clean the rollers and empty the dust bin fairly regularly - Smaller size battery results in more trips back to the home base Ugly: - The bin is too small; might want to opt for j7+ or buy the "clean base" separately.