Roomba Combo J9+ Review: Sophisticated Robot, Lackluster App

Value When Reviewed

$1,399.99

Finest Costs Immediately: iRobot Roomba Combo J9+

$984.46

$999

$1349.99

$1399.99

The final time I reviewed a Roomba I used to be wowed by its most notable evolutionary leap: its means to acknowledge and keep away from pet poop. Admittedly, I had by no means thought-about the potential catastrophe of a robotic vacuum colliding with canine droppings, however the advantages of averting it have been fairly clear.

However the issue iRobot’s new flagship Combo J9+ addresses is one I have considered – and possibly each different robotic vacuum consumer has as nicely: How do you greatest preserve a mopping robotic vacuum from making a watery mess on rugs and carpets? Producers have give you quite a lot of imperfect options, starting from putting bodily and digital limitations round carpeted areas to outfitting their robots with mops that elevate themselves a number of millimeters earlier than rolling over rugs.

iRobot might need give you the simplest thought but: a completely retractable mopping arm. The arm sits unobtrusively on high of the Roomba Combo J9+ till you provoke a vacuuming and mopping job; it then lowers to the underside. When carpet is detected, the arm retracts again to the highest of the robotic till it resumes cleansing hard-surface flooring. As a result of the mopping plate strikes utterly away from the ground, there’s no danger of carpeted surfaces getting soaked.

Michael Ansaldo/Foundry

The retractable mopping arm was truly launched with the Roomba Combo J7+, an improve of the J7+ talked about above. The Combo J9+ retains that function and a number of other others, whereas incorporating some all-new enhancements. One of the crucial placing is the brand new Clear Base design.

An modern charging base

As charging docks get bigger to accommodate water tanks and self-emptying bins, it turns into more durable to hide them amongst family furnishings. iRobot says it needed to ensure the J9+ base station might mix in with the design aesthetic of the house, whether or not it was positioned in the lounge, bed room, or kitchen.

The result’s one thing that might cross for a small piece of furnishings, that includes a black matte end, beveled entrance door, and a fake woodgrain high that features as a desk floor on which you’ll place small objects, reminiscent of a plant or family knick-knacks. In follow, this final contact helps the dock additional mix together with your décor, regardless of its portly 16.3 x 15.8 x 16.4-inch (HxWxD) dimensions.

The door on the bottom station offers entry to a water reservoir that holds 30 days of liquid to mechanically refill the robotic’s onboard tank, and a mud bag that may maintain about 30 days of particles emptied from the robotic’s dustbin. One in every of my favourite design touches is the pair of slots on the within of the door that maintain further mopping pads and mud baggage, so that they don’t get misplaced.

The robotic itself measures 3.4 x 13.7 x 13.7 inches (HxWxD) and includes a single button on high to start out, pause, and resume cleansing. When the robotic is at relaxation or vacuuming, the mopping arm sits on the again, the place it blends into the highest floor. On the underside are a pair of ribbed rubber rollers and a single spinning edge brush.

The front-facing digital camera, first launched with the J7+, has been stored and so has the impediment avoidance expertise, together with pet waste recognition backed by iRobot’s P.O.O.P. (Pet Proprietor Official Promise) assure: In case your robotic plows into pet poop inside the first 12 months of your buy, the corporate will ship you a brand new robotic without charge to you.

Michael Ansaldo/Foundry

Setup and efficiency

To arrange the Combo J9+, you plug within the Clear Base and insert the robotic into its slot to cost. The iRobot Residence app facilitates the connection to your Wi-Fi by a simple prompt-driven setup. You’ll additionally must take away the water tank from the Clear Base and fill it with plain water or a suitable cleansing answer earlier than your first cleansing job. Lastly, it’s important to raise the mounting plate from the highest of the robotic and connect one of many mop pads.

