iRobot Roomba i3+ (3550) Robot Vacuum Empties Itself for up to 60 days Wi-Fi Connected Mapping Works with Alexa Ideal Carpets

25 reviews for iRobot Roomba i3+ (3550) Robot Vacuum Empties Itself for up to 60 days Wi-Fi Connected Mapping Works with Alexa Ideal Carpets

1. Rated 5 out of 5

   Alain – January 12, 2022

   So I got the 675 and tried it for a few days and lord that was a nightmare it wouldn’t clean well and will never make its way back home…. such a shame since it was on sale… so I returned it and got this one! well we love it so far it cleans so much better and maps the area to when its time to charge or done cleaning goes right back home and cleans its self and charges. Pricy but works great and keeps the dog hair off the floor.

2. Rated 5 out of 5

   Louis Payne – January 13, 2022

   Is it convenient? Yes.
   Is it efficient? After the first run, yes.
   Does it sound like a jet plane taking off and terrify my pets and neighbors when it uses the automatic trash disposal? Absolutely.
   I wasn’t sure about this being worth it at the price point, but now I can’t go back. I only have to manually vacuum small portions of my home infrequently as the roomba has excelled in keeping my floors and carpets much cleaner — as a pet owner, it’s been a dream.

   The unit itself is relatively quiet, much quieter than a vacuum. The automatic trash bin is the problem. If you work from home or don’t want to be woken up by the song of its people, be conscious of when you tell it to clean.

3. Rated 4 out of 5

   Whitney – January 16, 2022

   Pros:
   -Seems to do a thorough job.
   -Decent suction so far.
   -Makes a neater pattern than our old Roomba (the 960).
   -The self-emptying function makes it worth the extra price

   Cons:
   -INCREDIBLY LOUD. It’s okay when you’re on another floor but you wouldn’t want to be in the same room with it while it’s vacuuming. The self-emptying function is 10 times louder. Once we had it going in the middle of the night and when it emptied, we woke up, thinking a banshee was screaming in our house.
   -Got confused once when we tried to replace the bag. Can’t remember what we did to fix it; we just had to fiddle around for awhile.
   -Replacement bags are weirdly expensive, and we’ve already had to replace the bag once after just two weeks of use.

4. Rated 3 out of 5

   M. Gondek – January 20, 2022

   I’ve had various models of Roomba off and on since the second iteration came out way back when. The robots are great when they work, and this one is no different. The big caveat is how much effort and frustration you’re willing to put up with to have your space vacuumed for you. These are absolutely not perfect machines, and each comes with its own frustrations. But they’ve been “good enough” that I keep buying them.

   Their customer service and warranty periods have always been lousy, but I kept buying a new model every couple of years when the memories of those pains wore off (I must be a glutton for punishment). Now I own a 9-month-old s9+ that needed warranty repair (that’s par for the course), so I was really curious to try this model, since it’s half the price of the s9+. If I end up needing to replace the s9+, would it really be worth the money or should I go with the cheaper machine?

   I’ll write this review to answer that question, then: Is this robot worth half the price of the s9+, or would one of the other robots be a better choice?

   – Functions are almost exactly like the much cheaper 980 and therefore not nearly as smart as the s9+. If you’ve used any of the older Roombas, this one will feel just the same. It’s notable that this one cleans in “neat rows” instead of adaptive (random) patterns, but I don’t notice that it really changes much about the cleaning time or performance once it’s learned the rooms.

   – Still requires virtual wall units, which you’ll have to pay for – and they still don’t solve “keep out” issues. At $80/pair (as of this writing), you’ll eat up your cost savings pretty darn fast if you want to keep the robot out of any spaces. But there are other reasons to want to keep the robot from an area, and virtual walls are terrible in some cases. For example, our virtual walls for our old robots kept getting knocked out of place, so we’d have to go around every day to reposition them if we had the robot running on a schedule. Or maybe you want to keep the robot from trying to go under a table where it always, always, always gets stuck, or you want to keep it from knocking into the pet’s water dish and sloshing water everywhere. Or it keeps getting stuck on the bathroom rug (every single time). Or it locks itself in the bathroom every day because it bounces off the door and makes it shut. The virtual walls are lousy at solving problems like these. So you may pay for them and find the robot is still a really frustrating device. (Or you might have perfect performance. We sure never have.)

   – Suction is very, very light. I’m not really sure why it’s billed as “perfect for pet hair and carpets,” but I can’t agree. The cleaning power on this robot is maybe 25% of the s9+. That’s evident from the filter, which is roughly 33% the size of the more expensive robot. It also just doesn’t pick up as much, especially on area rugs. Another reviewer noted that it doesn’t work on cat litter – I agree. While none of the robots are “technically” rated to pick up litter, the s9+ does a reasonably good job at this, except the large crystal-type litter. This robot doesn’t do well with any type of litter, even on hard wood.

   – This robot is much quieter in operation, but not when emptying. I like that it’s far quieter, except that this is probably because it’s got such a weak motor. When it goes to empty, though, the clean base is unbelievably loud – much louder than its big brother. If you live in a house, I highly recommend putting the clean base in a room you never plan to use. If you live in an apartment, be prepared for your neighbors to give you side eye for how loud the clean base is.

