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 absolutely love our J9! We own several Roombas but this one is by far our favorite. The suction is spot on and with 2 dogs, we dont see one iota of fur anywhere!

Works well, clogs with dog dander easily, regular cleaning is required.

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.

01/02/2023 Update: I just had to provide this update for Anyone thinking about buying an iRobot device. Today I sent my J7 roomba out to clean the back bedrooms - which it has done on an established map many times before. On the first try - it wandered aimlessly, went back to the base station after 15 minutes and said all done. NOT possible - the run time is typically 70 minutes - so I sent it out again. After 20 minutes it said localization failed - meaning this More Onic thing could not find itself on the previously established map. So - I sent it out a third time - which proved to be the charm - as it then completed the cleaning task. Of course because of the cheap battery (iRobot chose to send this vacuum with a wimpy 32 watt hour battery - oh yeah - for an additional $20 on this $600+ product they COULD have included a battery with TWICE the capacity - but Nooo- their hand in your pocket) it had to return to recharge after an hour, then completing the task in another 7 minutes. Just as another FYI - Id previously noted a thin nylon line protruding from one of the main drive wheels. I am a pretty accomplished do-it-yourself-er, and after finding details on FixIt, decided to open the thing up. It is really quite straight-forward, BUT - the drive wheels were designed on purpose to prevent you from fixing them. The last gear on the drive wheel is pressed on over splines, requiring a lot of careful pressure for removal with a flat blade screwdriver to avoid destroying the gear. And even then, the wheel does NOT want to come out of the housing - I suspect because of the splines. Using 2 screwdrivers (one acting as a block) I was able to develop sufficient space between the wheel and the housing to remove the nylon tag, as well as a bunch of debris that had developed over the past year. Reassembly was a snap, and we were off to the races. As a part of this fix I needed to remove the bottom cover. After doing so, I noticed the battery only partially filled the battery space (see photo)!! The battery capacity on the OEM battery is listed at 32 Wh (watt hours), or 2.22 Amp Hours (Ah). Many on-line battery supply houses list replacement batteries up to or exceeding 5.6 Amp Hours - or almost 3 times the run-time of the OEM battery. Buyers scammed by iRobot again !! 10/19/22 update. One of the poorest performing mapping robot vacuums Ive ever seen. Despite being in use for almost a year, it continues to bump its way along the room maps - almost like its never been there before. In addition, Ive been unable to figure out how to add an unmapped closet to the current map. Just leaving the closet door open - the thing just pokes its nose in, then ignores it. Battery life is pretty poor - itll vacuum for about 1 hour, then needs to recharge (no change compared to when new). It sees wires hanging down along a wall, and marks them as obstacles, avoiding several feet of carpet in the area. Even on a new job - upon identifying - say a chair leg - it fails to remember that, and bumps into it over and over again. It takes over 30 minutes to vacuum around our kitchen table with 4 chairs. Although I like the self-emptying feature, most other robot vaccums offer the same. I found our previous square nose vacuum did a far better job in corners. To add insult to injury - when I made several suggestions to iRobot on how they might improve their mapping system, they pretty much yelled at me for making suggestions, claiming they could never use those suggestions as it might violate intellectual property rights. When this thing dies, Ill be going back to Neato - or possibly Shark. Roomba i7 Mapping Fails (4 mapping runs and 2 vacuum all runs) (12/31/21) Very discouraged. Got a Roomba i7+ (Auto Bin Empty) for Christmas (actually well before but ran it several times to be sure it worked). I sent it out first on a mapping only run - and it ended with the expected first-run mapping in progress notice. Sent on a second mapping run - same notice. OK - sent it out on a vacuum all run - error message = unable to complete vacuum all as requested (map still in progress). Sent on the third mapping run - ended with the mapping in progress notice. Second Vacuum All run - unable to complete all as requested (Mapping still in progress). 4th mapping run - ended with mapping in progress. Sure - we have a 4400 SqFt home, but the Roomba reports only 1700 SqFt mapped. Watching the device - it shows NO EVIDENCE of having been there before - running the exact same search pattern as before, bumping over and over into the same objects it encountered in previous runs. It was unable to detect the 1-1/2 step-down into our laundry room (hung up there until I placed a barrier in the way (it failed to recognize my magnetic no-go strips)) Any suggestions would be appreciated. Given the size of my one-story house, I will close doors and otherwise create obstacles to make 3 separate maps. I spoke with iRobot Customer Service who confirmed that was the right approach. Reposition the base station within each of your 3 maps and create a unique map for each section of the house. When you want to vacuum that area, put the base station in the spot where mapping was begun, select the map of that area, and initiate cleaning. Kind of a kludge, but we can make it work. No excuse for them NOT including a simple hall effect sensor for magnetic strips.

When it gets jammed up in a room you should get a notification on your phone before it runs out of battery. Doesn’t adequately remove all the debris from the unit into the bag plus it would be helpful if there was a mechanism that removed dust from the filter. But in all fairness, my house has never been this clean. Thank you.

