iRobot - Roomba 980 App-Controlled Self-Charging Robot Vacuum - Black

This thing is life changing. I have four dogs, two of which are pugs. Do you know the joke about pugs? They only shed once a year...for 365 days. When I say there is dog hair everywhere, all the time, I'm not even kidding. I can't even put the vacuum cleaner away before there's a fine layer of blonde dog hair all over my dark hardwood floors. It's maddening, but I love my dogs, so I deal with it. I *should* vacuum every day. Does that happen? That would be a resounding NO. I work, I have a life, I'm not about dragging the vacuum cleaner out every day to make sure my floors are pristeen at all times. It's much easier to only let people come in my house within an hour or so of vacuuming. I thought about buying a Roomba for a long time, and kept talking myself out of it. I mean, the price is a bit off-putting. I can think of a lot of ways to spend $900 and something to clean with is pretty far down on the priority list. But I finally broke down and did it, and holy cow...WHY DID I WAIT SO LONG??? I've owned Rosie (that's her name - after the robot on the Jetsons) for just two days, and I'd sell my children before I got rid of her. (Don't get in a twist, I wouldn't really sell my children, and they're adults now anyway, they take care of themselves.) I work from home, which, contrary to popular belief, does not mean I can spend my day doing my laundry and keeping my house immaculate and occasionally checking in at my "office" upstairs. I'm lucky if my breakfast dishes make it into the dishwasher before 6 pm. I set Rosie to clean when I come upstairs to go to work at 8 am and when I come down for lunch, I come down to clean, fur-free floors. It's a Christmas miracle in May! I was so happy, I may have laid on the floor and rolled around on it. That said, I know not everyone is as easy to please as I am. Those people are probably not owned by pugs. So for those of you who need a little more detail about why this thing is fabulous (along with some real talk about the stuff you might not love), read on. It picks up animal hair like a champ. Would I eat off my floor after it runs? Of course not. One of my dogs poops when he gets excited, so eating off my floor isn't gonna happen even if a herd of unicorns cleaned my floor. Does it miss a hair or speck of dirt here or there? Of course. But so do I when I vacuum. It's not perfect, but it's pretty close. It's quicker than you might think. I set it to run around 8 am, and by a few minutes after 9, it's cleaned my open living area (foyer, dining room, kitchen, living room). I close off two bedrooms and two bathrooms because the edges of the thick fluffy bathroom rugs do tend to make Rosie get stuck and I get this lovely notification on my phone that she needs help. Also, my chihuahua tends to grab my underwear out of the hamper and hoard them under the bed, and the last thing I need is to try to explain to customer support that Rosie is broken because she tried to eat my underwear.) It's easy to use. Even my husband can use it. Enough said. The dustbin has enough room to complete the above mentioned job without having to be emptied. I just empty it when I go downstairs for lunch, and she's ready to go again. The app is easy to use and I can see exactly where Rosie cleaned once she is done. She seems to learn as she goes, and becomes more efficient and more thorough. The only thing that I can see some people not liking is the noise. When Rosie is cleaning the hardwood floors, I can barely hear it from upstairs. It's louder when on carpet, and I can hear it upstairs, even with the door closed. This does not bother me, because it means I don't have to push a vacuum. Some people might be bothered by the noise, though. I don't recommend running this at night while you're trying to sleep. If that's your expectation, you are going to be disappointed. Don't say you weren't warned. It's not as loud as a regular vacuum cleaner, but please keep your expectations realistic...nothing that is going to pick up the fur of four dogs (which is roughly the equivalent of an entire dog on my floor every single day) is going to be silent. In conclusion, I highly recommend this product and think every dog owner (unless you own a non-shedding breed) should have one. If Roomba isn't marketing this thing to pug owners, they are doing themselves a great disservice.

