The chokehold that iRobot has had on the robot vacuum market since the early 2000s always makes it hard for me to believe that a Roomba that also mops was still nonexistent 20 years later.
It’s not that iRobot had never dabbled in robotic mopping at all. There have been a handful of iterations of the Braava Jet, iRobot’s dedicated robot mop. But while the Braava Jet was capable of extremely light dry sweeping, it’s not an actual robot vacuum — hence not getting the Roomba title. (iRobot confirms the separation by bundling the Braava Jet m6 with actual robot vacuums like the Roomba i3, s9, and j7.)
And you were probably today years old when you learned that the alleged first mainstream robotic mop ever, the Scooba “floor washer,” was also a member of the iRobot fam.
But it wasn’t until 2022 — years after competitors like Roborock, Eufy, and Shark had released multiple hybrid robot vacuum mops — that iRobot dropped its first true 2-in-1 robot vacuum and mop. iRobot really let this one marinate, so what’s the tea? Was the Roomba Combo j7+ worth the wait?
The smartest Roomba to date, now with a mop
The Roomba Combo j7+ is the mopping version of iRobot’s newest and smartest vacuum collection yet, the j series. Its claim to fame is PrecisionVision: the ability to detect and avoid small obstacles that are typically blind spots, like pet waste, socks, and cords or chargers.
As a refresher, the “+” tacked on the end of any Roomba signifies automatic emptying. There’s no difference in cleaning capability between the j7 and j7+ vacuums themselves, and the only difference with the Combo is that it has a retractable mop. The Clean Base (self-emptying dock) that comes with the j7+ and Combo j7+ is shorter than the older ones included with the i7+ and s9+, but the official 60-day capacity hasn’t changed. Come to think of it, I’ve only had to swap the bags in my Clean Base once in the past six months, so it’s even more hands-off than advertised.
Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable
Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable
iRobot moved the camera that traditionally sits atop robot vacuums (that can’t see items below their three-ish-inch lid) to the front of the vacuum, expanding the viewing angle. This vigilant eye is also assisted by a front-facing LED light that illuminates the path in front of the j7 that helps it better perceive the floor in front of it. If the j7 scoots up to an object it senses as a problem-causer, it’ll go around it.
Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable
Obstacle avoidance is a non-negotiable for me now
People have been enjoying automated cleaning via robot vacuums for years before small object avoidance was a thing. They just simply accepted the pre-cleaning ritual of clearing cords, socks, pet toys, and such off the floor before sending the vacuum out. It’s not that big of a deal, right?
False. I shouldn’t have to clean before the thing I bought specifically to clean cleans.
The convenience of a robot vacuum really starts to dwindle when you feel like you can’t trust it to cover the whole home without eating something or getting stuck on a bath mat, which is especially annoying when you’re not home to set it free. The clutchness of the j7+’s obstacle avoidance particularly set itself apart when I began simultaneously testing a robot vacuum lacking that technology — and felt my anxiety skyrocket when forcing myself to give the less-advanced vacuum a shot. If you’ve ever had to pry a precious phone charger from the jaws of a bumbling robot vacuum, you understand.
After being sure the floor was clear while the j7 mapped my apartment with obstacle avoidance off, I’ll admit that ignoring the urge to pre-clean to test the true competence of PrecisionVision made me nervous. I accept that there has to be some room for error with any perceptive tech feature of this nature — but I was going to be pissed if my fast charging cable was eaten.
I’m proud to report that, in the six months I’ve spent with the Combo j7+, that it has never once not correctly identified a charger or the HDMI cord that’s always lying in the living room. I’m equally proud to present you with my very first video-turned-GIF, which shows the j7 gently approaching and turning away from a charger in its path on my bedroom floor.
Though PrecisionVision is impressive as hell, it’s not perfect. It’s still important to manage expectations and remember that even a front-facing camera physically can’t pick up on items that basically lie flat on the floor. After doing my nails while watching TV, I completely forgot that I left my metal nail file on the living room floor. The j7+ tried its damndest to pick it up before I heard the clatter and rescued it.
