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+

We bought this item last October for almost $1k and it has only been a headache since we have purchased it. We upgraded to this item from a different brand that was 1/3 the price. The cheaper/different brand item worked a hundreds time better than this item. We bought this item because it says it specifically identifies and avoids pet waste and cords and is ideal for pet hair. YEAH RIGHT! This irobot cant even go onto one of our plush rugs we have in the house because there is a cord it would have to roll over to get to the rug. Then we will pick the irobot up and put it on the rug and it shuts down and starts having errors because of the pet hair on the rug. Here is our irobot story from hell: VERY shortly after receiving our irobot it started to act up. Our app kept telling us there was errors of various reasons. My husband called customer support and they couldnt help. The company then asked us to send the whole irobot back to them. We sent it back and FINALLY received the irobot back after 3 months. During the 3 months, we never initially heard from them, we had to reach out to them. When we did reach out to them, this was their response they outsourced the company that they send the irobots to fix them and the company was so far behind on fixing all of the irobots that we would just have to wait however long it takes. Then after numerous calls and emails back and forth with the company trying to still get ours fixed, they said that it couldnt be fixed and they needed to just give us a new irobot. It takes 3 months to figure that out? REALLY? Then once we finally got the irobot back, it did not have a collector bin so we STILL could not use it. We called them and told them they sent us the wrong thing, so then they sent us the right collector bin and it was still the wrong item for our irobot. So we STILL could not use it. They finally sent us the correct collector bin and now after a total of 4 1/2 months (might I add from October of buying it to now, July, we have only had the irobot in our possession for about 4 months and it has never FULLY and PROPERLY worked those 4 months), we can FINALLY use it.... or we thought we could. Now when we attempt to use it our app tells us that the dust bin is always full and needs to be cleaned and emptied. We attempt to use it daily, so daily errors again from this irobot. Other than daily errors the irobot is VERY loud, (might I add the item that cost 1/3 the price and that worked better than this irobot was MUCH more quiet than this irobot) and we also have sensor issues daily. This irobot is supposed to be able to sense so wonderfully and smart maps the house, NO WAY DOES IT DO ANY OF THAT! It runs over things all of the time and gets caught on everything. We dont even like to have it running while we are gone or asleep because we are scared of the mess it could make or things it could pull down and break or things it could run over. However, we dont like to run it while we are here either because it is SO loud. If we could return this irobot, we would in a heartbeat. However, we tried to give it the benefit of the doubt because there is no way that a thousand dollar machine could not be the best of the best... or at least we thought. By giving it the benefit of the doubt we went over our time of return and are now out a thousand dollars with a machine that is supposed to save us a headache by helping clean the house, but that does the exact opposite. WE WERE SADLY MISTAKEN, INSTEAD IT CAUSES US MORE OF A HEADACHE WITH ALL THESE ISSUES WE HAVE HAD, AND CONTINUE TO HAVE!

I’m a normal guy…. Using the term loosely. We have three dogs in the house. Two puggles and a beagle, so there’s a lot of hair. So much pet hair. We have LVP flooring throughout the house, no carpet at all. This little guy is awesome! We just moved into the house about a month ago, the J7 will work without internet, it’s just not as nifty. But it does its job. With Wi-Fi, this sum bitch is my new best friend. He runs every other day, and the floors stay clean. We just moved into a newly built house, so we don’t have a yard….. we have a dirt bowl and the pups bring in a lot of dirt when they go out. Even with that my little suck machine keeps everything picked up. When he’s doing his thing he’s not loud, but you know he’s there working. It’s much quieter than a conventional vacuum. He cleans about 1600 square feet for us in about an hour and a half. The AI is great because it will recognize the dogs toys and just work around them. So theoretically it won’t smear doggy dooty all over my house. The dogs hate regular vacuum cleaners, but they don’t even notice this thing. If they are laying in the floor it actually just works around their lazy butts. I have to change the bag about every two weeks, but amazon has an off brand version of the bag that is about $1.50 each, so no big deal. It’ll tell you when the bag is full, and it takes 3 seconds to swap bags. The only thing that is loud is when the vacuum transfers the load of dirt to the base station. It is more like a shop vac on the volume scale, but it only takes about 10 seconds for it to be done. As far as purchases that I stressed about and researched, I put days into reading about various brands. This is the best purchase I have probably ever made for keeping the house tidy. If the little bastard could bring me a beer, it would be perfect!

