iRobot Roomba j7+ (7550) Self-Emptying Robot Vacuum –Identifies and avoids obstacles like pet waste & cords, Empties itself for 60 days, Smart Mapping, Works with Alexa, Ideal for Pet Hair, Roomba J7+

I really, really like this little fella....on carpet. Luckily we have a lot of carpet because we have tile in our kitchen and hallway and if you asked me how well it does on it, Id have to say meh. It does ok, but where it really shines is on carpet. It doesnt have much suction power because the twin rollers do a fantastic job of agitating the carpet and it lifts it right into the bin without much suction. The tile floor it tends to throw a lot around if it doesnt catch it directly below the rollers. The side brush tends to throw it across the floor instead of into the path of the rollers. Maybe a future feature would be to slow the side spinner down on hard floors and have it speed up on carpet. That way it doesnt just throw it across the floor. The object detection is great and the only time it got caught on something was some sheer drapes that were hanging down too low. I just set a keep-out zone for the drapes and no problems since. Definitely love the auto bin empty feature! Integrates great with Alexa. Havent tried it with Siri, yet. It is a little pricier than some alternatives out there, but in my opinion, the obstacle avoidance feature makes it well worth it.

A friend had one and raved about it so I bought one. I like it. It won’t replace all your cleaning but it is good for picking things up between cleanings. Quite loud on my tile floors though.

The Roomba j7 is fantastic. The suction is only okay and its noisy. But I run it every day and keeps my floors very clean. Thats whats important to me. It deals well with obstacles (our house is very messy). It just goes around them. It tries to go back to spots it missed before it finishes. In a month of usage it only got stuck once. You do have to let it explore the first few times it runs. It gradually builds a map and continues to expand it on every run. It is very noisy when it empties itself into the base and is pretty noisy when cleaning hard floors. Its much quieter cleaning carpets and rugs. The vacuum isnt very powerful. So it doesnt always get everything on the first pass. However, you can run it often and it keeps the floors very clean. I run it in most rooms three times a week. I can also tell it to clean any room that gets messy whenever I want. Right now I only have one Roomba for a two story house. This means I have to carry the machine between floors. It works, but clearly having two machines would be better. I will buy another J7+ when I see it on sale.

Ive been watching these robot vacuums for years and finally decided to take the plunge. I know myself well enough to admit I would benefit from one that self empties, for a while at least. (For reference I have one child and one small dog in my household.) The vacuum seems to be very well built and designed. Same goes for the base. I am impressed by the vacuums ability to traverse various flooring scenarios as well as its capability to pick up debris. It cleans remarkably well on hard floors, but carpet is a mixed bag. We have a Persian area rug, various shaggy bathmats and runners, as well as some wall to wall carpeting. Pet fur tends to stay pretty well velcroed to the Persian rug until I break out the upright vac. To be fair, we have another rug with tassel edges, and it amazes me that they have caused zero issues thus far. Some notes: It may self empty for 60 days for you, IF you live in a NASA white room. Otherwise, expect notification of approaching capacity within a week or two if you have pets, children, or just generally live in reality. Not a deal breaker, but dont glaze over promises of up to... If this vacuum picks a fight with a high-pile or shag rug, expect the vacuum to become disabled, lost, or confused, and be prepared for your rug to take significant damage. Granted, most of our bathmats are of the pretty economical variety, but be warned. They are fraying rapidly at the edges where they were in pristine condition previously. Also- I do not feel that this is adequately addressed in any advertisement, question or review so I will state it as clearly as I can: when the vacuum self empties, the base is LOUD AF. I have read it described in many delicate and generous manners, but it only sounds and EXACTLY SOUNDS like one thing: someone running the average shop vac for 4-6 seconds. Fortunately our base station could not physically be any farther from our bedrooms and still be in the house. This was not a result of the noise, just preference, but it still helps a great deal. I wouldnt call it a deal breaker, and the feature certainly seems to work very well, but you should be completely aware. I also dont love the size or proprietary nature of the waste bags. They seem to hold a fair amount, do a fair job of filtering during empties, and are certainly easy to remove and install. But it would be nice if the manufacturer would accommodate recycling the bags at least once or twice by offering some intuitive method of opening or disassembly. Ive been using some long forceps to fish the larger eggs/pellets of fur out of the filter bag now and then to prolong the life of the bags, but frankly its tricky. The refills are pretty affordable, but still... With regards to obstacle avoidance, its what youd expect. You really ought to follow it around and supervise on its first vacuuming run, because there are just some things it avoids, and others it simply steamrolls. You wont know if it can avoid your charging cables and shoelaces etc until you try. As for the software, its pretty impressive but still needs a little love. I set the vac up, and sent it for a mapping run a few times. I picked up some trash cans and hampers and such to give it a broad picture of the physical furniture. I was surprised and intrigued at its accuracy and thoroughness. Then I realized two bedroom doors had been closed. I ran another DOZEN mapping runs, specifically updating the existing map, and even after finding and searching both rooms several times, the app refused to add them. Finally I decided to shake things up, so on the last mapping run, I moved the dock before the vac returned. Whoa buddy was that hilarious to watch. It did finally manage to find home, and on the next mapping run it was entirely discombobulated for the first few minutes... then it seemed to realize where it was... then it rescanned the two missed rooms again... then it returned to its dock without too much consternation... THEN it recognized both new rooms with no issue. The ability to label rooms, define borders, create sub-zones, schedule jobs, and so forth are all pretty cool features. I use my Google ecosystem to send it to specific areas regularly and its pretty reliable. Ive seen it get stuck in a mess of dining room chairs that its explored a dozen times before. Ive seen it take the alternate long way around when a baby gate was closed. Ive seen it aimlessly banging against a corner it has turned many times flawlessly. I have also noticed that when it fails on a job, it seems to sit and pout, then spitefully run the battery down to nearly dead until I cradle it in my arms and gently nestle it back in the dock. It confuses me why I cant just set it near the dock and tap the top button to let it know everything is hunky dory and it can return home. I say this because when manually docking this bad boy, it *is* just a little quirky and you *do* have to make a concerted effort to confirm that the contacts are indeed making positive connection. Having said all that, I still think its worth the investment as a helper (not a sole vacuum) and I dont regret the purchase!

