That wasn’t nice, however at the very least it developed a fairly correct map of my home. It robotically designated which surfaces have been carpeted and which have been hardwood, and I used to be capable of designate no-go zones and clear zones—particularly soiled or high-traffic areas—within the app. The mopping arm reliably got here down within the kitchen, even when the primary few passes have been all the time dry, and the arm doesn’t scrub as reliably because the Shark or the Ecovacs variations. I checked after each cleansing run and by no means discovered a moist carpet.
On the entire, as you might have been capable of guess with my mapping session, its navigational capabilities have been disappointing. This got here as a shock, as iRobot honed its talents by creating robots for the army. For so long as I’ve been testing robotic vacuums, iRobot vacuums have constantly come out on prime—however sadly, corporations like Roborock and Shark have shortly caught up.
After I examine the Combo j7+’s historical past within the iRobot Residence app, it’s dismal. 4 out of seven of the previous day by day runs have had errors or stoppages of varied sorts. In earlier years, I’ll have excused this—in any case, my home is giant, has totally different surfaces, and is stuffed with messy youngsters and a number of animals. Robotic vacuums often closing the doorways on themselves and trapping themselves within the toilet is simply a part of the sport.
Nonetheless, I took to operating the Combo 7+ similtaneously the Roborock Q5+, and the Roborock effortlessly accomplished cleansing runs that the Combo j7+ repeatedly struggled with. After I tried to see what the issues have been, generally the app merely crashed on me.
{Photograph}: iRobot
The elevated performance additionally meant that battery life suffered. The water tank is so small (a mere 212 milliliters!) that it wanted refilling to wash my moderate-size kitchen—about 20 toes by 12 toes. I additionally recognize iRobot’s auto-empty bin characteristic, which signifies that the vacuum journeys again to the dock to empty itself, quite than drag canine hair all around the ground. Nonetheless, with a dustbin that has a capability of solely 0.3 liters (most bins have a capability of at the very least twice that), it signifies that the battery typically ran out earlier than finishing anybody cleansing run.
A lot of the cleansing runs take about 4 or 5 hours to finish, which suggests I overlook when a run hasn’t been accomplished. Often all of us get the dwelling bejesus scared out of us once we sit right down to dinner and a vacuum that I’d assumed was dormant instantly awakes and trundles off to finish a cleansing run that I began at midday.
It doesn’t assist that iRobot’s auto-empty perform is loud. I measured the auto-empty quantity at about 95 decibels—15 to twenty decibels louder than different robotic vacuums once they auto-empty.
Finally, I discovered the expertise of utilizing the iRobot app to be annoying sufficient to suggest the Shark as an alternative. That is to not say the Shark is ideal—$600 continues to be rather a lot to pay for a vacuum-mop the place you continue to have to change out the bin, can’t mop and vacuum on the similar time, and sometimes end up hand-washing cloths. Nonetheless, the $1,100 iRobot is not double the vacuum by any means. I nonetheless suggest iRobot’s cheaper (and cameraless) 600, 900, or i3 and i5 sequence, however this one is simply too dear to be this unreliable.