iRobot, soon to be owned by Amazon, is announcing a flagship Roomba with a brand new feature: it can vacuum and mop at the same time. Check out the Roomba Combo j7+, a $1,099.99 combo cleaning robot that goes on sale October 4th.
iRobot is not doing a major overhaul of the j7+ series to add mop functionality. In fact, the update looks almost like a retrofit. The new j7 looks exactly like the old j7 with a camera on the front, a large trash can on the back, and a bottom layout that’s nearly identical to the old bot. There’s a new dust box and… is that a rear spoiler?
The mop functionality is at the top (yes, at the top) of the j7+, which now has a large rear cutout. The top of this cutout is plastic, while the bottom is a wet mop pad, which is connected to the robot by two side arms. When it’s time to mop the floor, there’s a dramatic transition, just like in Transformers. Roomba’s two side flaps open, revealing that the top mop cutout is actually connected to the robot by a pair of pivoting arms. The cut out portion at the top of the robot rises and pivots down under the robot in a large 180 degree motion. Now you’re dragging a wet rag across the floor with minimal changes to the j7+’s layout.
It doesn’t look like the j7+ will deliver the top-notch iRobot mopping experience that will still belong to the purpose-built Braava Jet M6. The iRobot custom mop bot outperforms the j7+ because about 50 percent of the Braava’s body is a water tank, and it has a front water sprayer. The J7+ has a redesigned dust box, which is now a combined dust and water tank. The dust bin is smaller to make way for a 210ml water tank. This means much less dust capacity, but that’s not a big deal as Roomba will just visit the base station to clean up when the trash can is full.
The most advanced combo cleaning robots are probably the $1,400 Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra or the $1,550 Ecovacs Deebot X1 Omni, both of which have a dustbin and water tank in the robot, as well as a giant base station that cleans dust off the robot.. , fills it with fresh water, then washes the mop and stores the waste water in a separate tank. iRobot has a long way to go to catch up.
The swing arm setup looks cool, but you have to wonder about its durability. These robots endure a lot of abuse, bumping into everything and constantly dealing with dust – it’s just the nature of the job. This big move requires tons of small moving parts and tiny pivot points. Something like the Roborock, in contrast, just has the mop permanently attached to the bottom of the robot, and the mop setup is on a variable height suspension so it can be raised a bit to avoid touching the carpet. This works for thinner carpets, but if you have serious pile, the robot may dive too deep and wet your carpet. iRobot says the pivot arm setup is designed to avoid this.
An iRobot press release casts a shadow over the competition, saying, “Other 2-in-1 mops rise only a few millimeters—if they rise at all—and can leave a wet mess on many carpets or rugs as a result. The Roomba Combo j7+ is the only 2-in-1 with a mop that lifts up to the top of the robot, completely removing carpets and rugs. Two fully retractable, durable metal mop arms raise the mop head when the robot detects carpet and rugs, preventing unwanted wet messes.”