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.

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.

I had a very good, 5 year experience with my IRobot 900. I fully expected the J7+ to out perform the 900. I thought I was upgrading because I splurged and also bought the self emptying bin. I was completely wrong. I have been holding off on writing this review in order to give it a chance to do all of the mapping and acclamation that it needed to do. Its NOT getting better. CONS: 1. Upon first inspection, I noticed that it was lighter (not bad), but had a more plasticky feel than the older models and felt cheaply made. 2. Its noisier than the other models. 3. It is NOT good at all in the corners 4. Seems to be confused while mapping 5. Battery life could be MUCH better. The 900 did my entire downstairs w/o having to stop and had a bit of battery life to spare. 6. It gets clogged easily and frequently stops to tell me to empty bin. 7. Its NOT easy to empty the bin manually when asked to do so. 8. Many times, there really isnt anything in the bin that should have clogged it to begin with. 9. While it self empties after each job, you still need to manually wipe and clean all of the other parts. 10. I feel the need to be home babysitting the J7+ to get it through a complete job 11. Does not clean as well as the 900 12. It needs bags. Why couldnt it just empty into the big bin and empty that when needed. PROS: 1. Very easy to set up 2. Easy to set up the dividers and room assignments, and clean zones 3. Nice to be able to do a quick small job using the room assignments. 4. The self emptying feature is nice While the pros are good, I post them with a grain of salt because they dont always work as they should. I am still mourning the loss of my 900 and wish I could have stuck with it. A LOT of money for something that doesnt live up to all of the hype that IRobot claims.

This is an update: We have had this for 10 months. I still like it and it is better than the old ones, BUT it does not pick up cat litter very well. As a matter of fact I give it a poor rating in that dept. It has also ruined our wool rug. It transitions well from floor to rug but leaves dirt and debris on the rug. It has also ruined out hand knotted rug, whereas the older models didnt seem to phase it. We own 2 older Roombas. Have had them for 4 years and they just keep on going. Only had to order one battery in all that time. We have a 3 level house and it has always been a pain to drag one of the Roombas upstairs and keep a eye on the time so decided, after doing a lot of remodeling, we would get the big boy for the middle level and move one of the older ones upstairs. I read a few bad reviews but as a Roomba user for so long I can say that this model is a winner. It has no problem transitioning from my floor to wool rugs. It does make a 747 jet sound when it empties itself but it is much quieter while cleaning that my old guys.

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.

This docs and empties much better than prior version. Great battery life. For some reason it gets lost from time to time.

I’ve owned 4 iRobot products and each, except for this one, was almost totally worthless. Prior products were variously stupidly loud, made of poor materials, apparently designed by Radio Shack, and doomed to failure within 1 year. I’ve had the Roombas that used those irritating ’fence’ beacons; and iRobot floor mopping products that had software failures within 3 months. But now, finally, iRobot produced a well-designed mini vacuum that does NOT require manual intervention at every turn, is paired with an exceptionally good app that maps and has very useful features, and which can be automated to run when you leave home (and stop when you get back). Did iRobot hire someone new? Remove the previously cloddish team from the enduser experience? Sure seems like it. I want robotic devices that are easy to set up and which are not a regular time-sink. I want to be able to mostly forget about them. And iRobot finally made one that I do not have to think about much at all. The floors are merely cleaned of small debris that accumulates in regular living. Now if they could only do the same with an effective floor mopping automated robot that is not just dragging a wet towelette across the floor. Alas: Not yet. The price is steep, but they’ve always been steep for their latest innovations. This time — for the very first time — it has been worth it. Finally. Sure took you long enough, iRobot. Congratulations to whoever it is you hired to make a mini, light-use vacuum that delivers on promises you’ve made before, but did not keep.

Initial impressions after using for a few days (overall, we like it): - The mapping feature needs work. The first time I mapped the house it missed several areas, including a bedroom and huge closet. When I tried to add those areas to the existing map, I kept receiving an error. Customer service advised me to do a factor reset and start from scratch. When I mapped the house the second time, it was able to find all the rooms. Because of the errors, the mapping process took 5-6 hours when all said and done. For a ~2,000 SF 1st story, it took about 75 minutes to map once. - When the vacuum returns to the dock to empty itself, the emptying process is incredibly loud. Its 3-4x as loud as the Shark robot we have upstairs. In most cases, there is no way you could run this vacuum while someone was sleeping, as they would be woken up when it empties itself. It really is that loud. If your house is 6,000+ SF, then maybe, but in our 3,400 SF two-story home, there is no bedroom far enough from the vacuum station to avoid this noise. - The app is nice and seems slightly better than the Shark app. I like how you can crate favorites/hot buttons. - The vacuum does a good job of quickly navigating to rooms on the map and doesnt get lost. I needed I will revise this review after a few months of use.

Roomba does seem to get lost at time.

Compared to my iRobot roomba model 980, this J7 is not as loud. It has a strong light and looks like a drunk locomotive in my home. The vacuum chamber in the J7 is smaller than the model 980. When the j7 empties itself to vacuum bag in the top of the dock, it is loud ; very loud. So, I recommend you tell Alexa to activate Roomba while you are aware. Would not recommend running at bedtime unless you like horror films.