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 great piece of technology. It does a pretty good job vacuuming. It sometimes gets caught up on chair legs or doormats. Its rotating brush wore out faster than expected. It often needs to be emptied manually. It takes a very long time. BUT... it does a pretty good job and it does it by itself! There is room for improvement, and we still need and use a real vacuum, but this little thing is a nice addition to our lives.

I ordered this product last week and it arrived a few days later. I ordered the combination that had extra filters, rollers, and brushes since I have 4 kids and 4 animals in my home. I should mention, I have a German Shepherd that is constantly shedding and a long-haired Siamese cat. Between these two animals, I should sweep daily, but I dont have that kind of time, so I splurged on the Roomba. My children were super excited when Paul (the irobot- they are on a Beatles kick right now) arrived. It is easy to set up. You must download the iRobot app in order to set up the room maps and cleaning schedules. Some reviewers said it took their robot quite a few times to get an accurate map, not Paul, he had the main floor mapped on day one. You can label the cleaning map, which is convenient, I have mine saved as main floor but then have each individual room labeled separately. The Roomba can do the entire map or just specific rooms. You can schedule the vacuuming to however you need it or just have it clean specific rooms right then and there by the push of a button. So far, I have Paul cleaning at 9 am and 7 pm. The 9 am cleaning takes less than an hour and the 7 pm was even quicker. Paul had no problem transitioning from wood floor to tile. He struggled a little at first with going from the tile to some area rugs, but watching Paul figure out the best way to approach the carpeted areas was interesting. After initially struggling a little bit and getting caught up on the edge of the rug, Paul figured out the best approach and no longer has that issue. We are currently remodeling so we have spots on the kitchen floor where it goes from tile to the tile backer, so a few millimeters difference in height, and Paul had no issues transitioning from these two levels. Paul is not quiet, but he isnt obnoxiously loud while vacuuming. However, when the Roomba goes back to the docking station to self empty it sounds like a jet airplane taking off. So, I would not schedule the cleaning times for when someone is napping. Beyond that, after two days with Paul, we all love him.

Had the 9 and watched it literally chew up the edges of some small carpets. 20 years of wear in a minute. Sent it back and got the 9j. It does not destroy carpets, does not get tangled in fringe and overall does a satisfactory job. It has a shorter run time than the 9 but like the 9 it comes in for a charge and then goes out to finish the job. It mapped the floor faster than the 9, but has a bit more hesitancy about darker areas. The vacuum bin sounds like a jet winding up but it only lasts a moment. The 7 is quieter than our older model. It might be just a bit less effective with cat hair, the jury is still out. Freaky feature-- it takes images of foreign objects on the floor and asks you if this is a temporary or permanent thing. You have the option to let it send the images to iRobot. I saw a shoe, a cat toy, a small ball, an extension cord dressed down a table leg, a wrapper dropped next to a waste can and the same wrapper pushed two feet away. After a brief discussion we decided not to send images to the iRobot database. Let them get their own cat toys and shoes. Alexa integration is never so easy as it should be but it works--mostly. You can name your robot during the setup and I named it Drudge. If I say Alexa tell Drudge to go home. Alex says Drudge go home. but nothing happens. If I say tell Roomba to go home, Alex says she will tell Drudge to go home and it does. The cat tolerates it, the other party at interest just wants the floor kept clean, and I much prefer that Drudge does the job. We are keeping Drudge. So all in all an improvemen

This is a review at the one-year mark of owning this J7+ with the dust-bin charging station. This is my seco-nd vacuum robot, having been so disappointed with a Neato I owned about 7 years ago that it took me this long to decide another foray was worth it. Im again left disappointed. J7 does the following well: - Mapping - Cleaning dog hair from hardwood floors J7 does the following okay: - Auto-empty (I have to manually empty the small internal bin and clean the sensors about 2x/month or more or it refuses to auto-empty, which means it wont run either) - Wifi speed is pretty laggy, and I sometimes have to force close the app and reopen, but this has gotten better with updates. Still, not as fast as it should be for the price. - Navigating obstacles. Rarely gets stuck with the latest updates, but I still dont know why it constantly bumps into my couch or other fixed items in the house that it supposedly mapped out. J7 is terrible at: - Pet hair on some types of rugs. I have a very low pile rug in my foyer that it just cant seem to get pet hair out of. Im not sure why, it drives across it fine, but just leaves it behind. This is despite thoroughly cleaning the brushes, and setting it force complete a second pass. - Randomly will just stop working for various reasons, and Ill finally get around to troubleshooting it a day or two later (usually a sensor needs to be cleaned, or the bin wont auto-empty). For the price-point, and the amount of time this company has been around, I expect a vacuum that just works. Id be fine with cleaning its brushes once or maybe even twice a month, or even having to manually empty its been on occasion if there is too much pet hair and it gets clogged. But, the fact it leaves hair stranded, and Im having to troubleshoot it at least once a week for various things is just frustrating. Im not replacing it because it does an okay job at pulling the pet hair off the hardwood floors, and I just dont trust the tech yet to buy something different. Your experience might be better if you dont have pets.