The robotic can be taught and map your area because it cleans or throughout a devoted mapping run. The latter is faster and is less complicated on the battery, however the choice is buried within the app, so I simply let it discover because it cleaned. After its first run, the robotic had precisely mapped all of my dwelling’s accessible area and labeled the rooms. It additionally populated the map with numerous icons indicating the kind of flooring surfaces, the dirtiest areas, and the place it encountered obstacles. I used to be in a position to edit it to right any inaccuracies and add cleansing zones and no-mop areas.

The maps are disappointingly fundamental, although. They’re rendered in drab monochrome with little element. For comparability’s sake, take into account the maps produced by Roborock’s premium robotic vacuums, which use colour coding to delineate rooms, can help you add furnishings like couches and beds, and will be rendered in 2D or 3D. The iRobot app’s maps are ample for understanding and managing the place the Combo J9+ cleans, however they’re fairly crude for such an in any other case refined product.

The Roomba Combo J9+ comes with three ranges of suction energy and computerized carpet increase that ratchets up the suction when it acknowledges carpeted surfaces. The most recent model of its robotic working system, iRobot OS 7.0, additionally provides Grime Detective intelligence to assist it rapidly establish and prioritize cleansing the dirtiest areas of the house first, and a SmartScrub mode that allows the robotic to use a back-and-forth scrubbing movement to raised clear stains and sticky messes from hard-surface flooring. When you approve a map, all of this goes into impact because the robotic plots an environment friendly cleansing path, understanding the place to use extra suction, the place to mop, and the place there are obstacles to be averted. This all appeared to work as marketed in my testing.

There was loads of tracked-in mud on my laminate flooring as a consequence of heavy rain throughout my testing interval, and the Combo J9+ did a strong job of eradicating it. It was onerous to see the scrubbing movement in motion because the robotic labored, however the elbow grease utilized was evident within the outcomes. I’ve a single space rug in my lounge, however the retractable mop arm labored flawlessly every time the robotic approached it.

Michael Ansaldo/Foundry

Notably, the Combo J9+ doesn’t embody a pad-wash function in its Clear Base. Self-cleaning mops have develop into extra frequent, however iRobot says it needed to keep away from the odors a lot of these docks have a tendency to supply over time, together with the additional cleansing customers should carry out to defeat them. To that finish, the Combo J9+’s mop pads are machine cleanable, so you’ll be able to merely toss the soiled one within the laundry and swap in a clear one after every job.

About that lackluster app

The iRobot app isn’t at all times straightforward to navigate, and I might’ve favored to have seen extra of the robotic’s controls positioned up entrance. The house display screen shows buttons for initiating cleansing jobs and manually emptying the robotic’s dustbin and refilling its water tank. However just about each management, together with stuff you’d possible need to alter earlier than each cleansing job, reminiscent of suction energy and water stage, are relegated to a sub-menu.

The app doesn’t help a dwell map, both, so you’ll be able to’t see the robotic’s present location and the place it has cleaned in actual time. The app additionally devotes appreciable area to the iRobot retailer and to pushing messages reminiscent of help ideas and reminders to subscribe to iRobot’s mailing record. Finally, I discovered it satisfactory however not notably gratifying to make use of. There’s lots of room for enchancment.

Must you purchase a Roomba Combo J9+?

The Roomba Combo J9+ doesn’t really feel just like the quantum leap the Roomba J7+ did, however that’s comprehensible on condition that it retains all of that vacuum’s many inventions. It’s automation enhancements and new furnishing-friendly design simply make it probably the most refined combo robotic flooring cleaners you should purchase. However shoppers ought to fairly anticipate a $1,400 robotic vacuum to have a extremely polished companion app, and in its present state, the iRobot app falls wanting that; its design is lackluster and requires an excessive amount of searching to search out essential instruments and options.

That mentioned, the Roomba Combo J9+ continues to be price contemplating if you happen to want a 2-in-1 mopping robotic vacuum, however we’d advise ready till the value comes down a bit to get your cash’s price.

Not the precise robotic vacuum for you? Take a look at our round-up of all the perfect robotic vacuums we’ve examined, for our high suggestions.

This overview was first printed in our sibling publication, TechHive, and has been reproduced for inclusion right here.