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 purchased this machine December 7, 2021. Our use: - We got it to help us keep up with dog fur, as even once a week is not enough for our 85 lb. yellow lab. - About 1,100 sq. foot main level, mostly hardwood, 2 rooms with carpet. One rooms carpet is high pile. - We like to run it 2-3 times a week. - We keep it clean and maintained as recommended. The good: - Time between needing to replace base bag is good. - It does seem to get most of the fur off the hardwood floor, judging by all the clumps are gone, but you can still find fur speckled around on the hardwood floor. - It seems to do pretty well on the carpet also, based on me testing by going back over the carpet with our good quality full upright to see how much fur I get. There is a little, but not much. - The dog is not bothered by it. :) The whatever: - Its pretty darn loud, but I was not expecting to not to be, so thats fine. The bad: - Often leaves thick strings of fur on the hardwood floor where it borders with carpet. Those need to be manually removed. - The wheels leave markings on the hardwood floor a lot, but not everywhere. I dont think its just skidding when turning, as the marks can be straight too. Rubbing with my socked foot seems to get them up. I suspect this may be common for robot vacuums. - The logic/app is not capable of predicting run times accurately, and does not include charging time. - The logic/app is not capable of predicting an intelligent point to charge, or how long to charge, in order to complete the job without needing to recharge again. - Unable to mark identified possible obstructions as not an obstruction, remember this next time so you constantly have to mark the same items on reviews after every job. The worse: - Mapping takes several clean everywhere cycles, where each take 9-11 hours (including charging time.) At least (4) of these cycles to get a map where you are allowed to place dividers, name rooms, etc. - The map gets distorted easily over time. Wall openings do not align, which messes up room and divider setup, and then you lose your cleaning jobs that have messed up rooms in them. - The robot will sometimes identify new areas, which are really part of the original map, but for some reason it thinks the room got 3 wider or it found another room, or something. These can sometimes break the map, causing the app to crash, and you cannot start a job without STARTING THE MAPPING ALL OVER AGAIN. - The robot gets lost easily. If it runs over a floor vent or anything else that may spin it a little, its orientation is messed up. I think it needs both wheels in constant contact with the floor to track its location. - It bumps into things constantly. I dont just mean chairs and other furniture; I mean even walls as its traveling. The plastic bumper sensor is very scratched up. - Trying to accurately place a no-go area on the map is very difficult, and takes several adjustments to get it right (which over time becomes not right) - It has trouble finding the docking station about 40% of the time. It will spend 5 minutes trying to align itself then give up and finish the job stuck, which means you have to start it over. We keep the base and sensors clean, so that is not a factor. --- It has also been (2) rooms away trying to find the docking station. UPDATE NEW ROBOT: (With the help of a $200 save coupon) I ordered a roborock Q5+ to replace this on the main floor. My hope was that the LiDAR navigation, along with stronger suction, help improve a lot of my pain points. You can see that review here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R3HRIDQBQ4W529?ref=pf_ov_at_pdctrvw_srp

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 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.

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!

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.

This is our second Roomba in about 8 years. The “cutting edge” vacuum back then couldn’t empty its own bin, set up room maps, schedule beyond start/stop and definitely didn’t have an app. In this way, the J7+ is superior. It’s smarter and more hands-off, to be sure. I love being able to start a routine via app and be able to check in on progress along the way. As for actual vacuuming, though, this one falls far short. It does a pretty good job on our short berber carpet but not a great job - at ALL - on the Saltillo tile that covers most of our house. It leaves small bits and pieces on the tile and almost always leaves balls of rolled up pet hair on rugs and carpeted areas (picture is attached, apologies in advance). I’ve gotten to the point of doing a single job twice in a row so she can pick up the dirt or hair she moved around but left behind in the first go. This isn’t the end of the world, but doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense. Like the older version, she will still get stuck when one wheel is up on a tile and the other is on a rug with a thick pile. We’ve come home a few times to find she was stopped with a dead battery because she couldn’t extract herself and return to the charging base. The convenience of having an automated robot vacuum is still high on my list, no doubt. Regardless of the issues outlined above, this machine does help keep the floors moderately clean in between deeper sessions with the traditional vac. I am just disappointed in the performance - especially given the price point and the fact that this is supposed to be such a grand upgrade over the earlier models. The company put a lot of energy into making a smarter vacuum that doesn’t handle the basics very well. A word of advice: the OEM bags that belong to this model (2 deliver in the box) do not hold much and, after they’re used, get thrown into the trash. Before buying more, check around for off-brand bags that are reusable and have a zipper along the back that allows the bag to be emptied.