We considered the more expensive S9, but decided on the j7 because we primarily have wood floors with some area rugs. We live in a tri-level and have moved the vacuum & stand to each floor for mapped and cleaning. OBSERVATIONS - The cleaning performance exceed our expectations - Quiet when cleaning except when complete the the base suctions the debris out of the j7 It is so quiet that we are surprised to hear it GENTLY bumps into things - we forget it is running - The methodical approach to covering the entire floor is refreshing compared to previous random pattern vacuums. - The mobile app is excellent. It shows a nice graphical representation of the cleaning after completion. I just wish it would show the coverage as it cleans (vs waiting until the end) - It detected and avoid electrical and USB cords. This is especially nice because we forgot what was under the couches & beds (out of sight out of mind). it NEVER ONE got tangled or pulled on the cords. - Faster at cleaning than our old random pattern vacuum. Those would run until they were nearly out of power verse knowing they covered the entire floor. With the mapping this vacuum knows where it needs to clean avoiding unnecessary vacuuming time. - The short squat base fits nicely next to dressers, night stands, and couches. While Roomba recommends space to either side of the base I ignored that recommendation to hid it away from casual viewing. It worked perfectly always finding its way home. - transitions over thresholds without an issue. Wood to carpet, wood to tile, tile to carpet, it never had an issue scaling the threshold. Interestingly it did not scale the padded mat I use at my standing desk. It somehow figured out it was not a threshold and vacuumed around the small pad. Nice! - The attached wall brash was deformed because of the way it was packaged or moved during shipping. I replaced with the included second brush and will try to straighten the brush arm after heating up with a heathen. It is not badly deformed and Im going to try to straighten simply because I have a heathen handy. - The packaging was good with minimal use of non-recyclable materials We are happy with the j7+ and will likely purchased an extra base or two to leave on the different floors of our house.

We have pets, so I got this, so it would avoid them love the self empty. It’s great at avoiding obstacles, but it’s quite a bit noisier than I thought when it empties it sounds like a airplane taking off I would recommend, but do not use at night when you’re sleeping it will wake you up.

First some background - we have a yellow lab, two girls with long hair and our house is mostly (dark) hardwood floors. Our dog sheds a fair amount and within a day or so the floors are covered in fur. I was using a big dry mop to clean up the fur and hair, and it worked well, but I wanted something quicker, easier and more effective. After doing some research on robot vacuums, I decided to give the j7 a try. Weve been using the j7 for over six months now and it does a pretty good job of cleaning up the dog fur. As others have stated, it is ok on carpets. If I really want our carpets clean, I use our Dyson stick vacuum and for two reasons: 1) It does a better job of cleaning. 2) Thats less fur and dirt that goes into the iRobot bag. I have the j7 on a Mon, Wed, Friday schedule. I had no problems with mapping. Anything we can get off the floor, like chairs and stools, we move to make it quicker and more effective for the j7. For us, the base vacuum bags last 1 to 2 months. Sometimes, if there is an excessive amount of dog fur on the floor, Ill dry mop the floor and vacuum the carpet with the Dyson, just so Im not sending all that dog fur to the j7 base bag. Also, if there is too much dog fur on the floor, the j7 will fill up and not be able to hold anymore fur, then start leaving clumps of fur in random spots. The j7 requires maintenance about every two weeks. The unit should be turned upside down and then checked for a build-up of hair and fur. Hair gets wrapped around the edge brush, in the roller/brush ends, around the free-wheel and if you let it go too long, it can impede the operation of the j7. The filter should be cleaned, as well. One thing to note, the unit is rather slow. It takes a couple hours until my first floor is completely vacuumed. It runs for a while, goes back to the base to empty the dirt contents and recharge, then then runs for a little while longer to finish vacuuming. If you are not home, its not a big deal. If you are home, you just have to listen to the vacuum running for however long it takes. Overall, Im happy with the vacuum. If you have a lot of hardwood, its probably a good option. If you have a lot of carpet, I personally wouldnt attempt to use it for that.

