Credit:
Reviewed / Jonathan Chan
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Credit:
Reviewed / Jonathan Chan
Reviewed's mission is to help you buy the best stuff and get the most out of what you already own. Our team of product experts thoroughly vet every product we recommend to help you cut through the clutter and find what you need.
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The iRobot Roomba j7+ boasts excellent navigation, forward-thinking smart features, and good cleaning performance. Read More
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Not only can the iRobot Roomba i7+ robot vacuum empty itself, but it also has powerful suction. Read More
The iRobot Roomba i6+ is an Amazon-exclusive robot vacuum that has the same performance as the i7+, but with fewer spare parts. Read More
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The 6 Best Roombas of 2022 When it comes to robot vacuums, iRobot is the juggernaut, accounting for roughly half of the automated floor cleaners on the market. Based on our lab testing, the convenience and quality that iRobot's Roomba robot vacs offer justifies their dominance. That’s why they also dominate our vacuum buying guides, from picking up pet hair to robot vacuum in general.
However, the best Roombas also run the gamut from affordable to really expensive, so it can be difficult to figure out which one is right for cleaning your floors.
We lab tested a ton of Roombas on their cleaning ability, navigation system performance, value, smart features, and ease of usability. After balancing those test scores out, we think the iRobot Roomba j7+ (available at Amazon for $549.00) is the best choice for most households.
Here are the best Roombas you can buy:
We found the light that helps the j7+ navigate to be intrusive at times.
The textured top of the iRobot Roomba i3+ keeps it looking fresh even after plowing through dust bunnies.
Can empty itself
App allows you to choose what rooms to clean
Powerful dirt pickup
Expensive
Power suction
Self Emptying
Comprehensive App
Expensive
Affordable
Good Cleaning
Loud
Powerful
Self-emptying
Expensive
Hey, I'm Jon Chan, the Senior Manager of Lab Operations at Reviewed. If you clean with it—whether it’s laundry detergent or dishwashers—I oversee its testing. This expertise extends to vacuums: upright, canister, handheld, and robotic.
We built an entire obstacle course in our laboratory to test robot vacuums like Roombas. The area contains obstacles that mimic furniture legs, shelves, and thresholds. Each robot vacuum has three chances to prove itself.
For the first two runs, we place cork pellets under the shelves and between the furniture legs. For the final test, we use pet hair instead. With our mess laid out, we let the robot vacuum loose. We’re looking for how long a cleaning cycle takes, which obstacles give it trouble, its suction power, and overall dirt and debris pickup.
We find that consumers are most satisfied with their Roombas when they view them as floor maintainers in between manual cleanings. They’re convenient, but their suction power just can’t match up to a full-sized vacuum. Generally speaking, a robot vacuum takes about a week to pick up the dirt that you’d get from a good vacuum cleaning.
Also note that the ideal floor types for most robot vacuums are bare floors and medium carpet. If you have throw rugs taller than ½ inch, your robot vacuum may not be able to climb atop it, or it may climb up and get stuck. This can also be an issue for pet beds.
The + means you get a charging base that empties your Roomba for you. It's much bigger than your average dock.
If you visit iRobot’s website, you’ll find that the robot vacuum brand offers both the Roomba i3 and the Roomba i3+ for sale. The major difference between the plus and non-plus version is in its charging base.
The plus versions boast a self-emptying feature. The charging base contains a built-in vacuum that suctions out the robot’s dirt bin, moving the waste into a sealed bag. This means you never have to get your hands dirty or smell anything gross. Each bag can hold up to 30 days’ worth of dust, dirt and debris.
The iRobot Genius Home Intelligence is an update to the existing iRobot Home app that you more control over where and when your robot vacuum cleans.
iRobot Home app shows its smart map of Reviewed's lab.
The “where” is denoted by rooms on your smart map, which the Roomba i7+ and S9 models can detect automatically. You can designate special areas like the couch or under the kitchen table as “Clean Zones” for extra attention. You can also designate areas where you don’t want your Roomba to roam.
The update also gives you more control over when your Roomba cleans, through event-based automation. For example, you can integrate your home’s smart locks into your robot vacuum’s programming so that when you walk through your front door, the Roomba will return to its charging base. This works because iRobot Genius Home Intelligence is on the IFTTT platform, so it “speaks” a very common language that hundreds of smart home brands know.
iRobot Genius Home Intelligence is designed to work with anything on the IFTTT Connect platform.
If you don’t want all your smart devices talking to each other, you can use a scheduling feature from your phone. To specify when and where to clean. For example, at 8 pm, after your dinner, you can schedule the Roomba to vacuum under the table and the Braava jet to mop the whole kitchen floor.
iRobot has pretty comprehensive documentation on how user data is stored.
Mike Gillen, director of product and data security at iRobot tells us, “Beyond internal initiatives, iRobot promotes and sponsors a public bug bounty program, submits products to external penetration testing, and conducts routine automated scans on iRobot’s operating environment.”
If you want to request data deletion, the easiest is through the app. However, we did catch this tidbit in the Privacy Policy: “We reserve the right to anonymize your personal data, including information about Robot and Service usage, and to retain your anonymized information for our own records and for product and feature development purposes.”
Basically, this means that iRobot will eliminate any connection between you and the data collected, but it may remain in iRobot’s servers.
Companies like iRobot and Ecovacs also follow the General Data Protection Regulation, GDPR, a set of European data privacy laws similar to the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).
Bethany Singer Baefsky, director of privacy and DPO at iRobot, says, “iRobot follows the GDPR standard for everyone when it comes to deletion, and we do not limit it just to the EU. This means that wherever you are, if you request data deletion, your personal information will be purged within 30 days, in accordance with GDPR standards.”
She continues, “For data access requests, we comply with all statutory time frames. Where there is no statutorily required timeframe for providing data, or no legal requirement to provide data at all, we operate within the CCPA's framework and provide data in a commonly used, machine readable format within 45 days of receiving a verifiable request.”
Jonathan Chan currently serves as the Lab Manager at Reviewed. If you clean with it, it's likely that Jon oversees its testing. Since joining the Reviewed in 2012, Jon has helped launch the company's efforts in reviewing laptops, vacuums, and outdoor gear. He thinks he's a pretty big deal. In the pursuit of data, he's plunged his hands into freezing cold water, consented to be literally dragged through the mud, and watched paint dry. Jon demands you have a nice day.
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