I usually do not do reviews unless I am impressed or disappointed with an item and when I do so I try to be an asset to someone who is considering a purchase and thus my experience may help, I hope it does. Last October I purchased the Roomba J7+ to use in our home which has mostly wood floors, two fully carpeted rooms and one room with a large rug. I use the j7 if I notice something on the floor such as dust or perhaps a little fur from a fluffy cat so I would estimate the house gets a run about once a week room by room as is required but never all at once since it is not necessary in our home. As this semi-random schedule has become somewhat routine I have never seen the j7+ go into partial completion due to recharge needs, it accomplishes its job in a single charge before going back to base but of course the larger the house that would be different. The wood floors do make a difference as I only had to change out the bag in the base unit once. One thing that I customarily do is the recommended maintenance once a month as lint and such does accumulate at the ends of the rollers and I would recommend doing that routinely as it is easy to do in about 10 minutes. Has the unit failed on a mission? Yes it has on one occasion as it got into a room and closed the door on itself so that it could not get out so it shut down and sent me a notice on my mobile device, it was my fault as the door was left in a position that allowed the unit to get behind it and close the door on itself but not before it totally completed its job. If you connect the j7+ to your wifi system its quite an attention getter when you use a voice command to do a job and in fact, its almost scary how smart this thing is! I hope it doesnt photograph my checkbook one day and notify me its time to balance my account. Last suggestion ... do map your house as per the instructions and remember you have to re-map if you move the base unit but if you map well it does a magnificent job. I hope my review helps and that anyone reading this that purchases one has the same experience.

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!

The navagation and AI on this vacuum are insanly good. IT doesn’t vacuum or have adjustable power levels but it is very quiet and very smart. Would highly recommend to people who have multiple rooms and need a bot smart enough to navigate anywhere and be dependable. Has not got stuck yet.

I’ve purchased 4 Roomba sweepers & a mop so far because I’m apparently stupid & don’t like to clean. Initially, this thing is a dream come true & you’ll love that it sweeps while you’re doing something else. I don’t use the programming app because I find that to be a bit much, I just hit the button & it goes. I can tell a huge difference with different types of dog hair. Longer dog hair gets trapped in the wheels & underneath and clogs the machine so I’m pretty good at disassembling the unit & cleaning/replacing parts by now. This newest j7 purchased 10/3/22 - 6 mos. ago - is already spouting multiple errors at me. I had 3 just today & cleaned it out completely. It still doesn’t work. I have 2 of the j7 self emptying & a 980 currently. The I7 Wi-Fi connected self emptying machine was thrown in the trash 2 years after I purchased it due to multiple issues, not limited to the fact that the design of the emptying dock was bad & they’ve since changed it but it was a complete loss for me. I can say that the most reliable machine so far is the 980 that you have to empty by hand. I’ve had it since 2017 and it still works well. The dust bins are larger on the non-emptying types and they hold a lot and pack the bin full. I purchased an extra basic dock for this machine & move it around. I think this is the best bet due to the fact that the more tech on the machines, the quicker they break down. I have mostly hardwood floors & some low pile carpet/area rugs so I’m not beating this thing up. Really disappointing longevity on the self-emptying styles.

I was SO reluctant to try this technology, but a Cyber Monday deal made me finally take the leap, and I am so happy I did!!! After one mapping run, the vacuum had my whole downstairs mapped perfectly! I was very surprised at this give that we have a lot of square footage & rooms. It did take all day to map it though. Afterwards, it took only 5 minutes on the app to move room dividers & label the rooms, and the next day she started cleaning at a set time exactly where I asked based on a schedule I set up. It was flawless! A couple of very important notes to help others: 1. The day of your mapping run the vacuum does NOT clean, therefore it is quieter & you won’t see anything in the dust bin! 2. Your vacuum is afraid of the dark! You need to turn on lights (if it is dark) in rooms & hallways she is in, or she gets lost & does not function properly. I would have thought she was broken had I not looked that up online & realized my mistake when I had her vacuum in the dark several days later & she suddenly couldn’t find her way out of a dark room she was cleaning! Lights have been on every day since & no more issues whatsoever! 3. When setting permanent obstacles be sure you don’t want her to vacuum even close to them or she will avoid that area all together. I found labeling everything “temporary obstacle” a better solution so that she still gets close but then pulls away before there is an issue. 4. Before your 1st mapping run pick up as much as you can so she draws a perfect map. I listened to the manufacturer on that & my map is flawless. Then on subsequent runs you can be not quite so picky & she will adapt without changing your core layout. *FYI: this would be an AWESOME gift for an elderly or disabled person! The cleaning is super detailed & would be adequate in that situation, if run every day, to avoid using a traditional vacuum. For everyone else, I think a regular vacuum would be in order every other week for a deep clean (especially if you have carpets). I use my iRobot to do touch-up cleaning every other day & after dinner, but vacuum with a regular vacuum once at the end of the week because I like a super clean house.