iRobot - Roomba 705 Combo Vac & Mop + AutoWash Dock - Self-Cleaning Roller Mop, Retractable Mop Cover, Self-Empties 75 Days - White

This is honestly the best robot I’ve ever had. It’s actually my second one, I keep one in the living room, which is on a lower level, and the other takes care of the kitchen, bedrooms and hallway. It’s low maintenance and it’s great, once you set it up, you can basically forget about it for days. The auto-cleaning and self-emptying functions are a game changer, no need to constantly change the mop or add water. It just takes care of everything on its own. I leave the house for work, and when I come back, the floors are spotless. It picks up all the dog hair (I have a Golden retriever, so imagine the challenges) dust, and even gets under the furniture without getting stuck. Honestly, this thing is worth every penny.

The 700 mad combo is a marked improvement in mapping, cleaning, and consistent behavior. Unfortunately the mop roller (which only lasted 20 mop sessions, and the cleaning solution (which is proprietary) are never in stock so it's been running just water to mop with (not very clean). I do not recommend this product as it is impossible to keep running properly because iRobot not being able to provide them nor allowing generic parts and solvents to be used.

Highlights: * Easy to set up * Simple app with good features * Roller mop is much better than spinning discs * Mop guard keep carpets dry * Good suction * Attractive materials and finishes Room for improvement: * Noisy when operating * Large base station * Missing some features that competitor flagship models have * Initial setup was a tad rocky iRobot was a pioneer in vacuum robots years ago. The technology has improved not only in navigation but also in cleaning performance. What remains the same is that the value of these robots is in how well they navigate your home and keep your floors clean. This Roomba Max 705 Combo is the current flagship model from iRobot. It not only has a camera for obstacle avoidance but also a sleek embedded Lidar for navigation without needing a turret on top. The allows the robot to have a lower overall height and fit under more furniture better. This unit vacuums and mops, and its base station not only empties the robot’s dustbin but also has large tanks to store fresh and dirty mopping water that it transfers to/from the robot when docked. Setup: The basic hardware setup is typical. he packaging was labeled very well and nothing was confusing. You unpack things, connect and install anything that ships in accessory boxes, and then place the base station where you’d like to keep it. You’ll periodically need to replace the dust bag, empty the dirty water and refill the clean water, so best to place the unit where you can easily access these things in the dock. Once everything is connected, plugged in and charged up, the next step is to add it to the free app and let it map your home. App setup was super easy and the app found my Roomba quickly and easily got it set up on my home’s WiFi. After a brief firmware update, next was allowing it to wander my home and figure out where to clean by creating the initial map of my home. This was a little tricky during my setup. The app got a bit confused and it just didn’t want to do the mapping run complaining that it needed “assistance” without telling me what it needed help with. I finally coaxed it into doing its job and map creation went quickly. I was a bit surprised that it immediately decided to start a cleaning job right after map creation without letting me adjust the map, but that’s OK. Once it was done and returned back to the dock to empty its bin, clean the mop, etc…. I went into the app to see what it created for a map of my home. The map wasn’t perfect but it was a great start. I was easily able to separate rooms that got joined, join rooms that shouldn’t be separated, create a no-go zone for areas that frequently have obstacles and name everything for easier reference later. Usage: The first few runs of the mopping left me a bit underwhelmed. The mop wasn’t yet primed and it left streaks on my tile floors. Fortunately this improved over the next few jobs and the mop started doing a great job. What didn’t improve, though, is how much motor noise this unit has. The whirring and grinding while cleaning is so noticeable that even when the robot speaks notifications of what’s going, I can’t easily hear them over the motors. The mop rotates and slides out to clean edges. There is guard that prevents the wet mop from moistening your carpets which is great. There are two “whiskers” in the front that spin to push loose dirt toward the “mouth” for suction. There’s the main drive motors and finally the vacuum itself. All of these motors make a considerable cacophony of noise. After getting primed, the mopping worked well and the suction isn’t bad, but I think that competitor flagship models not only navigate better but also clean better and do so with less noise. In fact, the features of this Max 705 Combo unit are merely table stakes for some competitor models. I have a robot from the competition that also rises up to traverse transitions and get up on high-pile carpets. This other robot also has a spinning brush in the front that extends out to get into corners better. Then there’s the dock - other models have the ability to drain the dirty water directly into the house drain and fill from the house water supply so you basically don’t have to touch it… at all. I do appreciate the “Live Activities” on the lock screen of my iPhone when the robot is cleaning. It even says the room that is being cleaned and what’s next. The map shows where the robot is currently working and what has been done already. Aside from the Live Activities, most competitors do this and more. Overall, this robot is great for an iRobot Roomba flagship but it lags behind the competition in features and capabilities. While this robot does have some nice material and finish choices for the robot and the dock, iRobot does need to keep up with the Jetsons a bit better. The noise also needs to be reduced quite a bit. The app needs some more features. The navigation could be a bit better. It’s nice, but others just do it better.