While many of my cat, Sansa’s, toys (like her mini stuffed mouse) got a pass, more ambiguous small obstacles like fake snow from our holiday decor and feathery wand toys were gobbled up. Actually, the first time I saw the ring light on top of the j7 light up red was due to a blockage between the on-board dustbin and dock dustbin caused by — wait for it — a damn feather. The app pinpointed the problem and a Youtube video showed me how to fix it, but Sansa says iRobot will be hearing from her lawyer.
Bath mats are also a perpetual problem for robot vacs, and even the j7 isn’t completely immune. While it usually was able to successfully scale and clean my bath mats while only leaving a corner overturned, there was one instance where the j7 scrambled my bath mat to the point of getting completely stuck.
Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable
Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable
Mapping is accurate and floor coverage is (pretty) thorough
PrecisionVision builds on iRobot’s already-great broad navigation abilities and smart mapping of rooms and specific areas of your home. Like the Roomba s series, the j series can map your home and you can label it and tweak the map to your liking, including drawing specific zones within a room that the Roomba can either go directly to or stay out of completely.
Of the robot vacs with LiDAR that I’ve tested, I think this Roomba produced the fullest and most accurate map on the first run. Barring a few tweaks to dividers for bedrooms, the j7+ was mostly able to regurgitate the general setup of walls in my 1,500-ish-square-foot apartment after its first trip around, including noting large pieces of furniture like the island. It even marked where our living room rug and kitchen runner sit as a note to increase suction on those areas.
Of course, I still had to tweak the map to move dividers around and label the rooms, as well as create zones. The iRobot Genius app is super easy to use, though, so editing the map isn’t a pain.
Credit: Screenshot: iRobot Genius
Like obstacle avoidance, iRobot’s smart mapping was super reliable the whole time. The j7 made it to the correct room or zone upon command (and back to its dock) and never got lost. Maybe this can be attributed to the amount of pausing and thinking it stops to do mid-sweeping. Once, it stopped in front of the the huge floor-length mirror in our living room — facing forward — and I think I witnessed an existential crisis. The vacuum resumed its job afterward, though.
The j7’s cleaning isn’t intolerably loud by any means, and is actually quieter on rugs than on hard floors. But I still find myself taking advantage of zone cleaning rather than hitting “clean everywhere” just to keep the incessant hum shorter. I’d argue that smart mapping and virtual boundaries (that actually work) are also must-have features since there are multiple spots that I feel need more frequent attention, like the area near the front door where all of the shoes step and in my bathroom where the litter box is.
The kitchen is an obvious staple zone, too, and not just to pick up after eating a crumby meal or tidying after some food prep remnants made their way to the floor. I also discovered the genius hack that is cleaning the countertop by simply pushing the crumbs or shredded cheese onto the floor and calling the j7 over to vacuum by the counter. The j7’s hard floor cleaning is quite successful on debris ranging from spilled parsley flakes to kibble, and the side brush does a pretty good job of pushing peripheral debris into the cleaning path.
Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable
Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable
Furniture-wise, the j7 is quite good at getting right up against the edges of large obstacles without actually running into them. Our coffee table is a round half sphere (it’s giving acorn) and the j7 was able to delicately detail the perimeter by backing up and making small adjustments to go around the bend. It also wasn’t afraid to go between kitchen table chair legs and the legs of a table in the hallway, and was able to guide itself out without getting stuck.
I did notice the j7 randomly skipping a few feet of floor on the occasional zone cleaning that I know it covered the last time it cleaned that area. Annoying, but easy to prevent by opting to double up on passes in the app. (This also helped to ensure any debris that was missed the first time was grabbed.)
