iRobot Roomba j7+ (7550) Self-Emptying Robot Vacuum – Uses PrecisionVision Navigation to Identify & Avoid Objects Like Socks, Shoes, & Pet Waste, Smart Mapping, Self-Empty for Up to 60 Days

The good and bad
Roomba does not have LIDAR navigation. I do have another robot that is LIDAR so I can give a rough pros and cons of the two type of navigation system.Roomba relies more on bumping into things and it’s map to navigate. There’s good and bad. The bad is that it will often go around the house as if it’s a drunk bumping into furniture and objects. The robot needs to learn your floorplan and that can take a long time since it’s bumping into everything. It took me about 5 runs of my whole house. Each run took about 3 -4 hours since my house is 2500 sq ft. Prior to it learning my house, it’s navigation looked like it was non existent. I thought I had just bought the dumbest robot especially compared to my inexpensive $300 LIDAR robot. However, once the robot declared that it had learned my floorplan everything changed and I began to see the benefits of the iRobot navigation system.Even after learning my floorplan, the iRobot still takes forever navigating around table and chair legs. Bumping and taking multiple attempts to escape the forest of chair legs, but surprisingly, it has never gotten stuck in my house. I have set it to vacuum my entire house several times and in total it has vacuumed about 20,000 sq ft in it’s lifetime so far and it has never gotten stuck. We have kids so there’s a lot of toys and miscellaneous items everywhere so that’s amazing to me.My LIDAR robot on the other hand navigates beautifully around furniture but it can’t see cords or other lower to the ground objects and it constantly gets stuck on these objects. Also because LIDAR isn’t bumping into things to navigate it gets stuck under my couch because the fabric under my couch sags and the LIDAR robot will travel underneath the couch but then think it’s blocked in by the fabric when it tries to leave the couch area. The iRobot doesn’t have this problems because whenever it’s in doubt it just goes barreling through and utilizes the bump sensor to feel around.The other problem with my $300 LIDAR unit was that it would sometimes do a cleaning run but mistakenly think that there is a new floorplan and erase the old one. It’s more sensitive to changes because it’s LIDAR hardware can detect small changes. This is probably more a software issue. The iRobot on the other hand, is very hesitant to change it’s map. That is good in that it has never erased my current floorplan or made incorrect modifications, however, the initial “learning of the floorplan” is a bit harder if it doesn’t discover all your rooms. Getting it to discover new rooms is more difficult since the floor plan is locked in. I’ve found the best way to get it to discover new rooms after it has “learned the floorplan” is to do an area clean and just draw a box where to new room should be. Once I did that, it would explore that area and declare it found a new space and then it was added to the floorplan.A few other more minor issues is that the Roomba software is polished but also very limited on options as compared to my inexpensive LIDAR unit. For example, I can’t set how often the Roomba should self empty or the quiet times (they removed the beta feature for quiet times). These are important features since the self empty dock is very loud. Much louder then my LIDAR robots self empty dock. I’m not that sensitive to noise. The noise level is just a design flaw. I can’t imagine going forward they will keep this design. If you live in a small apartment then you should definitely be aware that you will be disturbing your neighbors or yourself when it self empties. It’s louder than my large shop vac.