   – Voice control is the same, that is, “not very good.” With this feature, you’re at the mercy of the Alexa or Google Assistant limitations AND iRobot’s app updates. After a recent update, for example, Google Assistant suddenly stopped recognizing our robots’ nicknames and refused to perform any functions by voice (“I’m sorry, I don’t know how to do that”). It worked if I just said “Roomba” instead of the nicknames, but since we have multiple robots, this was a really lousy workaround that failed in our case. It started working again after I had to factory reset my robots due to malfunctions (and had to endure re-mapping the house).

   – Mapping is sloooooow, but on par with the s9+. It took a combined 11+ hours over several days for the robot to map our 1500 sq ft of space. You’ll need to babysit it a lot during the initial mapping periods, since it’ll get stuck and generally show you all the ways it can go wrong.

   There are a few other minor differences between the two. For example, you can’t customize the cleaning behavior to “quiet clean” versus “detailed clean”. You can’t tell it to clean specific rooms or zones. It gets stuck a lot more easily.

   Basically, you’re getting a fairly basic level Roomba with the added self-emptying feature. You may still have to babysit it, it may miss the cat litter, and it won’t do that great a job on rugs. Is that worth $150 more than the e5? Depends how much you hate emptying the bin. Is it half as good as the s9+? No, it’s less than half as good, by my unscientific analysis.

   Side note on customer service and warranty: I’ve tried to make warranty claims with iRobot 3 times over the years. The first time, the robot was on day 93 of a 90 day warranty, and I was out of luck, of course. The second time, the robot died after 6.5 months on a 6 month warranty. Same response from iRobot, of course (They stick to their policies, and they clearly know how long their machines will last).

   This last time, the robot was only 9 months old, and it’s been a fight to get them to honor the 1 year warranty. I spoke to no fewer than 3 CS reps, all of whom were very friendly and professional. Unfortunately, they all said different things, made different promises, and were clearly not empowered to actually make decisions. I actually had one rep refuse to let me speak to his manager after a very frustrating 30-minutes on the phone, where he contradicted everything the other 2 reps had told me, tried to slow-roll the warranty replacement, and insisted that the noise I heard from my machine wasn’t there.

   I’d been told by all the reps that I’d receive a “new” robot after convincing them the problem was real. The process to convince them was pretty frustrating, but I finally managed it after a couple of hours across 2 weeks. (btw they also tried to make me pay return shipping on the faulty unit)

   When the “new” one came, it wouldn’t work. It connected, said it was charged and ready to clean, then refused to clean. I spent 2 HOURS trying to get it to work, before finally taking it apart with a screwdriver. It turns out they shipped a refurbished unit without a battery, and I had to remove the old battery from my old unit to get it working. None of the 4 reps mentioned the battery issue; the box it came in had zero instructions; the app never indicated there was no battery; the robot itself never asked for a battery. The iRobot help site doesn’t even include instructions on how to check the battery on the s9 models (at least in the link that the app sent me to). And so much for a “new” machine. This one is clearly just designed to get me over the 12-month mark when I can’t claim warranty repairs anymore.

   In the past, I would forget how painful the CS experience is with iRobot, and I fall sucker to buying the new, shiny toy. I figured I agreed to their warranty periods when I bought the robots, so I couldn’t blame them for sticking to the rules. But this last experience was bad enough that I’ll think very long and very hard before investing in another iRobot machine.

   So if you’re deciding on any iRobot model, check the warranty very, very carefully and be sure you’ll willing to abide by its terms. You can bet iRobot will, and then some.

5. Rated 4 out of 5

   Emily White – January 22, 2022

   We named ours Poncho and he is my lifesaver!

   PROS: Great on hard floors!
   I have 4 dogs and lots of hardwood, so I run him everyday. He does an AMAZING job getting getting all the dog hair in the hardwood, he gets under the tables and chairs with ease, and he goes about his business without being needy.

   He navigates really really well. Sometimes we close or open doors depending on where we want him to go, and he always figures it out. He leaves nice lines on the carpet showing where he went. The map is also great for seeing where he has gotten to.

   Battery life is great. And he has a surprisingly large capacity.

   CONS:
   Not great on carpet. Still lots of hair left behind. Like… all the dog hair.

   Worried he will come alive in the night… and spin his brushes menacingly at the end of the bed… We keep the bedroom door closed now, the doorknob out of his reach… but he is learning.

6. Rated 5 out of 5

   M. Ross – January 24, 2022

   The media could not be loaded.

   At the Roomba i3+’s price point, I suspect a lot of buyers won’t be first-time robot vac owners, but will be upgrading from earlier models like me, and know their way around them. So I won’t spend time on basics. My own well-used Roomba 551 has been in use for over 6 years, and while it’s still doing a good job, it’s time to move up. So I’ll be comparing the i3+ to it for illustration purposes:

   – The systematic cleaning pattern is my favorite. I’ve included a photo showing the i3+’s parallel cleaning pattern on my carpet, and for me that’s far better than the random pattern of my 551 (and most other vacs). Nice!
   – A close second favorite is the self-emptying feature. I have to manually empty the 551’s bin after each use, but this one takes care of itself. That’s big!
   – The i3+ utilizes a pair of ribbed rubber rollers instead of the brush-and-roller system of my 551 (see photo). The 551’s brush is bad about getting tangled up with pet hair, carpet fibers and other debris, so the rubber rollers should be an improvement. They seem to do as good a job of picking up dirt and combing my carpet as the 551’s brush setup, so I’m happy with that. No more brush detangling!
   – The i3+ is very slightly taller than my 551 – maybe 1/8” or so (slightly exaggerated in my photo). If your earlier iRobot vac (or most competing vacs) got stuck under certain things, the i3+ probably will, too.
   – Sound level is important, and I can report the i3+ is slightly quieter than the 551. It measures 60 dB at 6” while running, while my 551 measures 65 dB. You will know when either one is running. And the empty process when the i3+ docks is really noisy, but fortunately it lasts only a few seconds. It peaks at a loud 79 dB (about the same as an average garbage disposal), and I’ve included a short video that shows the noise level difference between running and emptying.
   – Battery runtime is comparable to the 551, at about 60-70 minutes, but if the i3+ hasn’t finished, and will recharge itself and go back to where it left off until the job is complete. The 551 merely quits and goes back to its dock when the battery runs low.

