While evaluating the Roomba Combo j7+, there were a few questions that kept coming up.
I kept hanging on to those two main questions because the landscape for robot vacuums is expanding rapidly.
Decent ones, like theRoborock Q5+, are getting cheaper as more premium robovacs come onto the market.
- Tyler Hayes / How-To Geek
The Roomba Combo j7+ retails for nearly $1,000, which makes it a premium product.
It’s a competent suctioning and mopping assistant.
Out of the box, the initial floor mapping was aggressive.
Tyler Hayes / How-To Geek
The vacuum bumped into dining chairs hard enough to scoot them out of place.
It bumped into walls loud enough to hear from other rooms.
The lack ofLiDARon the Combo j7+ unit was noticeable.
-Tyler Hayes / How-To Geek
It would occasionally still scoot dining chairs too, but that was less frequent as well.
The company uses what it callsPrecisionVision Navigationto recognize objects.
Most of the time the pictures it asked about were temporary objects like a sock or cardboard boxes.
Tyler Hayes / How-To Geek
I would let it know those items should be gone by the time it cleaned again.
Scheduling common jobs to be repeated was similarly just as easy to accomplish.
The information I saw was all displayed beautifully.
Tyler Hayes / How-To Geek
By far, iRobot has the least complicated robot vacuum app that I’ve used.
One knock against it, however, is that the app does sacrifice some functionality for visual clarity.
There’s no way to watch where the vacuum was cleaning on the map in real time.
This is possible for other vacuums, like theRoborock S7 MaxV Ultra, in their apps.
It cleaned as well as other premium robot vacuums I’ve tested.
But, again, the Combo j7+ suctioned and mopped well, both on hardwood floors and carpet.
I also sprinkled some baking soda across the carpet to inspect its ability to suck up finer dirt particles.
Also, there’s no option to spot clean like other vacuums have.
That would have been handy for singling out the affected area.
Zones can be created, but those are generally meant to be larger areas across different rooms.
One of the highly touted features by iRobot is that this vacuum canavoid pet accidents, purposefully.
When not in use, the mop cloth sits on top of the unit.
When it’s needed it will swivel down underneath it.
The idea here is to completely avoid having a damp cloth rub against carpet areas.
This swivel mechanism is most effective without multiple flooring types in close proximity.
I didn’t mind emptying and refilling water every 10-14 days on other vacuum stations.
To that end, the Combo j7+ will empty dust automatically into a bag within its charging dock.
Should You Buy the iRobot Roomba Combo j7+?
Compared only against itself, it vacuums and mops well.
It’s consistent with its respectable performance.
It also lacked a spot-clean ability likely tied to this precision technology.
It’s a workhorse that cleans as advertised.
