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+
-
Dana Smith
> 3 dayI’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!
-
Richard Schmelter
> 3 dayIve 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.
-
Shawn
> 3 daySo, 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.
-
Lauren Craig
> 3 dayThankfully I bought this when there was a sale because it is expensive. It’s worth it though! Being able to walk around the house and not constantly see pet hair all over makes it worth every cent. I have a German Shepard who basically just sheds daily, all year, no days off. If you know, you know. I definitely had to have the one that empties itself. The ONLY reason I’m giving 4 stars instead of 5 is because of the self empty for 60 days thing. I looked back at the description but didn’t see much so I can only assume that means you don’t have to change the bag for 60 days. This is probably try for most people, however for the GSD crowd, this is not the case. I have had the vacuum for about three weeks now and I’m going on my 4th bag change. It’s a shame you cant just empty the bag and reuse it. Having to change it so often is going to get expensive but also seems really wasteful. Overall I’m happy with the purchase. It does want I wanted it to do and make life just a little easier (and much less furry).
-
Ryan Short
> 3 dayWe 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!
-
Melanie Adams
> 3 dayWe 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!
-
Roy C
> 3 dayI 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.
-
John A Maddox
> 3 dayThis docs and empties much better than prior version. Great battery life. For some reason it gets lost from time to time.
-
David D M
Greater than one weekI like it a lot , does a good job easy to work the app ,4 stars not 5 is because of the battery life, I have an older model that I use in a lower level and runs twice as long, I guess if it has to empty the container then it may as well charge at that point but still my house isn’t that large with a better battery it could do the whole house
-
LemurTech
> 3 dayContext: Two humans and two cats in a 1400 sq. foot space with half hardwood flooring and half medium pile carpet. Weve had the J7+ for just about a year now, and it runs three times/week. Ive previously owned two Neato D5 models. Pros: Relatively quiet, efficient guidance system that avoids troublesome obstacles and questionable floor messes, well-designed app, easy to clean and maintain. It almost never gets stuck. The self-empty base is nice (but, see below). Cons: While quiet, the suction is poor. It is miserable at picking up cat hair and long human hair, despite any marketing that touts pet hair features or the unique brush design. Much of this hair simply accumulates around the brush spindles, which means that you absolutely must clean it every 3 runs or it will soon jam up (Roomba does make this relatively easy). Occasionally the hair ends up in odd little wads strewn about your carpet. Why? Given that I have to clean the thing every Saturday, what do I even need the self-cleaning base for? Bottom line: great vacuum for low-pile carpet or hardwood floors in homes without pets or humans that shed. Thats not us, and I wish we had either sprung for the higher end Roomba or perhaps tried a Roborock.