I really wanted to love the J7+. I researched it for weeks, read countless reviews and everything online was great. Of course there are some negative reviews but in my mind there will always be some. First I have to say I never write negative reviews. But this robot is a big disappointment. I have a dog and two cats and lots of pet fur that needs tending too daily. I’ve had the Roborock S4 max for two years running everyday for upkeep. It does a really good job but it doesn’t have an auto empty station. So, when the J7+ was 25% off. I was happy to upgrade my old robot. Day one: I ran it to create a map of my house. It spent a lot of time banging into everything and got scuffled up on it first run. It didn’t compete the map of my house. The directions say it’ll needs two or three runs to complete a map. So I know what to expect, no problem. Day two: it refuses to clean a 12 square foot area in my kitchen. It’s a a 4 foot wide open area with a single step down into another room. But it stays 3 feet away from the step/cliff. It still doesn’t complete the map of my house and spends most of its time banging into stuff. I notice it rolls up pet fur into what looks like strings of thick hair and leaves them all over my white carpet and it also likes to dump clumps of fur along the edges of my area carpets. Day 3: it still doesn’t complete the map and I have lots of areas on the map that it simply doesn’t go to. It got stuck on an imaginary obstacle on my hardwood floor with absolutely nothing around it. I run my other robot to complete the job and it picks up all that Roomba left behind. Each time it empties itself, it sounds like a jet plan in my house. Seriously a jet plane. Day 4: STILL cannot complete a map. It refuses to go into one bedroom. I pick it up and put in there to start mapping it. It creates a whole new map that can’t be connected to the original map. I have a single level home. It shouldn’t be this difficult to map it. Day 5: I try again, same results. I don’t have anymore patience nor time. I run my other robot and it completes over 2000 square feet in one run effectively and easily. I’m on Amazon writing this review and returning this roomba. Again I really wanted to love this robot. I really wanted to support an American company. I really wanted to believe the reviews. But they’re BS, no wonder it was 25% off. It stinks. Im giving it 3 stars because I feel bad giving it less and it’s better than manually sweeping everyday.

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.

I have been using this roomba J7+ for almost two weeks and its been pretty good, but could be so much better. First Ill start with the issues that Ive had so far. Note: this is going to be a long review. Cons: -Mapping takes a while and is not terribly accurate. I tried to update my maps after first generating them by sending the bot on more mapping runs, but it does not want to update the map to make it any more accurate after the first few runs -My unit came with a faulty side brush motor. It literally quit working on the second or third day that I used it. It would spin very slowly if I gave it a bump, but it would immediately quit spinning if the bot went over a transition or went into a corner where the brush would hit the wall. I contacted support and they issued a replacement side brush motor, but still, it was not confidence inducing to have the motor fail that early on. -The navigation is pretty lack luster. Before I had this robot, I had an ecovacs deebot n8 pro+ which had a LIDAR sensor for navigation and that robot could map your house down to the inch on the first try, but I returned it because the app experience with that bot was horrendous. The J7 uses VSLAM navigation which means it takes pictures of landmarks in your house and uses them as references to know where it is and then it bumps into things to find out exactly where they are. My problem is not with the navigation system itself, because it could work very well, but my issue is that there is no intelligible pattern that this bot seems to follow when cleaning rooms. It constantly jumps around from place to place and if it would just run around the outside of the room first and then fill it in with rows, it would be so efficient. If I could somehow remote control the robot, I bet I could clean the space in half the time just because on its own, itll hit a table leg or something and then jump to the other side of the room and then come back to do the table later and then back to the other side of the room again. -The app is supposed to show you pictures of the things the robot sees while cleaning and ask if they are obstacles. Mine does this now, but it didnt at first and I had to factory reset the bot to get it to work, not a huge deal, but not something I should have to do either. -Hard floor pickup leaves something to be desired. A side brush that spins too fast and below average suction power means that this bot misses debris on hard floors often. -My robot once had gave me a message via the app that it had something caught in the main roller and that it was going to quit cleaning until it was removed. I checked the main roller and there was nothing. I hit resume and it went on its way. This has only happened to me once, but I thought it was worth mentioning. -The auto empty bin is LOUD. This isnt too much of a con because it only lasts about 5 seconds and it always clears all the debris out, but you do not want this thing activating while someone is trying to sleep. Pros: -The overall cleaning seems pretty good. After letting the robot clean our bedroom a few times, I took our dyson vacuum through the room and it picked up almost nothing. -The bot is pretty quiet. I was able to talk on the phone while it was running with no issues. -The auto empty bin is very powerful and leaves almost nothing behind in the onboard dust bin. -iRobot has been around for a long time and they make a good, reliable product with easy access to replacement parts. -The app works really well and offers some nice features such as automations to clean when it detects that you are gone, cleans zones, keep out zones, room division that actually works (Im talking to you ecovacs), and just an overall clean user experience. -The obstacle avoidance is unmatched. To my knowledge this is the only robot vacuum with a guarantee not to hit pet poop, and it does an amazing job avoiding our cats toys, as well as streched out cords (a real struggle for most robot vacuums) and window blind pulls. With that said, the obstacle avoidance can be a con as well. Ive noticed that the robot does not get very close to obstacles at all, which is great if its pet poop, but its not going to hurt anything if it brushes up against a shoe. Conclusion: The Roomba J7+ seems like a solid option if you have a lot of carpet and have lots of obtacles that you want it to avoid. I would not pay full price for it though. I got mine for around 600 bucks and Im still not entirely sure that I am happy with it at that price. The retail price of 850 seems way more expensive than I would ever feel comfotable paying for something that has so many cons. iRobot, if you are reading this, the J7 was so close to being the best of the best. Adding a LIDAR sensor, paired with your excellent obstacle avoidance, parts availabilty, customer support and proven product longevity would leave people with no other sensible option than to go with your robots. I would gladly pay $800+ for a J7 with LIDAR navigation.

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.