My wife and I had discussed buying a robot vacuum cleaner. She was adamant against it for the house, so I decided to buy this for my home office as a Xmas present for myself. We set it up on Christmas day and within 10 minutes of operations, my wife said it would never see my home office. So we have been using it for the last 3 weeks and here are my observations: 1.) The unit lives up to its claim to not get entangled with cords and carpets. 2.) Cleaning a 1,700 sq ft single level has been taking about 5 hours; Much more time than if we were going to vacuum manually. But no one has to be there when it is vacuuming and it is not a big deal do multiple vacuuming a week keeping the house very clean (or at least the carpet). Just use the app to schedule the vacuuming to start on a work day as soon as everyone has left. When you get home the house will be clean. 3.) The bin is not really as big as required for my house. The good news its when it is filled it will return to home and post a message to the app. Empty the bin and it will continue cleaning. But once we scheduled the unit to run multiple times per week, then we found we could run the unit during the day without it stopping for a bin emptying. And besides running the unit multiple times a week makes the house look nice. 4.) The Roomba 980 has no problems with pine needles ... but remember my earlier comment about bin capacity. 5.) The battery seems to last between 1-2 hours. When the battery runs out of juice it goes back to the home station to recharge for about 50 minutes. 6.) If you have clutter on the floor it will go in seemingly random patterns. I did some testing last week and was able to verify that it really does cover all of the non-cluttered parts of the floor. But there does seem to be a slight miss in corners. 7.) One of the most interesting advantages to the Roomba is everyone knows they need to keep the clutter off the floor for best vacuuming. This human factor is really keeping the house looking clean. 8.) Disappointed that the Roomba 980 cannot get under our sofas as I saw in a couple of YouTubes. So periodically we will still need to bring out the vacuum cleaner. 9.) Addressing the elephant in the room, this unit is expensive. But at $100-200 for a cleaning service each month, I am already seeing that the unit is going to save money (even if we break down and purchase a second unit) and the house is already cleaner than when we had a cleaning lady. 10.) The unit automatically adjusts the intensity as it moves between hardwood and carpeted floors. Unfortunately, when it is going over the carpets it is as loud as a regular vacuum cleaner. So, you don't want to run it while your favorite TV series is playing...this comes back to my earlier recommendation to run it during the day. 11.) The spot cleaning feature is interesting. The Roomba 980 weighs less than our old vacuum cleaners, so it is easy to pickup the unit and drop it in the center of a mess and then engage the spot cleaning. But I have to confess we generally just grab the old vacuum cleaner (old habits) 12.) The documentation says to clean the filters and rollers regularly. After only 3 weeks of usage it is quite clear that you MUST take their recommendation seriously. If the filter gets clogged the incredible cleaning ability possible with the unit reduces. Good news it is easier to clean the Roomba 980 than any other vacuum cleaner we have owned (including the dyson). 13.) Lastly, with all the cat on the roomba videos out there I was expecting to see one of the cats try to catch a ride. The reality is they can't be bothered with the unit and generally just ignore the roomba while it is working. Now if we only can get an iRobot which can clean the bathroom and do stairs.

I did a lot of research before buying the Roomba 980. Now that I’ve been using it for a couple of months, I am happy with the choice. The programmable app via smart phone is handy, but I just as often start it manually at random convenient times, or as I’m leaving the house. I sometimes also move the dock to a particular room, shut the door, or set one of the Roomba virtual wall barriers in the doorway, and turn the robot loose on a limited mission. The ribbed rubber debris extractors, as opposed to bristled brushes, work well. I am impressed with how much dust an dirt it collects from my hardwood floors and throw rugs. (I do not have pets and can't comment on pet hair pick-up.) A big plus is its built-in safeguard against tumbling off a precipice, such as a stairway or a step down to a sunken room. Roomba has amazing “skill” and tenacity at covering all floor surfaces, even if it has to back away and approach a partially enclosed area or vertical object from different angles or directions. Sometimes it will go back and forth over a particular patch, if that area has more debris to pick up than the surrounding floor surfaces. It is also able to negotiate fairly steep thresholds in doorways, though it sometimes requires multiple attempts, and its low profile allows it to get underneath just about every piece of furniture in my home. Its ability to clean under beds is a huge plus. My unit has only gotten stranded once so far, when it ran aground along the upward-curving incline of a rocking chair rocker. After observing the problem, I now move that chair to an inaccessible location or block it off before using the Roomba. Tassels on the ends of throw rugs can give the machine a bit of a challenge, but so far it has always successfully pulled off of them and gone about its work. So far my unit has dutifully returned to its dock for recharging after each completed cleaning, and the charge easily endures long enough for it to cover the roughly 1500 sq. ft. that I typically assign it. Contrary to the impressions of some reviewers, I do not find the Roomba particularly noisy on those occasions when I am at home while it is operating. It emits a consistent mechanical whirring sound, part of which is the suction and air flow, accompanied by a high-pitched motor whine, but I personally do not find it annoying. It is certainly quieter than my ancient upright vacuum cleaner, which by contrast, reminded me of a jet engine. An advantage of the Roomba 980 is that it has two power settings and automatically shifts into a higher (and consequently louder) gear when it traverses a carpet and senses a textured surface or pile. The dust bin and filter should be cleaned frequently. The plastic bin strikes me as being a bit flimsy, and I find myself being careful when handling it and its hinged door. After several uses I applied the hose nozzle of a shop vac to the removable filter and to the opened bin, which helped extract accumulated fine dust. Wiping the inside of the bin with a microfiber dust cloth is also useful. An unfortunate aspect of the Roomba 980 is its high gloss dark metallic exterior surface, which smudges with each touch and shows exterior dust. With each use I wipe the outside of the unit with a clean soft cloth to keep it looking presentable. The 980 is an expensive piece of equipment, but at this stage of my ownership I do not regret the investment and feel that I am getting my money’s worth.