   Are there any negatives? Sure:

   – There is no separate remote, or controls on the vac, so you must use the app on your cell phone or tablet to program and control it.
   – The app doesn’t currently allow for your choice of areas or rooms to clean, although that’s supposedly in the works.
   – You can’t steer the vac in real-time from the app, or specify special jobs like spot cleaning or edge cleaning, like you can with some competing vacs. That needs some work.
   – I wish the i3+ were a little slimmer (lower to the floor), again like some of the competition, so it could go under furniture more easily.
   – There are no “don’t go” barriers included to make the vac avoid specific things or areas. The vac’s built-in algorithms supposedly learn to avoid them, but it can’t know all the things you don’t want bumped or stuck on.
   – The docking station is large, due to its dirt collection/storage system, so it’s going to be an obvious part of your ‘decor’.
   – It’s expensive.

   I’m still learning about the i3+, and in spite of a few minor shortcomings, I really like it. But those shortcomings, at this price level, are enough to make me deduct a star. More features in the software and more physical control of the vac itself are needed to make this a real standout machine. No robot vac is perfect, and the i3+ will do a great job of cleaning your floors, which is what it’s designed to do. All things considered, it’s hard to go wrong with the i3+ and I know you’ll enjoy it.

   60 DAYS Later …

   I’m really impressed with this vac. It takes a few cycles for it to map your floors, but when it finally does, it does a very thorough job of cleaning. Just give it a while to learn where to go. If your house or apartment is like ours and has a fair amount of floorspace, you’ll find that the vac needs to do part of it, then recharge, then do some more. It knows where it left off and will resume at that spot. It can get annoying when it needs most of the day to vacuum, recharge, and vacuum some more, but it does do a good job. If you get tired of it, you can always tell it to end the job, or pause it and restart it later.

   As I mentioned above, this model doesn’t allow you to restrict it to certain areas, or make it avoid areas. It will attempt to vacuum the entire space, even if it takes 3 or 4 recharges before it gets it done. After I wrote the original review I learned that the next model up does allow you to specify areas to clean, but this one doesn’t.

   I wish I could give it another half star, because it’s that good. But the steep price and lack of ability to control where it cleans or avoids – or to even manually steer it from the app – is still worth deducting some points. But it’s still become a valued member of our household. 😉

   90 days later …

   I’ve changed my overall rating to a full 5 stars. I still wish this model would let me exclude certain areas, but the longer I use this vac the more I like it. It’s thorough (I sometimes think too much, but it does a really good job). I say too thorough because it takes 3 complete cycles to do my house, so with recharging and emptying in between, it runs off and on for hours before deciding it’s finished.

   Oh, and the bag inside the dock still isn’t indicating it’s full, but I’m changing it anyway.

   Overall, this is an fairly expensive device, but one that does an excellent job to justify its price. It’s not a toy; it’s a useful tool that will save you the hard work of vacuuming your floors every few days. Get one.

7. Rated 3 out of 5

   Melissa S. – February 9, 2022

   So I have had out “Geeves” for about 6 months. 2 nd time around for our roomba. Had an older model that finally died after 5 years. Upgraded to this model that empties itself. So it has a lot of fancy features. It is cool that it empties itself. We have pets so I do have to empty the bag every 2 weeks or so. It picks up ok… does some mapping of the house that I really haven’t figured out the rhyme or reason too. Mostly it vaccums with supervision and wherever you need to be. That’s where she decides she needs to be. Every time I have set it and left I promptly get a notice that it is stuck, sucked up a quarter, or needs the main brushes cleaned. I have kids, cats, dogs, it wraps a lot of hair. Plus I have a lower level great room that requires even more supervision because it learns where home is and gets confused if I move the home downstairs, so I have to manually dump her. I’d say that this iRobot has functional dementia. Sometimes it takes itself home to charge, then comes back out and finishes no issues. Sometimes it just runs until it dies wherever it is and makes noises and notifications at me until I return it to charge. Sometimes it manages to to clean my whole house in 45 minutes. If it’s late and I just want it to hurry up, it tools around for hours, charges, comes back out at 1 am destined to get every spec of dust. It’s loud… sorry it is. Overall, it does pick up dog hair and it’s less cleaning I have to do so that is always a win. Maybe a little pricey for the amount of supervision it needs.

