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+

This is a replacement for our 7 year old Roomba that just finally died. It is doing a great job keeping up with our 5 dogs. It takes several returns to the base to empty itself during a cleaning session due to all the hair, but that is not a problem for me. I do have to empty the bag every few days which is not fun to do (it involves needle nose pliers to pull out the dog hair clumps) but I feel wasteful throwing it out that often. It is noticeably loud when it returns to the base and the dirt/hair gets sucked up, but you get used to it. Would recommend.

Ive had the j7 for about 3 months now and I am very pleased with the performance so far. tl;dr: If youre thinking about upgrading, do it, youll be happy with it. Previously I had an e6, which worked well, but after about 3 years of running twice a day (I have 2 dogs that shed quite a bit) the rotors stopped working. So instead of fixing/continuing with the e6, I decided it was time for an upgrade. Things Im impressed with so far - The floor mapping / cleaning AI cleans better than my e6 that just bounced around via an algorithm - Self emptying bin is awesome (I still check the roombas rollers, brush, and bin periodically to untangle hair, etc) - App has info on when you should replace filter/brush/rollers (didnt see this for my e6) - Base station: Having a flat base that the whole unit drives up on ensures that the charging contacts are aligned. My e6 would occasionally have issues with docking properly. - Obstacle Avoidance: This model will try to identify obstacles and will take pictures of them that you review in the App to help the roomba learn to clean better. So far it has been very intuitive. Things that could be improved / wish list - AI still seems to have a little wonkiness to it. Ironically, I think my e6 navigated around dining room chairs better, but the j7 still gets the job done. - I wish that there was an option in the App to save the pictures of obstacles to your cameral roll. It took a couple hilarious pictures of my dog that I would have loved to have kept. - Zones: When you name a Clean Zone, you can only pick from a list so you can only one zone named Pet Bed. There needs to be an option to name zones yourself. - Obstacles: When you review the history and see the pictures of obstacles, you only have the option of selecting No Obstacle, Temporary Obstacle, and I dont know. It would be nice to add options for things that are technically obstacles, but do not need to be avoided per se. Such as Table Leg, Chair Leg, Bed Frame, etc.

I fired my new Roomba j7 today excited to see how well it avoids pet waste and objects. It did its vacuum run only getting one pet toy it should have avoided. Not too bad. Then on its way back to the dock it ran straight through a fresh pile of doo recently deposited by our 10 week old puppy. Not good. Thank heavens the suction wasnt on or this new toy would be on its way back to Amazon. Why would they program object avoidance for when it is vacuuming but not for when its returning to the dock! Talk about failure to plan ahead! I already have a robot vac that I recently purchased but when we saw the ad for the waste avoidance system with 9 pets we had to have it. If the next run isnt more successful they will be getting it back!

This is a review at the one-year mark of owning this J7+ with the dust-bin charging station. This is my seco-nd vacuum robot, having been so disappointed with a Neato I owned about 7 years ago that it took me this long to decide another foray was worth it. Im again left disappointed. J7 does the following well: - Mapping - Cleaning dog hair from hardwood floors J7 does the following okay: - Auto-empty (I have to manually empty the small internal bin and clean the sensors about 2x/month or more or it refuses to auto-empty, which means it wont run either) - Wifi speed is pretty laggy, and I sometimes have to force close the app and reopen, but this has gotten better with updates. Still, not as fast as it should be for the price. - Navigating obstacles. Rarely gets stuck with the latest updates, but I still dont know why it constantly bumps into my couch or other fixed items in the house that it supposedly mapped out. J7 is terrible at: - Pet hair on some types of rugs. I have a very low pile rug in my foyer that it just cant seem to get pet hair out of. Im not sure why, it drives across it fine, but just leaves it behind. This is despite thoroughly cleaning the brushes, and setting it force complete a second pass. - Randomly will just stop working for various reasons, and Ill finally get around to troubleshooting it a day or two later (usually a sensor needs to be cleaned, or the bin wont auto-empty). For the price-point, and the amount of time this company has been around, I expect a vacuum that just works. Id be fine with cleaning its brushes once or maybe even twice a month, or even having to manually empty its been on occasion if there is too much pet hair and it gets clogged. But, the fact it leaves hair stranded, and Im having to troubleshoot it at least once a week for various things is just frustrating. Im not replacing it because it does an okay job at pulling the pet hair off the hardwood floors, and I just dont trust the tech yet to buy something different. Your experience might be better if you dont have pets.