We were skeptical of an electronic vacuum, however our fears were quickly relieved. The 980 was extremely easy to set up, the only problem was waiting for a few hours for it to charge! The unit worked extremely well; even after we vacuumed it picked up 3 full bins of dust (we don't have pets). Immediately we weren't sure if we could live without it. We did read that some people felt that it was too loud. Please remember that it is still a vacuum, it isn't silent. We didn't mind the noise level at all, but it is louder when on carpet; so if you have a lot of carpet it could be distracting. The unit was mesmerizing to watch and just when you were disappointed that it wasn't going to do an area in a room (because it will travel somewhere else) it always came back and did every inch. How nice to have something to do under beds and furniture high enough for it to get under! The unit has obvious drawbacks that I'm not sure can be changed. It is a round unit so it cannot perfectly clean a corner and it obviously isn't dusting your baseboards. Despite those issues, I'm certain it is doing a better job than me and decreased my vacuuming chore time. Full disclosure is that I did return the unit. The 980 for us has 2 major issues. #1 You can set it via the app to continue vacuuming even if the bin is full, however I don't know why you would choose that option. If you set it to return to the base when the bin is full, you have 90 min. to empty the bin (it will send you a text!) in order for the unit to return to where it left off. If you don't empty it by the 90 min. limit it will start all over again doing rooms that were just done. This is a pain because we really wanted to have it vacuum while we were not home, but due to this issue it was not possible. #2 Unless you use the room blocking posts or close doors, this unit vacuums the entire level of your home. We wanted to have the unit out of the way in a spare room, but while the bedrooms don't need vacuumed every day, the kitchen surely does. This unit does not allow us to schedule specific rooms. We had the unit for 10 days and returned it due to the release of the new Roomba i7plus. This unit fixes both of our issues. It returns to its base when the bin is full and empties itself. You only have to empty the big bin (a vacuum bag) every 30 times that it empties itself and the dust will be self contained. Also, this unit remembers and maps your home which allows you to vacuum your whole home once per week, but specific rooms every day if you want. We don't have the unit yet (it will be released to stores on 9-26), but all of the reviews of the product are positive so far. Fingers crossed we will love our new Roomba!

I have owned a lot of Roombas and returned them all because they were basically dumb robots. I purchased a Neato which are very intelligent and do a great job of vacuuming , but after 3 months you start getting error codes that are all software related that Neato fails to fix but keeps pumping out new bots inspite of this, I had to return them 5 times in 8 months, not to mention they have no repair shop after warranty expires and awful customer service. I returned all those as well even though I hated to because I did love its performance and intelligence. So finally IRobot decides to implement some of the technology that the Neato and other robots started years ago, hence my 4 star rating. IRobot has great customer service, and repair after the warranty runs out, so this is the PRICE you have to pay for that, which is pretty steep. Im happy that the Roomba 980 vacuums In straight lines, remembers where its been, and recharges and leaves again to finish the job if the battery ran low during the cleaning cycle. However!!! with the Roomba set to automatically switch to high gear on carpet, it only vacuums my 1900sq ft level for 45 minutes (which is comparable to the Neato when I had it, and my carpet is in the living room only, which is about 12 x 15 medium pile thick) it does recharge and continues where it left off. BUT this is where the real disappointment comes in, it DOESNT stay in one room and move to the next like the Neato, and it DOESNT work with the lighthouses from the 800 series to keep it in one room and then move to the next. For this price I expected to have this. It does vacuum very well. But without those two features I couldn't decide if I wanted to keep it for this price. However, I am sure that IRobot will come out with an update to fix this instead of producing another Roomba that will do this. In fact, if they come out with a new Roomba that will do this at a steeper price instead of updating this 980 to do it, I will never buy another IRobot product, im tired of playing the game. So as of now I am keeping it, as it does perform very well. I have only had it 3 days so I will update if it starts throwing error codes in the next couple months.