8. Rated 5 out of 5

   Maryelizabeth Ward – February 9, 2022

   My Rosie is now the entertaining pet of the house. She was easy to assemble and easy to pair with the phone app. We were rearranging our living room when I first got her and the hardwood floors were quite dusty. In the first two runs I had to stop quite a few times to clear her brushes. Fortunately after a good human floor cleaning she now operates great.
   If you are OCD and need straight lines, this might not be for you. She seems to zigzag around and sometimes cleans the same place multiple times in one run. However, she easily travels from hardwood to carpet, and even maneuvers up over the anti-fatigue mats in our kitchen.
   She got stuck yesterday with an error message about the CleanBase being clogged. I removed the piece as directed as found nothing. The actual clog was in the bottom of the robot. So now I know to check that first should I get that message again.
   She got stuck this morning in some curtains, but this has been resolved with putting some foam board in front of them before she starts.
   We have no pets and don’t smoke. We run her about 3 times a week and are delighted with this purchase.
   She’s quieter than most vacuums. Louder on the hardwoods than the carpet. If watching TV, I don’t have to turn up the volume. We have a two story house and can’t hear her running downstairs when we are up. You can hear when she is emptying her bin, but that only lasts about 5 seconds.
   All in all, I’m extremely happy with her. Would like to get another one for the upstairs which is all carpet. Maybe next year!

9. Rated 5 out of 5

   Adam Meyers – February 10, 2022

   Exceptional.

   I had a first generation Roomba and all I can say is that they have come a very long way. First, in comparison to my $1000 Dyson V10 cordless vac: the Roomba is undoubtedly better at cleaning our hardwood floors. We have lived in our house for one year and I would routinely vacuum with the dyson on a daily basis. Despite all my efforts our floors never came close to looking as clean as they do after running the i3+ just kne time. There is no comparison. Not even close. Perhaps the Dyson just spreads dust around? I dont know what the explanation is but the i3+ delivers.

   In comparison to 1st generation roomba:
   The evolution of these robots has been quite impressive. The cleaning pattern is now more precise and predictable. The ability to clean the whole house from the self empty and automated recharge platform ensures the entire job gets done. The only area where development is still needed is getting over high carpets and getting stuck on area rugs. It also mamages to trap itself in the bathroom from time to time. As a result we have elected to return the i3+ for the i7+. The only difference is having the ability to block certain rooms with digital mapping. The i3+ lacks this feature. For most, this should not be a big deal but we have a 3500 square foot ranch with 4 bathrooms, so keeping the roomba out of bathroom jail is something that makes the price difference worth it for us.

   If the i7+ were not available I would absolutely keep the i3+ and would be very satisfied with it.

   Whether you get the more affordable i3+ or the i7+ with selective mapping you will be satisfied. These vacs do a much better job than an upright and the smart features make keeping your house clean a breeze. A+ to the folks at Roomba!

10. Rated 4 out of 5

    Holli Smith – February 20, 2022

    I bought this Roomba mainly because of the self emptying feature, and the fact it goes in straight lines. However I did return it because the i6+ went on sale for $599, and has all the same features as this vacuum but also has smart mapping and includes a handy feature called no go zones. Which allows you to draw on the map and tell the robot where not to go in your house.
    Pros of i3+
    – good cleaning and suction power
    – self emptying is really handy
    -vacuums in straight lines
    Cons i3+
    – no smart mapping or no go zones
    – can’t clean by rooms
    – no camera so it bumps into more stuff than i6 or i7
    I would watch the video on YouTube by Vacuum Wars about the i3 plus, he gives a really good overview of this system and other smart vacuums.

11. Rated 5 out of 5

    D. Coral – February 25, 2022

    The media could not be loaded.

    I’ve had more than 20 different vacuum robots over the years, and I currently have 4 different brands in different rooms in the house. Instead of listing all the features, I would like to highlight what I find to be the most practical difference that I notice with the Roomba i3+ over the others:

    — The Roomba i3+ cleans the most thoroughly. It picks up all the little dust particles and hairs that other robots just tangle around their brushes. The rubber scrubber brushes on this robot hug the floor and actively lift the dirt. My other robots can’t get the floor as clean. (I see another review saying it’s not good for kitty litter, but that must be talking about large spills of clay sand, mine has no problem with the small amount that flies out of the litter box).

    — The navigation is excellent for getting good coverage of large rooms. In this video you can see it going around the kitchen island. It is very cool that in the iPhone app I can see a map of where it traveled. This map also shows where it picked up dirt. This is super useful for knowing where dirt tends to accumulate throughout the day.

    — The self emptying bin is more useful than I thought it would be. When it’s sucking the debris from the Roomba to to the wall unit, the vacuum sounds pretty powerful. It does a good job in transferring the contents. It’s one less thing to add to the busy weekly routine when I don’t have to touch the robot to remove and empty the robot bin. The only downside is that I can’t immediately see which LEGOs were sucked up (but I can tear open the bag later as I place it in the trash). It would be better if iRobot would offer transparent bags for the base unit.

    — Sometimes it runs out of battery before it finds its way back to home base. Maybe this is because there is a wall partition directly dividing the home location and sometimes the robot thinks it is close but actually it still has to go back the long way around.

    — I like that it continues the cleaning job even if it needs to recharge. It can go back to base several times to finish. The cleaning job won’t be cut short just because of battery capacity (unless if it can’t find its way back).

    — The iPhone app is great, very useful for knowing the battery status and seeing the room map of where it cleaned etc. I haven’t tried the Alexa feature yet, but I’m sure that will be useful since we tend to use Alexa for everything.

    — The robot appearance is nice because the black color hides away in the room, especially while it is charging on the base. I don’t want a bright color flashy looking robot in the entry way. I like it when the cleaning equipment is low profile in the visible storage.