I had a previous robot vacuum but I never ran it because I always had stuff on my floor and it was easier to just vacuum than it was to go around and secure every cord, shoelace, dog toy, etc. I decided to upgrade and after a lot of research decided on this model. I definitely made the right decision. This little guy has effectively cleaned my floors without sucking up a single unwanted things. I can (unfortunately?) confirm the POOP guarantee works. My dog has a bit of a behavioral issue of pooping inside when he’s stressed. He seemed totally fine with the roomba. But after the first run, I found a big ol’ poop on the floor. I definitely was happy the roomba hadn’t run it over, but I wasn’t sure if he had pooped after it had vacuumed. UNTIL… After that first run, I noticed the cool feature where you can review pictures of the obstacles it faced. Low and behold, there is my dog, caught pooping red pawed right in roomba’s face, looking over his shoulder at it like “come at me bro.” The roomba was not deterred by his big poop energy and just apparently turned and went the other way. Thank you roomba, for not turning my house into a literal s***storm!!!

Compared with a broom and a dustpan, it is OK; its cat fur-ball cleaning capability is zilch. (Use a Dustbuster for that). However, because it is so well designed for the lazy man, my hardwood floors and rugs get cleaned a LOT more often, so that is a big win--I wont tell you how rarely they got cleaned before. Also, like all carpet vacuums, it cant get the edges. Again, use a Dustbuster. UPDATE 6/22/23: If you have cats, expect to have to open and empty the bin on the Roomba itself weekly. The cat hair doesnt get sucked out by the base. I have short haired cats, if I had long haired cats I probably would be cleaning the bin on the Roomba daily.

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.

Finally, a robot vacuum that rarely gets stuck. However it does on rare occasions get stuck when trying to go under my bedroom furniture which is slightly too low for it to fit under. It gets wedged and I have to free it. Im not sure why its obstacle avoidance feature doesnt prevent that, but it doesnt. Otherwise, its great! I can essentially set the schedule and forget it, until its time to change the bag in the base unit, which has been about once every ten days or so. - I have it set to vacuum the whole house daily at 3:00PM. Very happy with it!

We had the i6 and it lasted nearly 2 years with almost constant daily use in a 3,000 sq ft home with 2 dogs, one of which is a Great Pyrenees! It did a great job of daily clean ups, but would occasionally get stuck trying to run over a dog toy, or get stuck on the base of a lamp or fan, and would smack into things pretty hard at times. Twice, it ran over dog poop and made a huge mess on the second occasion. Finally, it wore out save needed replacing. This new j7+ is a huge improvement over the prior generation of Roomba. It almost never gets stuck. Really its only been stuck once under the treadmill, but learned from that and hasnt been stuck since. It recognizes cords and dog toys and avoids them! Even small black socks from my daughter are safe on the floor. It is quieter and seems to clean better too! Battery lasts a lot longer so it goes further between charges and gets the whole house done much quicker. It also doesnt run into things hard like the last one. Barely bumps into stuff, by comparison. I really like that it sends pictures of stuff to all of its a temporary obstacle or not too, which helps it determine customized keep out zones for permanent obstacles. Instead of running into your feet or your dogs, this one will recognize you or your pet is there and go around you. The j7+ is truly a smart vacuum and I would highly recommend it! Now they just need to figure out how to get in those smaller spaces the Roomba wont fit, like behind and next to the toilet, between the washer and dryer, etc.

Context: 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.