The mop provides no elbow grease, but it’s better than nothing
A robot vacuum that mops is crucial for anyone whose eye twitches when a guest forgets to take off their shoes at the door. And after the Dyson V12 Detect Slim’s laser showed me just how dusty my floors get even after daily vacuuming, I was even more sold on the premise of a wet mop to wipe my floors of what a vacuum doesn’t always pick up.
The mopping pads on these hybrid models fall under one of two categories: They either scrub or they don’t. Often called “sonic mopping,” the scrubbing ones use some sort of forceful mechanism to push the mopping pad into the floor to go after tougher, dried-on stains and footprints. The vacs without that mechanism just drag a wet pad across the floor, mostly tackling wet spills or loose surface-level gunk.
I was surprised to learn that the Combo j7+ was the latter after seeing the price tag. iRobot’s whole thing with the Combo j7+ is flexing the retractable mopping pad as “the world’s only 2-in-1 robot vacuum and mop that senses carpet then fully retracts to the top of the robot.” The retractable mop isn’t not cool, but to me, this statement kind of implies that the Combo j7+ is the only robot vac that senses carpet and lifts the mop — and that’s not the case. I tested the Roborock S7 over a year ago and it also lifted the mop on soft floors, just not completely on top of the vacuum body like the j7. (And FWIW, I never experienced soggy rugs with that approach.)
So I do wish that iRobot would have covered some sort of scrubbing element in its premium debut 2-in-1. That aside, the mop’s performance was satisfactory for daily brown sock prevention. I found it particularly handy for regular upkeep of the area near the front door and in my bathroom, which made me feel better about stepping out of the shower in bare feet onto the same tile that my cat steps on after exiting the litter box. The pad also lapped up assorted dried stains in the kitchen and did an OK job of making the hardwood near the door look less gray with shoe prints. At any rate, the j7 does seal the deal after dry cleaning, and I like that it’s a rare hybrid option that can clean with water or one of iRobot’s Bona hard surface cleaning solutions.
Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable
Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable
Downsides: Carpet cleaning should probably be more thorough at this price
FWIW, iRobot doesn’t claim that the j7 is a deep carpet cleaner like the s9. The listings on iRobot’s website officially state that the j series delivers 10 times the power-lifting suction of the baseline 600 series Roombas while the s series delivers 40 times that. So I’m not saying it’s misleading marketing, but I still kind of expected the j7+ to be tougher on carpet and rugs.
Needing more than one pass to put the finishing touches on a carpet or rug job is understandable. Carpet fibers can act like velcro for debris, especially anything with rough edges that could latch on (like crunchy food crumbs) or pet hair that’s been stepped on and matted into the floor. But on multiple occasions, even after the two passes that the app allows you to schedule at once, I found myself starting a completely new job for a third (or fourth) pass because the j7 still hadn’t quite finished the job.
Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable
Credit: Leah Stodart / Mashable
The j7+’s automatic emptying noise is short but so, so far from sweet
My audiologist friends would spiral if they knew that people stand near this thing mid-emptying and don’t have earplugs in. I thought I was being dramatic until the Decibel X sound meter app clocked the peak of the Clean Base’s cycle at around 85 db, which the CDC says is equivalent to city traffic (inside the car) or a leaf blower. (The j7’s actual cleaning typically stayed under 60 db, which is like normal conversation or an air conditioner.)
You know it’s bad when you find yourself opting to do the job yourself with a stick vacuum over running the Roomba just to avoid enduring the automatic emptying noise at the end. The very specific sound of the j7+ locking in on its dock and pulling in to charge sends shivers down my spine because I know the longest five seconds of my life are coming. Plugging my ears and warning my roommates of the impending plane takeover are subconscious reflexes at this point.
But no, the sound of the Clean Base (or any loud self-emptying dock) isn’t bad enough for me to consider going without automatic emptying. That’s just another one of those robot vacuum features that, once you live with it, you won’t be able to live without it. Not having to empty the botvac’s dust bin and potentially touch that gross gray ball of filth after every few cleaning runs seriously ups the advantage of automated cleaning.