    I just bought two laser barriers so that it won’t cross into the other rooms that are filled with kids toys. These are sold separately.

    Overall, my best floor vacuum robot so far, highly recommended!

12. Rated 5 out of 5

    skidnkk587 – February 28, 2022

    Nice little helper to have around the house when you have wood floors, kids, and pets. I noticed after a few days of use that the vacuum seemed to get louder and louder, rev up at least 3 or 4 times, (when emptying the bag on the port) and began to sound more like a sharp whistle at what seemed to be 10,000 decibles. The app also kept saying the bag needed to be changed, even though it was newly replaced. Opened trouble shooting. Found that you need to unplug the tower, turn it on its side, unscrew the plastic tunnel port that carries debris from the vacuum up to the tower, and into the bag. To my surprise, there was a small plastic toy car, the top piece of plastic hanger, all tangled with dirt, pet and human hair. THAT is why it was louder and louder and kept telling me to change a clean bag, believing it was full. Once I cleaned that up, set everything back up, I pressed ‘clean’ on the app. It reved up only once, wasn’t as loud, then the clean button and the tower light both flashed white, then resumed charging. I think it’s good practice to check the underbelly of the tower for clogs, which is easy to see since it’s clear plastic, and the bin in the actual vacuum, to frequently clean out clumps of hair and debris that accumulate there in order to obtain the best performance. Having said that, I love this little gadget, and am thinking about purchasing another one for the upstairs. Highly recommend.

13. Rated 5 out of 5

    miradu – March 3, 2022

    Best roomba I’ve ever owned. I love that I can use Alexa/google to start the vacuum and I love that I can use it over and over and over again without ever touching it or needing to empty the bin I have a 1000 sqft open floor plan with tons of furniture and different rugs and the navigation system is fantastic. I love the straight line vacuuming and even better is when it daftly returns to its dock.

14. Rated 5 out of 5

    Roxanne – March 4, 2022

    The media could not be loaded.

    I’ve been using the Roomba (or as I like to call it, “mommy’s little helper”) for a week now. This is the first time that I’ve used a robotic vacuum. A little about me. I live in a condo. It’s about 700 square feet. I have two dogs and a cat.

    ——Does the robot vacuum work well? ——–
    I am extremely impressed with how well the robot vacuum picks up pet hair from carpet and hardwood. There are other things that I really like about the robot vacuum that I didn’t even know were important to me until now. First of all, the robot can get to all the hard to reach places that I dread having to clean like under the couch, under the bed, behind my desk, corners in the kitchen and even the bottom of barstools (sloped) and TV stand (flat). I can’t even describe how wonderful it feels to sit down and just watch the robot clean the entire house.

    Attached, is a picture of how much debris the robot picked up. The debris was picked up over a period of 6 days, 10 cleaning jobs and 2 hours and 49 minutes of cleaning time. The robot automatically emptied 11x before the bag was full and had to be replaced (or sucked out using a vacuum attachment if you’re on a budget like me).

    ——–Is maintenance for the robot vacuum a pain?——-
    The robot will literally go to the base when it needs to charge, empty its bin, or when you send it home. I can’t believe how convenient it is. You’re responsible for cleaning the sensors, rubber brushes, filter and the front wheel once every two weeks. The edge sweeping brush only needs to be cleaned once a month. I’m really impressed with how durable the parts are and how quiet the robot cleans. The only thing that I don’t like is how loud it is when the robot empties the bin.

    ———–How does the robot do with pets?————–
    It really depends on the pet. I can tell you about how it was for my pets (see video). I have an older dog that couldn’t care less and just laid on the couch during the first clean. He was however startled when the robot emptied its bin. Our cat was very interested in the robot. In fact, he couldn’t take his eyes off it. He would follow it around the house and just watch it clean. Our lab retriever is the most sensitive of them all and she just kept barking and trying to play with it. It did take work on my end to teach my pets that the robot wasn’t a threat. The more I used the robot, the more familiar they became with it and now, it’s not a huge deal when “mommy’s little helper” comes out to clean!

    —-What I didn’t like about the robot——-
    There were only three things that I didn’t like about the robot. First, I don’t like how it hits our vertical blinds- make sure to have your blinds open and to the side. Second, you can’t set it to clean a specific spot in the house (at least not for the version that I have). Third, it’s really loud when it empties.

    ——–Ending on a positive note——-
    Given that I like the robot vacuum so much, I want to end with some fun things about it. First, it went over my socks and didn’t get stuck. Second, it repeatedly hits my dogs’ water bowl but not hard enough to spill the water. Third, it cleans around pet toys left on the ground. Fourth, the app gives you cleaning stats which I love to see. Fifth, you can use the robot with Alexa (it was simple to connect).

15. Rated 4 out of 5

    Narut Ujnat – March 6, 2022

    I am a firm believer in Irobot products and have had at least one in my house for probably a decade now. I grew tired of dragging on upstairs in our house and have been looking to buy a new iRobot for some time, when this model went down in price.

    1. What’s in the box?: You receive the robot, a power cord, the home base station and some typical pamphlets, plus an additional filter for the robot and an extra bag as well.

    2. Set-up?: Literally this requires you to unpack everything, out the robot on the home base and let it charge for some hours. Once this is done, then comes the fun part. Setting it up with the IRobot app on the phone. This is actually quite easy if you follow the instructions. I already have a system so I needed “Add a Robot”. There are instructions saying “allow local networks” and I admit I assumed this was already allowed and went through a bit of not being able to connect the robot. Once I actually allowed this connection I was rewarded with the robot being connected and ready to go.