It's better for two reasons: 1. You have the option of telling it to stop (it will return to home base) when it's bin is full. The Samsung R9350 doesn't have this feature. 2. iRobot Tech Support - is so much better than Samsung's that Samsung should be VERY embarrassed. #1 is the kicker though. If the Samsung R9350 had the "stop when bin is full" feature, we may very well have returned the Roomba 980 and got another R9350. We first bought the R9350 but returned it after about 6 days. We do have a review of the R9350 posted. The fact that it kept running after the bin was full (only a somewhat dim indicator light went on) and it couldn't map our house after 4 tries were the reason's we took it back. I could have lived with the poor Samsung tech support. Random thoughts: 1. Both bots haven't successfully mapped our house although iRobot is trying to figure out why. Their tech support is awesome! 2. The R9350 is more powerful. But that that much to make a huge difference. 3. The bigger wheels on the R9350 help it get on top if rugs better. 4. The 980 doesn't seem to have the battery life that the R9350 when it's running. The 980 required 90 minutes to recharge. It didn't seem like the R9350 took that long. It takes the 980 7+ hours to clean the house, and that's not counting a couple of small areas that it hasn't mapped. 5. The R9350, what it was able to map, is far superior to the 980 mapping. The R9350 mapping divides up the rooms and you can name them. You could pick rooms for the R9350 to go and clean. The 980 doesn't have this capability. The 980 can only clean the whole house starting from the beginning. 6. The R9350 advertises a larger bin, but the 980 holds a lot of dog and cat hair! Very happy about this! 7. The 980 is shorter which allows it to clean under beds and such. 8. I think in general the 980 gets places that the R9350 won't. 9. If you get a 980, take compressed air and blow out the paper filter. Shaking it out isn't enough. The cleaner the filter is the better the 980 cleans. 10. The 980 was $100 or so cheaper but we still bought the more expensive one first. 11. These were our first bot vac's we've ever owned. If I think of anything else I'll try to come back and edit my post.

Have tried Roomba before and its random navigation patterns were useless for large rooms. The promise of these newer, more expensive vacs was intelligent navigation. That's a joke. If ignoring hallways, areas bordering walls and going into and back out of the same doorway 10 times in 5 minutes is intelligent???? Since the thing uses cameras, you can't program it for the middle of the night and use it in darkness. You have to leave "some" light on. I kept reducing the space to vacuum down until it was just my den and it still was unable to finish without having to return to the base to re-charge. It might go over the same area 5 times and ignore a long strip of floor 3 feet away. I also noted that the very small bin is full after every use. It's often mostly "fibers" combined with some actual debris that gets tracked in each day. Upon closer inspection it seems the fibers are pulled from rugs or carpet by the rubber heads on the bottom of the vacuum. Since most of the area I use vac on is tile, I first wondered about this when I replaced a large 9x13 rug in the center of the den with a brand new one. The vacuum went over it and was full before anyone ever even walked on it. Ran it again, full again... and again... and again. My main new issue is this model "maps" your home as it vacuums. No actual use for map other than to see where it's been. What I'd not known was it then apparently uploads those maps to the iRobot company. The CEO has said in past week that he has the right to sell maps of your home's interior. If you don't want that to happen, you have to turn off some of the wifi functionality you're paying extra for. I've used this daily since I bought on July 1. About 40% of the time I have to look for it in the morning because it's not returned to the base to re-charge. Today, for example, it was just sitting in the middle of the floor with no charge left. Given the CEO casually indicating they're going to invade of your privacy and the general defects of this very expensive vacuum, it's getting returned. FYI - I have and/or have had Neato and Samsung robot vacs also. The Neato is a good bit better at navigation, thoroughness and quickness. Drawback is you have to use magnetic strips on the floor. An ugly hassle if you need to use the vacuum daily (I have dogs). The very expensive Samsung vacs do the best job at cleaning, but suffer from quality/breakdown issues that leave them bricked. Given we're expecting cars to navigate themselves soon, seems like someone could produce a robot vacuum that could minimally do a good job and let you define where to vacuum without the need for strips or towers.

I owned the Neato Botvac Connected prior to the roomba 980. The Botvac unit decided to stop functioning so I had the option of exchanging it or receiving credit. I took the credit, and purchased this unit. Its a great device to have, I like it, and it does the job if you run it on a daily basis. If you compare it to the Botvac connected the Roomba 980 has its pros and cons. Performance wise, I cannot really tell the difference between the two when it comes to house cleanliness. In my opinion they are equal to the naked eye. I prefer the Roomba's brush vs the Neatos beacuse it needs to be cleaned less. What I mean by that is human (long) hair. The Neato's brush needs to be removed once a month and the hair needs to be cut from the brush compared to the roomba, the hair only gets jammed up at the end of the cylinder. The roomba needs to be cleaned from human hair once about 2 1/2 months. I also like the active barriers that come with the roomba, vs Neatos magnetic strip. Its far more convenient to move and place in desired locations, and its not an eyesore. Granted you have to replace the batteries on occasion but mine are still going and its been 3 months. Now where the Neato beats the Roomba 980 is navigation. The neato seems to have better navigation technology. It also can work in the dark vs the Roomba 980 needs some what of a lit room due to the camera. I have came home to find the roomba stuck because it entered the bathroom which has no windows. The app functanality of the Roomba is also slightly better than Neatos, however they constantily update the apps so that may change. Overall if you do not care about the price, get the Roomba 980. If price does matter get the Neato Botvac Connected. I believe, at the time of writing this its 400 dollars cheaper. The Roomba 980 is not worth its price tag based on performance or features, the neato matches it if not outperforms the Roomba 980. However like I said, the Roomba 980 does have its pros. So if you do not care about throwing money out get the Roomba 980.