I’ll just say that the j7 being so self-sufficient saved me when it came to this noise issue. Because if you’re going to bank on a robot vacuum cleaning when you’re not home to avoid the noise, this is the robot vacuum with built-in babysitting to do it with.
Unlike LG’s All-In-One cordless stick vacuum, which can be set to only empty the vacuum into the dock when you tell it to, the iRobot Genius app doesn’t have an option to switch automatic self-emptying off. That leads me to my last bone to pick.
The iRobot app is so intuitive except for one thing
iRobot Genius is probably the smoothest experience I’ve had with a robot vacuum app. From WiFi setup and room labeling to daily scheduling and tweaking of specific cleaning runs, everything is straightforward — to the point where it wouldn’t even be a pain for someone who hates messing with apps to use. I really like the option to bump to two passes instead of one, to adjust the water level for tougher messes, or to opt out of mopping all together.
So the fact that the app doesn’t allow a queue of jobs once one job is in progress — such a non-intuitive hill to die on — is wild to me. If I send the j7 out to clean the kitchen and think “actually, let’s do the entry way while we’re at it,” I have to let the j7 finish the kitchen, return to the dock, empty and hurt my ears, and then drive back to the zone one foot over from where it was originally cleaning. Note that you can line up a list of several rooms or zones to be cleaned in row, but after one job has started, you’re screwed.
Speaking of zones, you have to create one any time you want to spot clean, which is a real buzzkill when you just want to quickly assign a random spot. I’d love to be able to draw a tiny target on a whim and have the bot go there without having to name the spot that’ll never probably never need to be specifically cleaned again.
The competition
First, it’s obvious to pit the Combo j7+ against iRobot’s dedicated robot mop, the Braava Jet M6. But considering the Braava Jet M6 doesn’t have obstacle avoidance and is so not an actual vacuum that it often comes bundled with Roombas like the i3+ and s9+, there’s no question about the Combo j7+ being the winner there.
Fiercer competition comes from Roborock and Ecovacs. Roborock recently one-upped its own impressive S7 MaxV Ultra with the S8 Pro Ultra — both of which have phenomenal suction, sonic mopping, small obstacle avoidance, automatic emptying, and auto-washing mopping pads. The S8 Pro Ultra also dries the clean mopping pads to avoid that soggy washing machine smell — one feature iRobot skipped when designing the Combo j7+. The Ecovacs Deebot X1 Omni also does everything that the S8 Pro Ultra does, but is a good reminder that skills and a premium price point on paper don’t always translate to a good experience. (Remember when the X1 Omni dragged my hair straightener all the way to the dock?) Both of these go for $1,599.99 at full price, while the X1 Omni goes on sale for as low as $999.99.
For $649.40 or $449.40 on sale, Shark’s newest AI Ultra model omits small obstacle avoidance but still empties itself and scrubs. For just over $600 on sale, the slightly-older Samsung Jet Bot AI+ omits mopping but has decent small object recognition and, like the X1 Omni, also acts as a live pet camera.
Is the Roomba Combo j7+ worth it?
As the most expensive Roomba and one of the most expensive self-emptying hybrids, the Combo j7+ might look like overkill upon first glance. But after comparing the features it packs to the price of models that offer the most similar feature lineup, the Combo j7+ is actually a solid purchase. The one thing it lacks is the ability to wash its own mopping pads — but it’s also a few hundred dollars cheaper than the models that do that, even when they’re all on sale.
The thing about the Combo j7+ is that it’s not a stellar sweeper or a stellar mopper, but it all comes together to make a pretty stellar overall cleaner. When both wet and dry aspects of cleaning performance are still satisfactory and supplemented by such reliable obstacle avoidance and home navigation, iRobot strikes a serious hands-off rating that ultimately is the whole point of getting a robot vacuum in the first place.