Great little unit when its operating as expected. I used this roomba (I have 3 different models from over the years) on the main floor of my house which is 50/50 hardwood floors and tile. Unit was able to navigate very well and walked up onto throw rugs and transitions just fine. Virtual walls and keep out zones were easy to setup. This unit wasnt exactly quiet, but not as bad as my previous units around noise. Everything was going great until about 30 days ago. The unit all of a sudden started throwing ERROR 26 (very common I find out by googling for this model). Turns out, there are 5 different motors inside these things, 1 for the corner brush, 1 for the main brushes, 1 for each wheel, and 1 for the actual vacuum. The actual vacuum motor on my unit seized up. The roomba was maintenance every two weeks and was kept very clean so the vacuum was not stressed. Its been 30 days working with support and I finally got to the point that they are going to send the main head assembly as a replacement. This module contains most of the guts of the roomba and represents about half the cost of one. For a unit thats not yet 1 year old I feel like this shouldnt be. Of all of the motors on the unit, I would expect the vacuum motor to be the longest lasting, however, it was the first to go, and after disassembling the unit to do this replacement, I see that this motor in particular is poorly undersized for what it does. I still like my unit, but Im afraid that this one wont last too long either and I wont be buying a replacement.

This is an update: We have had this for 10 months. I still like it and it is better than the old ones, BUT it does not pick up cat litter very well. As a matter of fact I give it a poor rating in that dept. It has also ruined our wool rug. It transitions well from floor to rug but leaves dirt and debris on the rug. It has also ruined out hand knotted rug, whereas the older models didnt seem to phase it. We own 2 older Roombas. Have had them for 4 years and they just keep on going. Only had to order one battery in all that time. We have a 3 level house and it has always been a pain to drag one of the Roombas upstairs and keep a eye on the time so decided, after doing a lot of remodeling, we would get the big boy for the middle level and move one of the older ones upstairs. I read a few bad reviews but as a Roomba user for so long I can say that this model is a winner. It has no problem transitioning from my floor to wool rugs. It does make a 747 jet sound when it empties itself but it is much quieter while cleaning that my old guys.

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 ones 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 dont 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.

I absolutely LOVE ❤️ LOVE❤️ these two items!!! It’s made my life so much easier!

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

Like the ability after cleaning to clean out the bin.