Very poor performance and reliability
Within 3 weeks of purchase, started to have problems. Robot would suddenly decide to stop during a cleaning run, state it was blocked (nothing there) and die on the spot. Lots of reboots and resets for weeks. Robot refused to work.Along the way, the robot would not clean stating the bin was full. It was empty. Discovered via Google search (since iRobot doesn’t provide real answers) that the problem had to do with the bin sides not being clean which did not allow the full bin sensors (long black bars on the robot along the bin’s location) to transmit a beam. If the beam did not make it through from one side to the other, regardless of the bin’s actual empty/full status, the robot would assume (incorrectly) the bin was full.The bin needed to be cleaned often if it had accumulated lite amounts of dust on the side. If not, the errors took place. Didn’t matter if the continue to clean if bin is full option was selected. Robot would ignore the selection and just not move. This is a very poor engineering and software design. Other manufactures, according to others and manufacturers don’t use the same design as iRobot due to such false errors taking place.Getting service folks to provide service and solutions is a goat rope indeed. Have to jump through hoops in order to get attention and then, have to start all over again because service folks just follow a script and don’t listen/pay attention to the problems taking place in the real world.After 5 months of trying to get the robot to work properly, having 3 replacement robots and 3 replacement clean bases, it appeared the 2 finally were communicating with each other and worked. Nah, just an iRobot mean joke. Within a week of the 3rd round of replacements, the clean bin issue came up. No matter how many times the bin was cleaned, no matter how many reboots, and changing bins, the robot refused to work.Too late to return to Amazon and iRobot will not refund money due to having purchased the robot system via Amazon and not directly from iRobot. The iRobot punishment for purchasing via Amazon? No refund and just provide (maybe) another (4th) dumb robot and clean base.Had enough of the robot and iRobot. Got so frustrated I provided the robot and the clean base a new home where the two can live together in peace and not mess up ever again. The home – the landfill.No more iRobot robots. As time has gone by, have gone through several models. Progressively they have gotten more technologically “advanced” but not smarter. They run into things more often, forget where they are, forget where the base is and are not consistently reliable. The engineers don’t have regular people test the robots before they are sold. Theory and reality don’t mix at the robot factory.They sure have gotten more expensive. Have noticed they go on sale often; guess iRobot can’t sell them due to problems along with competition getting more sales.Awaiting my new Roborock. Has lidar (iRobot doesn’t believe in it thus need to have lights on for the robots to find their way) which allows the robot to work without lights. I had to buy lamps and timers so the Roomba could work. An added expense. iRobot never disclosed prior to the sale light is a requirement for the robots to work. The light near the camera does not provide enough light for the Roomba to work properly. Even with lights, the Roombas get lost or don’t work properly.I hope the Roborock works. While all the robot brands have problems (ratings are about 4.3-4.5), crossing fingers this one excels over the Roomba.Thus, after over a decade of using only Roombas, we have parted ways permanently and do not recommend to anyone that wants value for their hard-earned money when purchasing a floor robot. I’m sure the Roomba and its base now have plenty of dirt covering them from the hot sun in the landfill – where they belong.UPDATE: 8/25/2023The second J7+ began failing more often a few days after the first J7+. Gets lost, stops all of a sudden and dies. Sometimes it said it is stuck, it’s not, sometimes is said out of power, yet about 2-3 feet from clean base and sometimes just stops, ends job without a reason.Have had to replace the battery (robot about 2 months old). It sometimes forgets to clean per the clean map guidance.Speaking of clean maps, it has lost the maps several times which forces me to remap the entire floor. It, like its twin, no longer provide a means to add favorites to the routine. iRobot technical support have no idea how to get the feature back even with all of their “research”. What I have been able to determine is that this same issue has occurred and is occurring to others.iRobot is busy lowering machine prices but not as busy fixing existing problems.The Roborock we purchased to replace the J7+ has been great. Not only does it vacuum very well, it mops too. All in one machine. The machine is quieter, doesn’t have problems and gets the job done in about 40% less time (the robot uses more intelligent algorithms to move to clean). I no longer have to go around turning on lights to help the (Roomba) robot find its way. The Roborock uses lidar which does not require lights and is much more efficient and effective in its journey.We should have tried out the Roborock instead of the falling apart and unreliable Roomba. Would highly recommend to those who want to spend their money wisely to try the Roborock with the features they need and not look at the Roomba. The Roomba was a pioneer back in the day of robot cleaning but those years (ag0) have long past. All of the competition proves the Roomba is no longer as good as it used to be. Now, just lots of marketing/advertising to make the it sound and look good but from the real world of a purchaser, that’s not the case. Save your money and frustrations, look elsewhere other than iRobot.

“Tecnological Wonder: iRobot Roomba J7+!” The self-emptying feature is revolutionary; it demonstrates cutting-edge technology by detecting and avoiding obstructions such as cords and pet waste. But it still occasionally runs into things and makes a lot of noise. The Roomba J7+ is an effective and dependable option for keeping a clean home, despite these small issues, because to its smart features and general cleaning efficiency. With its self-emptying feature and ability to avoid obstacles, the occasional noise and bumps become insignificant, resulting in a smooth cleaning experience. The world of robotic vacuums has been enhanced by iRobot, a company that consistently leads the way in innovation.

Bought from Amazon .co.uk. Cam with US plug so I had to have an adapter. Then machine was unable to self empty because power difference between U.K. and US. Why sell US version in U.K.? Had to return it . Hopeless.

the only issue i faced is the communication between the rumba and its clean base, which is faulty because of the product voltage. i even purchased a convertor but still didn’t do the job. what this means is that the rumba won’t discharge automatically, although it should.other than that, if this rumba version is launched in your country, then it is worth the cost, as it cleans quite nicely.