    3. Use?: First off this is a vacuum cleaner so it is not silent! But it is fairly quiet although I cannot imagine anyone using this in the middle of the night in the room they sleep in. Both this is like other IRobot in that it will sweep the rom and is quite good at recognizing obstacles and not simply running into them like my older robot. Also, because I have dogs, it was important to have these types of rollers as they will jam less frequently due to dog hair.

    The best part is the home base which allows for a simpler issue of not having to constantly having to take the robot and manually empty the bin (although this seems fairly simple, it does become a pain when the robot chokes on pet hair and stops (almost always in some weird place like under the couch or bed because thats where the hair goes)).

    I love that this model maps although it lacks the higher end mapping features of the more expensive models. Still, I think th ability to schedule and understand the robot situation is a great thing to have on an app. Also, having two or more robots on the ap is easy to switch and use.

    Overall:? yes, the price point isn’t cheap, but the ability to keep my house clean, relatively free of out hair, a minimum of interaction needed to use makes this a great product.

16. Rated 3 out of 5

    Devon – March 6, 2022

    After doing extensive research on robot vacuums in the $500 (ish) price range, I settled on the i3+. After about a month of use, I have to say I think I may have made a mistake.
    The i3+ does seem to do a good job as far as cleaning goes, and does well on carpet. Our issue is the amount of time it takes to clean our home. The first floor of our house (where the roomba lives) is roughly 1600 sq ft. To clean our first floor takes between 5 and 6 hours, and this is after multiple (10+) runs. The time has never improved from the first time vacuuming. The app does not give you the control to choose which rooms get cleaned, the only option is to clean the entire house. Please note that this vacuum does NOT have smart features. It does not learn your home, it re maps your home every time it runs, so vacuuming time will likely not improve from your first run. The only thing remotely “smart” about it is that it will clean in straight lines *most* of the time. Other than that it is basically a random bot that goes until it hits something and then changes direction. It is not very quiet either, especially the self emptying base (literally sounds like a plane taking off). You likely wont want to run it while you are home. If your house is empty for 6+ hours a day then this would not be an issue. My wife works 2 days a week and I work full time, so we have resorted to sending the vacuum out twice a week while we are both at work. I got my i3+ on sale for $400 around Christmas time, if I had paid the retail of $550 it would be no question, I would be returning it. If i had to do it again i would probably be looking into the shark IQ.

17. Rated 4 out of 5

    Elle B. – March 7, 2022

    I wanted to love this vacuum, and I like it a lot, but it just fell a little short of my expectations. The main things that I like about this vacuum are the smart navigation and the ease of use. The things that I dislike about this vacuum are the noise and the way it struggles with certain debris.

    This is not my first robot vacuum, but it is my first with the additional feature of the Clean Base Dirt Disposal system. I was really excited about this feature as with my other robot vacuums, I always had to be sure to empty the dirt pan myself after each cleaning. Admittedly, the Clean Base is very handy. It’s nice not to have to dump it all the time. Unfortunately, every single time that the vacuum docks itself and the suction on the base kicks in, it sounds like a jet taking off in my living room. This thing is massively loud. I’m talking, probably 3x louder than a shop vac. The volume is absurd. It terrifies me and my pets. I would say that this feature is probably best for people that run the vacuum when they aren’t home. Another thing to keep in mind with the Clean Base is the amount of space that it takes up. It’s not large and most of the space it uses is vertical, but to set it up, it requires 1 ½ feet of open space on each side of the dock as well as 4 feet of open space directly in front of the dock. This is basically a 4’x4’ space that must be kept totally empty in order to use this vacuum. That feels like a lot of space to give up.

    Alternatively, this vacuum is very attractive with the textured top. It looks very classy compared to the plastic style of many other robot vacuums. The base itself is all plastic, but it doesn’t stand out as chunky or ugly, it’s very easy to ignore. The robot itself is a little on the heavier side compared to some, but it’s not so heavy that it is difficult to pick up and move around.

    Setting this vacuum up was easy and mostly involved plugging it in and downloading the app. I find the app easy to use, but fairly bare bones. Then again, this vacuum is fairly bare bones. You can set it up to clean when you’re not home, which is a handy feature, but only if you don’t have pets or young children that often make messes that you don’t know about. The vacuum claims to have “Reactive Sensor Technology” to let it know where it can and can’t go, but it doesn’t seem to do too much better than a regular random path robot vacuum about ramming into furniture. The smart navigation, on the other hand, is wonderful. It’s so much faster at cleaning wide open spaces. It follows a clear back and forth path and does a great job at getting all of the floor perfectly.

    The biggest issue with the vacuum in my specific situation is that it doesn’t do a great job with kitty litter. I have two cats and more than one litter box in my house and this vacuum doesn’t pick up litter very well or consistently. It goes over the areas with spillage and mostly just spreads it around over several feet. It does collect some of the litter, but it seems to create a larger area that needs to be vacuumed by hand later. On the other hand, it does an amazing job with cat hair and human hair for that matter so it seems to be sort of mixed on what it can handle.

    Overall, I would recommend this vacuum as I do think that it’s pretty great with picking up day-to-day dust, hair, and crumbs. It isn’t the perfect dream robot vacuum that does it all, but if you have reasonable expectations for it, it does a pretty good job checking one thing off of the to-do list for the day so that you don’t have to.

