Roomba Combo J9+ Review: Sophisticated robot, lackluster app

Best prices today: iRobot Roomba Combo J9+

$984.46

The last time I reviewed a Roomba, I was impressed by its most notable evolutionary leap: its ability to recognize and avoid animal poop. Granted, I never considered the potential disaster of a robot vacuum colliding with dog poop, but the benefits of avoiding it were pretty clear.

But the problem that iRobot’s new flagship Combo J9+ addresses is one that I to have I’ve been thinking – and probably every other robot vacuum user has too: how best to prevent a robot vacuum mop from creating watery messes on rugs and carpets? Manufacturers have come up with a variety of imperfect solutions, from installing physical and virtual barriers around carpeted areas to equipping their robots with mops that lift a few millimeters before rolling across carpets.

iRobot may have had the most effective idea yet: a fully retractable mop arm. The arm rests discreetly on the Roomba Combo J9+ until you start a vacuuming and cleaning job; it then descends to the bottom. When carpet is detected, the arm retracts toward the top of the robot until it resumes cleaning hard floors. As the washing plate lifts completely away from the floor, there is no risk of carpeted surfaces getting soaked.

Michael Ansaldo/Foundry

The retractable cleaning arm was actually introduced with the Roomba Combo J7+, an upgrade from the J7+ mentioned above. The Combo J9+ retains this feature and several others, while incorporating all-new improvements. One of the most striking is the new Clean Base design.

An innovative charging base

As charging stations expand to accommodate water tanks and self-draining bins, it becomes more difficult to hide them among home furnishings. iRobot says it wants to make sure the J9+ base station can fit into the home’s design aesthetic, whether it’s placed in the living room, bedroom, or kitchen.

The result is something that could pass for a small piece of furniture, featuring a matte black finish, a beveled front door, and a faux wood top that serves as a table surface on which you can place small items , like a plant or a household trinket. -Things. In practice, this last touch allows the dock to blend more into your decor, despite its portly dimensions of 16.3 x 15.8 x 16.4 inches (HxWxD).

The base station door provides access to a water tank that holds 30 days of liquid to automatically fill the robot’s onboard tank, as well as a dust bag that holds approximately 30 days of debris emptied from the robot’s trash can. robot. One of my favorite design touches is the pair of slots inside the door that hold extra cleaning pads and dust bags, so they don’t get misplaced.

The robot itself measures 3.4 x 13.7 x 13.7 inches (HxWxD) and features a single button on the top to start, pause, and resume cleaning. When the robot is at rest or vacuuming, the cleaning arm is at the rear, where it blends into the top surface. On the underside are a pair of ribbed rubber rollers and a single rotating edge brush.

The front-facing camera, first introduced with the J7+, has been retained, as has obstacle avoidance technology, including pet dropping recognition backed by Apple’s POOP (Pet Owner Official Promise) guarantee. iRobot: If your robot sinks into animal droppings within the first year. of your purchase, the company will send you a new robot at no cost to you.

Michael Ansaldo/Foundry

Configuration and performance

To set up the Combo J9+, you plug in the Clean Base and insert the robot into its slot to charge it. The iRobot Home app makes connecting to your Wi-Fi easy with quick and easy setup. You will also need to remove the water tank from the Clean Base and fill it with clean water or a compatible cleaning solution before your first cleaning job. Finally, you need to lift the mounting plate from the top of the robot and attach one of the mop pads.

The robot can learn and map your space while it cleans or during a dedicated mapping run. The latter is faster and uses less battery, but the option is buried in the app, so I let it explore while it cleans. After its first run, the robot had accurately mapped all accessible space in my house and labeled the rooms. He also filled the map with various icons indicating the type of flooring, the dirtiest areas, and where he encountered obstacles. I was able to edit it to correct possible inaccuracies and add cleaning zones and no-mop zones.

The maps, however, are disappointing and basic. They are rendered in dull monochrome with little detail. For comparison, consider the maps produced by Roborock’s high-end robot vacuums, which use color coding to demarcate rooms, let you add furniture like sofas and beds, and can be rendered in 2D or 3D . The maps in the iRobot app are sufficient for understanding and managing where the Combo J9+ cleans, but they’re pretty rudimentary for such a sophisticated product.

The Roomba Combo J9+ comes with three levels of suction power and automatic carpet boost that increases suction when it recognizes carpeted surfaces. The latest version of its robot operating system, iRobot OS 7.0, also adds Dirt Detective intelligence to help it quickly identify and prioritize cleaning the dirtiest areas of the home, as well as a SmartScrub mode which allows the robot to apply a back and forth motion. scrubbing motion to better clean stains and sticky messes from hard surface floors. Once you approve a map, this all takes effect as the robot traces an efficient cleaning path, knowing where to apply more suction, where to clean, and where there are obstacles to avoid. All of this seemed to work as advertised in my testing.

There was a lot of caked-on mud on my laminate floors due to heavy rain during my testing period, and the Combo J9+ did a good job of removing it. It was difficult to see the brushing motion in action while the robot was operating, but the elbow grease applied was evident in the results. I have a single rug in my living room, but the retractable mop arm worked perfectly every time the robot approached it.

Michael Ansaldo/Foundry

Notably, the Combo J9+ does not include a tampon washing function in its Clean Base. Self-cleaning mops have become more common, but iRobot says it wants to avoid the odors these types of docks tend to produce over time, as well as the extra cleaning users must do to beat them. To that end, the Combo J9+’s mop pads are machine washable, so you can simply toss the dirty pad in the laundry and swap it out for a clean one after each job.

About this dull app

The iRobot app isn’t always easy to navigate, and I would have liked to see more of the robot’s controls placed up front. The home screen displays buttons for starting cleaning tasks, manually emptying the robot’s trash can, and filling its water tank. But virtually all controls, including items you’d probably want to adjust before each cleaning job, like suction power and water level, are relegated to a submenu.

The app also doesn’t support a live map, so you can’t see the robot’s current location or where it has cleaned in real time. The app also devotes considerable space to the iRobot Store and delivering messages such as support tips and reminders to subscribe to the iRobot mailing list. In the end, I found it sufficient but not particularly pleasant to use. There is plenty of room for improvement.

Should you buy a Roomba Combo J9+?

The Roomba Combo J9+ doesn’t feel like the quantum leap made by the Roomba J7+, but that’s understandable given that it retains all of that vacuum’s many innovations. Its automation improvements and new user-friendly design easily make it one of the most sophisticated robot floor cleaners you can buy. But consumers should reasonably expect a $1,400 robot vacuum to come with a very sophisticated companion app, and in its current state, the iRobot app falls far short; its design is dull and requires too much searching to find critical tools and features.

That said, the Roomba Combo J9+ is still worth considering if you need a 2-in-1 robot vacuum mop, but we recommend waiting until the price drops a bit to get your money’s worth.

Not the robot vacuum cleaner you need? Take a look at our roundup of all the best robot vacuums we’ve tested, for our top recommendations.

This review was first published in our sister publication, TechHive, and has been reproduced for inclusion here.