So, we have coretec flooring all throughout our house. We live on the water with a lot of sand and that’s the reason we didn’t want carpet. When my wife first asked me about this little machine I said, “let me do some research first.” I run the vac in our house because of our golden retriever. She’s a shedder for sure! Please don’t think that this vac will 100% replaced your upright vac. It’s good. Really good. Probably a 9.7 out of a possible 10. The reason I give it a smidge lower score is it is obviously a robot and is not perfect. I can’t type the whole name that I’ve labeled mine in the app but suffice to say it is “HouseVac*itch.” Yes ladies…my wife didn’t like that name, but it did stick. We run this thing 2 – 3 x’s a week in our home. You will be absolutely amazed at how quickly the small collection bag in the base fills up. Why? Because this robot is going underneath furniture that we all probably rarely move. I know I don’t move it every time. There were one or two times that HVB got stuck in the pantry, but it was not really the unit’s fault. We had put too many things in there on the floor. Would I purchase this again? In a heartbeat. I may go and purchase another one to keep in the master suite. That way, I can run them both and try to keep up with the dog hair! (This dog should be bald by now! LOL!) Good luck!

So far so good. It is still learning how to map the house and I had to manually empty the robot on the fifth time because the bag was full.

The fact that Roomba can empty his own dustbin and then go right on back to cleaning is a game changer in my opinion (we started referring to the self-emptying feature as ‘goin potty like a good boy!!’ so our 100lb Doberman knows Roomba is a friend, not a scary bad guy). And if you’re already upset I’ve gendered Roomba as he/him, it’s probably best for you to move on to a different review—No disrespect intended whatsoever— it’s just that in our house, for whatever reason, Roomba’s a boy robot (but for the record we’d love him no matter what). Moving on. We’re in a single story house w/ mostly tile & rugs in the areas Roomba ventures (I use a regular vacuum for the carpet in the bedrooms). In all truth I could probably let him explore the bedrooms cause he seems to be pretty powerful & effective, we just hadn’t needed the extra cleaning power in those rooms since the doors mostly stay closed. The main concern was the tiled areas since that’s where most of the day to day traffic is… especially from the aforementioned sweet monster puppy, Rambo, who often comes barreling inside w/ 4 dirty monster puppy paws. Thus, for our specific needs, Roomba has certainly *understood the assignment*…or whatever the Gen Z’s say? **side note: this is the first time I’m realizing the ‘Roomba’ / ‘Rambo’ name combo. It’s like they’re siblings. Cute….? Weird…? Okay, once again—moving on. Sure, there might be more ‘tech savvy’ options for robot vacuums but I tell ya what, this lil dude WORKS & he don’t call it quits til’ he’s FOR REAL finished w/ the job. Like, one day over the holidays I made a huge mess w/ some glitter & other crap while decorating & poor Roomba was working so hard he had to stop cleaning, go back home to his charging station, go potty, & take a lil nap. THEN!!! Yall! he woke back up on his own & went straight back to cleaning until he’d completed the entirety of his map!! I was so impressed!! like dang what a responsible, reliable hard worker! AND independent! He doesn’t require much support or guidance at all, he just figures out where he’s going & uses his robot brain to generate a map that you’re able to edit & label within the app (if you want). Speaking of which— the app is very user friendly & has lots of options to customize Roomba to function however you choose. The single time I had to contact customer service was a positive experience- they were great. This purchase was a good one!! No complaints from us— I love this robot vacuum and I feel like the price is reasonable for the high quality & reliability of the product. Except Rambo still doesn’t trust him b/c Roomba sucked up some of his kibbles (told y’all Roomba don’t care!). But Rambo is the one who slung his food everywhere & made a mess, so that’s on him not Roomba.