18. Rated 4 out of 5

    Shiro – March 8, 2022

    The media could not be loaded.

    Before
    1. Had very low expectations from robo vac
    2. Motivation: use for some light cleaning

    Now
    – noise: wasn’t too bad for me, 69db, my wife yelling at me to vacuum ~ 80db
    – suction: it seems to be good enough, bag is full after 2 runs. Instead of using my dyson every weekend, now I’ll defer it to once a month.

    Pro:
    1. It by far exceeded my expectations
    2. Thoroughness: it literally cleans every sq. inch of floor space it can
    3. It works surprisingly well on carpet too
    4. It’s low profile means, it cleaned under my low platform bed frame as well!!
    5. I use it on all floor levels including tile basement too.
    6. Returns to the base magically, fun to watch a blind robot come home to the mothership.
    7. Love the “empty contents into base bin” feature. a must have.
    8. iRobot app is good, has all you need even provides a map of it’s cleaned area and some stats.
    Cons:
    8. Battery life: could be longer, it’s not the best
    9. AI: it maps out by bumping into objects which is fine but if you have any unstable vases, pots, beware
    10. It does not do well on shaggy rugs
    11. It ends up closing the bathroom door on itself (bumps on the free door and shuts itself in)
    12. The one time use bags is a rip off! There are many DIY on adding zippers/Velcro’s to the bags and make them reusable.

    Disclaimer:
    Used it about 10cycles or so, so not sure about how it will handle the wear of long term usage, battery capacity after time, and cleaning the vac

19. Rated 5 out of 5

    Nena B. – March 11, 2022

    My only regret is that I waited so long to buy one. This is my first Roomba. I didn’t think it could handle our house. We are hard on things. We have a 2200 square foot house, with tile, carpet, every type of throw rug and area rug, work mats–pretty much every type of nightmare vacuuming flooring surface possible. We have two big dogs. We have boys. We our outdoor people, with a big yard in the desert, lots of dust, hair, dirty hiking shoes, etc. Read: our floors are a disaster.
    I finally thought I would give it a try, after being exasperated at sweeping up drifts of dog hair and dust twice a week. We set it to clean 3 days a week. It takes it 5-7 hours total, depending on how many chairs we leave in the way. It has to return to base every 30-45 minutes to empty the bin, and about 1.5-2 hours to charge. It took us a couple of rounds to get us trained–make sure there are no cords on the floor, and there is one fluffy bath mat that it hates. But we have been amazed at what it will climb over, and how persistent it is at getting under things and in cracks I have been ignoring for years. One of my big area rugs is a loop weave, and it cleans the surface well, but I still run over it with the upright vacuum about once a month to really get the dog hair out.
    I love that it sends me a message to keep me updated on its progress or when it has a problem. On the few occasions that it became stuck, we were able to use the map to find it. Once we found it humping a piece of workout equipment. Another time, it wedged itself under the reclining chair, after the dog climbed on the chair while the Roomba was under it.

    Pros: my floors have never been cleaner on a regular basis. When it’s working, I can still carry on a phone call or a conversation, unlike my regular upright vacuum.
    Cons: Seriously, the pros WAY outweigh the cons, but I would say that the 747-like self clean is a bit appalling at first. But, we could NOT LIVE WITHOUT the self-clean base. Spend the extra coin on the Roomba-brand vacuum base bags–noticeably better quality than the discount copies. On some types of rugs, you will still need to use a more powerful upright from time to time.

    It’s hard not to anthropomorphize it. Ours seems to have a sense of humor and great comedic timing. As I am writing this, it has decided to fixate on the rug under my chair. And don’t miss the opportunity to yell “Let’s get ready to ROOMBA!!” when it chimes that it is ready to start cleaning–it is still a giggle moment in our household. (And on Tuesday, when it’s done, we can sing “Gooood bye, Roomba Tuesday…”) 😀

    Bottom line: well worth the money. You do need to adjust some things to make sure it can be successful, like cords, some rugs, etc., but so worth the clean floors.

20. Rated 4 out of 5

    KS66223 – March 13, 2022

    Our third Roomba. We got this one for the basement because of the self empty feature . Works well. Not as smart as other models but does the job well. The self empty suction is super loud .. I mean REALLY LOUD. If you run Roomba while you’re out , then it’s not an issue. If you have little kids or pets , they are going to freak out every time it empties.

21. Rated 5 out of 5

    Mack S. Hall – March 19, 2022

    I’m a retired single guy in a large one story clutter free house. The floor has a variety of tile, wood, carpet and bathroom rugs. I tell Alexa to have “the maid” start vacuuming. The Roomba starts its day while I begin mine. From room to room it goes, occasionally returning to empty itself or to take a break to charge its battery. At the end of the day, as I sit down to eat dinner, the Roomba parks itself and the app tells me it’s done. The floors are clean, the carpets look new (even under the bed), and all that I need to do is give the hard floors a weekly mopping. Is it loud? It’s not as loud as a real maid with a real vacuum cleaner in the same room. Most of the time it’s in another room and I’m too busy to care. If it comes near me, I just move or hold my feet up. Sure, it takes about 8 hours to do the whole house but it doesn’t charge me by the hour, it doesn’t care if I’m there or not and it never seems to get stuck anywhere.