I got this J7 plus on sale for $599 so for what I paid its a really decent vacuum. Ive owned a lot of iRobot Roombas for the past 20 years so I consider myself sort of an expert. Also keep in mind I do not hand out 5 star reviews lightly. This one gets 3 stars because I had some issues with the app, and getting it set up. I also can not use the function where you look at the photos with my iphone 11 pro max. I was finally able to do the set up using my OLD ipad air 2. I find it unacceptable that the app will not work for one of the main features or to set it up, using my newish Iphone on the latest iOS software. In talking to other users this problem is common. Had I not had the old iPad I would have had to return it because without connecting it to wifi via the app, its worthless. Once I got it set up, I can do the schedule etc from my iphone but it wont show me the photos for the obstacles it finds. I get the error message on my phone but if I open the app on my iPad I can see the photos and deal with them. I do not like that I have to go get out an old device to do it and do not understand why iRobot does not deal with it. I also tried to contact them about it and got no response. I might end up just turning off the feature because its not that big a deal to me. I did try turning it off and was hoping it would shut that light off but the light still is shining even with the feature turned off. It seems like it would waste power having that light on all the time and if I dont use the feature why is the light still on? Ok so on to the actual vacuuming. This model does an great job on hard surfaces but does not really do the greatest job on carpet compared to my older 980 which had a carpet boost setting that most of the other 900 robots lacked. I also liked that I could set my 980 to focus on cleaning and could turn off edge clean. Its probably silly on my part but I like to see the neat lines on my carpet after it cleans and it seems to do the back and forth cleaning with the j7 and then go around the edges so I see these deep marks on the edges and going around any furniture. I liked that I could turn that off with my 980 so I just saw neat rows. I could always go turn it on once in awhile but honestly that edge feature is more important with hard floors, than it is with carpet. One other thing I find odd is that the app shows me carpet the robot has detected, yet there are no settings for changing vac power level and it does not act differently on carpet, so why is the thing worried about detecting my carpet? I ended up having to set it to clean twice once one way and once across what it vacuumed to get it as clean as it got it with my 980 alone. I probably would have been better off going with the s9 for carpet but I did not want to pay that much and upstairs there is not as much dirt so it does and acceptable job. I just think they could have given it a little more power and more settings. on vac power. I love that I can set it to do certain rooms, and no longer need those dumb walls. In that respect its so much better than my 980. One other thing it seemed my 980 did better with was area rugs in the bathroom. My 980 used to knock them around a bit but did not get stuck on them. The j7 gets hung up on the little cotton rugs on the floor. Im not sure how Im going to deal with that. I want it to clean our bathrooms but its a pain to have to pick up the rugs each day so for now I turned off the bathroom cleaning. The self emptying feature is great. I do not have to empty the bin and once I do have to empty the bag it seals and goes in the trash without me having to get a puff of dust all over. I also love that they lowered the height with this self emptying bin so its not a huge tower. Ive been running it 3 times a week upstairs for over a month and have not had to empty it yet. Im thinking I might just change it at 2 months if it does not give me a notice that its full. I can feel stuff in there but I guess there is room for more. Im not sure what has to be in there to trigger it needing to be changed. The bags to me seem reasonable. Even the irobot bags are only around $5 a bag which seems reasonable considering Im not having to change it often, and its worth it for me to not have to deal with the dirty dust puff all over my cleaned area. It makes me want to upgrade my s9 to the self empying base and I might do it at some point if they lower the height of that self emptying base too. Over all this is a decent robotic vac. Its great if you have hard floors but with carpet its just so so. Id prefer a deeper vac power for carpet, but its passable. Thanks for reading my review

Got on Amazon sale for $599 then they had another sale month later for $499 thank you very much Amazon for the Fin. Any way the jury is still out with this unit. Battery doesnt last Im having to find it in the house dead and take back to dock. It does avoid objects like advertised but it doesnt avoid liquids. It does clean carpet as well but Ive noticed it wearing out the rollers quicker. liquids make a mess with it turns the dirt into well you know mud then sticks to rollers filter and the waste bin Now you has the clean everything and new filter. I glad I got it for $599 really would have liked $499 at this point not sure its worth the money . Also I had the E5 Roomba prior to this one it performed as well as this one only upgrades Dock station vac, obstacle avoidance and the picture mapping. And I only paid $300 for it. so are the upgrades worth it? Yes for maybe $200 more not the $300 I paid

I had one of the original Roomba’s way back when. It was…..okay, but fell out of use with it. Decided to try this and so glad we did. We have three dogs, so always need a good cleaning (daily) and this does a great job 7 days a week. There’s some fine tuning at first but now after a few months of use, we are not really paying as much attention to every recommendation. We have dog beds that may or may not get picked up before it starts it’s daily job. No worries, it covers it the next day. Replacement filters and parts are going to be required, but the time this saves it’s so worth it. We also got the Braava mop which runs a couple of times a week, and is also great. I think the only time I’ve pulled out our Shark vacuum has been to do things like under the fridge and occassional other clean up where I could have used the app to send the Roomba over to take care it, but just grabbed the older one. Big improvement over the original models.

So, just know that robots don’t have any suction power like an upright. But, they keep the floors tidy and looking good and the surface dirt and dust and junk picked up. And they gotta map well otherwise, what’s the point. The J7+ does everything it says. Great mapping, great clean up, learning, it’s fast, and very quiet. Just know, you gotta have a good strong vac for the deep clean every month. (We got a Shark Navigator for this part and it rocks.) Best of both worlds. You have a Daily hands-off cleaner and a monthly deep cleaner. Super clean house and you only have to vac 1-2 times a month or less. And your hard floors - will always be swept without picking up a broom. Not cheap but definitely a great way to reduce work without sacrificing the clean. $599 + $198 … we bought some time and effort back.

We had the i6 and it lasted nearly 2 years with almost constant daily use in a 3,000 sq ft home with 2 dogs, one of which is a Great Pyrenees! It did a great job of daily clean ups, but would occasionally get stuck trying to run over a dog toy, or get stuck on the base of a lamp or fan, and would smack into things pretty hard at times. Twice, it ran over dog poop and made a huge mess on the second occasion. Finally, it wore out save needed replacing. This new j7+ is a huge improvement over the prior generation of Roomba. It almost never gets stuck. Really its only been stuck once under the treadmill, but learned from that and hasnt been stuck since. It recognizes cords and dog toys and avoids them! Even small black socks from my daughter are safe on the floor. It is quieter and seems to clean better too! Battery lasts a lot longer so it goes further between charges and gets the whole house done much quicker. It also doesnt run into things hard like the last one. Barely bumps into stuff, by comparison. I really like that it sends pictures of stuff to all of its a temporary obstacle or not too, which helps it determine customized keep out zones for permanent obstacles. Instead of running into your feet or your dogs, this one will recognize you or your pet is there and go around you. The j7+ is truly a smart vacuum and I would highly recommend it! Now they just need to figure out how to get in those smaller spaces the Roomba wont fit, like behind and next to the toilet, between the washer and dryer, etc.

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