This is my third robotic vacuum. The first two were epic fails (neither of them had the app for home mapping, which is a feature I feel is a *MUST HAVE* if you want your vacuum to run correctly.) I cant believe I actually paid $650 (with tax) for this one, but I have to say Im pretty happy I did. Overall, the Roomba j7+ is an awesome way to keep your house tidy—with a few exceptions. See below: The good: The first day was intense. It took a total of 8 hours (including two breaks for a recharge), but I finally got it to map out my house. Its an open concept design and on Roombas map, I unfortunately couldnt tell where some rooms begin and others end. The placeholders (rugs, doorways, etc) arent set to scale, and sometimes my estimations of the boundaries were way off based on Roombas diagram. Part of the problem was my fault because I was so picky about getting the boundaries accurate. Once it was all set up, Roomba and its software really showed its strength. I was very impressed with how efficient it was at cleaning. It even readjusted and learned better ways at cleaning tight corners after taking a few trips around the same space—proof that the vacuum truly does get smarter over time, as is promised. This was a welcome surprise because I usually have to vacuum daily due to our pets. The bad: The living room is the only room where the Roomba completely failed. I tried running 8 separate cleaning sessions on this room, and it only seemed to get more confused over time. Its your typical rectangular room with a couch, multiple chairs, end tables, a few planters, and a coffee table on a rug in the center. The rug is a high pile, so I never expected the Roomba to be able to tackle it (even traditional vacuums struggle with it). Surprisingly, the Roomba *was* able to make its way over the rug, but only after fighting and curling the rug every which way, which I fear will damage it in the long run. ... AND... It never correctly identified the rug on the map. If it had marked it as a rug, I could have drawn a shape over the area and marked it as a zone to avoid. But without the map, I have no idea where the rug is in the app. I tried making an estimated guess, but it ended up missing important parts of the living area off the rug. And each time I edited the rug, I had to run the vacuum again to re-map it. I finally gave up. This will just have to be a room I continue to vacuum manually. The fugly: After cutting my sons hair, I figured Id let Roomba clean up the mess instead of cleaning it myself. MASSIVE MISTAKE. The Roomba gathered all the hair into a tidy pile on the bathroom floor, then proceeded to mow right through it and drag huge clumps onto the rug over by the shower! Then it backed up and ran more clumps over the rug again. After it had sufficiently painted the rug with hundreds of tiny hairs (which I swear Ill never be able to get all out), it went outside its boundary and spread more hairs into the bedroom. I was convinced that Roomba would somehow fix this based on its dirt detect technology. But no, instead of going back and cleaning up the mess it made, it traveled merrily back to its home base, leaving a long trail of hair behind it. On the clean-up summary, there was no mention of dirt detection, and no indication of an irregular cleaning session. Lesson learned, and I was the idiot for sending a robot to do a humans job. I wont make the mistake again. All that to say, I wouldnt trust Roomba again if there was a mess to clean up, such as spilled chips. Id be afraid the vacuum would just crush them and spread the bits all over the house. Where it really seems to excel is cleaning small day-to-day things, such as dust and pet hair. It does a really solid job of this. My house was already clean when I started using it, and Ive watched each day as it cleans up new clumps of pet hair and little bits of dust and debris. Overall, Id say its a good vacuum for maintaining an already clean home. For that, Im still pretty happy. It saves me a lot of work. I run its cycle daily and its so much nicer to not have to do the work myself.

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!