22. Rated 5 out of 5

    Prissy – March 24, 2022

    I have two medium hair dogs and one fluffy cat who rules them both, along with a couple of furless kids in the home. I normally vacuum daily, sometimes twice in the main living areas. (entry, hall, dining, kitch, fam room) If I run out of time to vacuum in a day, it drives me crazy to have messy floors. A pet peeve, so to speak.
    Not anymore! I run this guy every morning. He goes on porcelain tile, hardwood, and several area rugs. He also goes under the kitchen table, chairs, bar chairs, dining chairs, under sofas, and around the baseboards. It’s so nice to be able to do something else while my floors are getting clean.
    Critiques- It is kind of loud. I can hear it running downstairs, but not to the point that the sound would interrupt a phone call if I’m upstairs.
    Battery life- I wonder how long it will last is considering I work him pretty hard. Takes about 2.5 hours to do the entire floor area of about 1200 sq ft.
    Pros- It does a better than expected job. It navigates around the legs of dining chairs extremely well and gets all the dust, leaving less dust on higher surfaces. It gets in under the cabinet area where it meets the floor. My house is staying a lot cleaner. It does a decent job on area rugs too. It hasn’t been stuck even the first time out of the box. It empties itself!
    I love this thing as much as I love my dishwasher. Game changer. I’m considering one for the upstairs now too.

23. Rated 4 out of 5

    Margaret – March 31, 2022

    I’ve had this Roomba a little over six weeks. It does a great job on the hardwood floors, gets under beds and cabinets and the house looks a lot cleaner. It does a pretty good job on the indoor/outdoor carpet entry way runner and a fair job on the area rugs. Initially it got stuck predictably navigating a couple of obstacles–a speaker stand whose base is sloped enough to trick the machine into thinking it’s an incline, and a floor lamp that it pushes around and rumbles over thereby marring the base, and so I just move them, no big deal. I have it set for 3x a week, operation (I have a lightly shedding dog and a very-much-shedding cat) and then manually vacuum the living room rug and de-furify the furniture as needed.

    Depending on the dirt level, the machine needs to recharge a couple of times during the process of cleaning a 1700 sq foot one floor home. This means it can take 6 hours or more to complete its task. If I was able to set it to start early in the AM it wouldn’t be an issue but partner’s sleep schedule dictates a noon start and I sometimes find the noise intrusive in the afternoon. For a family that is largely out of the house during the day, this wouldn’t be an issue. On the downside, when Roomba “needs attention” one would not be there to give it. This happens once or twice a week – the Roomba is stuck, or the dirt sensors are themselves too dirty to work right and need to be wiped down.

    The self-clean function is super loud, but it doesn’t last long and is not any louder than the vacuum cleaner. Because of the animals I am going to go through bags and filters and other parts maybe more quickly than “average” and the cost adds up. The app is clunky in that while it looks like one could assign various spaces to cleaning schedules, allowing more regular attention where it’s needed, this particular model only has “clean everywhere” as an option.

    The animals were freaked out initially but are pretty acclimated to it now. The cat has not yet decided to ride around on it, though 🙂

    Is it worth it? It is to me – there is no way I would vacuum the place three times a week and I am liking the results.

24. Rated 5 out of 5

    Bryan – April 5, 2022

    I hate making time for vacuuming the home, and I’m not able to afford hiring someone else to do it. Yes these devices are sort of pricey, but I purchased mine during the end of year holiday discounts and I’m certain this was a worthwhile investment. I did some research on the features and concluded the i3+ model was the sweet spot for my budget and available features.

    My floors are mostly hard surface (wood and tile) with a scattering of area rugs. Roomba manages the larger area rugs with no difficulty but it clearly doesn’t like the smaller or lightweight rugs and spot rugs. I simply take 5 minutes to go around and pick up the lightweight rugs along with other obstacles like trash cans, bathroom scales and pet bowls in order to maximize the cleaning process. I also searched out all power cords that could pose a risk of entanglement and secured them out of the way – a one time effort in my opinion.

    The 850 sq ft space I focused Roomba on is complicated in terms of room geometry and furniture layout. It takes Roomba over two hours to clean it, with a recharge pause in the process. This limitation in battery capacity is why I rated battery life at 3, but for those with smaller and less complex spaces the one hour battery capacity limit wouldn’t present itself.

    Bottom line – it cleans very well. The result is awesome – the floors are visibly clean, and the two hour process doesn’t matter to me since I have plenty of other things I’d rather be doing. I highly recommend getting the iRobot+ models so you don’t to deal with emptying the waste bin. I never saw Roomba get stuck or tangled up, confused or unable to navigate its way through the maze of furniture legs and doorways. It is persistent and thorough – exactly what I expected out of a robot.

25. Rated 5 out of 5

    LaStrawberryMom – April 15, 2022

    I absolutely love this vacuum! I haven’t swept or vacuumed in 5 months thanks to how well it works. It IS noisy though. I work from home so I routinely have to turn it off while on calls. When it goes back to home base it sounds like a jet engine taking off it is soooo loud. It’s become a running joke in our house.

    When we first got it we ran it 4 days a week. I was shocked at how much carpet fibers it was sucking up. I had to change the first filter bag in 3 weeks because it had sucked up so much carpet fiber. We now run it twice a week and I change the filter bag once every 5-6 weeks. We don’t have pets but two women with long hair and it absolutely picks up all the hair. I have to clean the rollers every couple weeks to get all the hair off.

    Other than the noise level (but it’s doing it’s job), I am thrilled with this purchase.