Customer Ratings & Reviews

I’ve had an older Roomba for years now, and it has worked very well. It had no “app” or intelligent capabilities, but it did a good job of keeping the house regularly vacuumed. I had to use special little electronic pylons to separate the house into sections where it could clean without the battery dying. They were also needed to fence off stairs and other areas where I didn’t want the Roomba to enter. Eventually, that Roomba’s battery stopped holding a charge and a few of its parts broke so it was going to cost me almost as much as a new one to repair it. I found this modern Roomba 105 Combo model with some nice features, so I decided to upgrade. I like the advertised features of this Roomba 105. It’s able to clean both carpet and hard flooring. It has smart floorplan mapping, as well as a dustbin collector so the onboard collection container doesn’t have to be emptied after each room. It also has an app that’s supposed to make it easier to operate. Unboxing the Roomba was simple following the quick-step guide printed on the inner packaging. It included a QR code that I scanned on my phone to download the app. I have a Galaxy Fold 6 and the app downloaded just fine, but that’s where things went wrong. The first thing the app wanted was for me to create a new or login to an existing account. There is no way to use the Roomba 105 without using the app with an account. I chose to create an account and entered my email address with a password. The app then reported that I already had an account so I needed to login with it. I guess at some time in the past, I had created an iRobot account to buy parts my old Roomba, so I tried a few usual passwords to no avail. I then told it to email me a password recovery link and then waited. After 30 minutes, there we no e-mail, so I tried again. After another 30 minutes, I still had no reset e-mail, so I decided to try creating a new account. This time I got an error that the app was unable to connect to the iRobot servers. I tried a few more times, and it finally let me create a new account – using my same old e-mail address. After that, it asked a few setup questions and then quickly connected to my new Roomba. The app prompted me to enter my W-Fi password, and then reported that Roomba was now connected to my network. I checked my router, and could see that it had been logged into Wi-Fi and assign and IP address. The app then reported that it was “connecting my Roomba to the cloud”. I let that process for about 30 minutes, and it never connected. I shutdown the app and tried to restart it, but it would just hang on the iRobot logo. I used my phone’s setup utility to clear all memory used by the app, but still no luck. I decided to delete the app and re-install it, which then worked. But then it couldn’t find the Roomba, even though I verified it was still on my network. I looked up how to factory reset the Roomba and I started over. This time, I was unable to sign into the app due to a “server unavailable” message. Having invested an hour and a half trying to get this running without results, I decided to contact iRobot support. I called, and the automated voice response system told me that my wait time would be over half an hour. I was fairly aggravated, so I put everything aside and tried again later. I was eventually able to connect to the iRobot server and get the app working. I had the Roomba begin its process of mapping my house. The downstairs level of my house where I wanted to use the Roomba is about 1,700 square feet. It’s mostly an open floorplan, except for a bedroom/bathroom suite, a dining room, and an entry hall. Only the bedroom is carpeted – everything else is either hardwood flooring or tile. The entry hall has rugs as does the kitchen and dining room. The Roomba navigated everything fairly well until it came to the hallway. The rugs there are thing and have fringe on the ends. Unfortunately, the Roomba did not go over these rugs, but pushed them along the floor. The fringe on the one rug got caught in the Roomba’s wheel and cause it to stop. The only way I would be able to use the Roomba in my house would be to remove those rugs. I assume there may be a way, once the mapping is complete, to have it avoid the hallway, but that accesses half the house. Neither option is desirable. Because of this, I am unable to use the Roomba. Overall, this Roomba 105 sounds like a great idea, but the problems I had logging into the app and with the app connecting to the Roomba to the cloud are far too frustrating given the price of this unit. In fact, I would prefer not to have to connect the Roomba to “the cloud” to use it. My previous Roomba lasted for years and worked well without an app or cloud connection. Not being able to navigate some of my rugs is really the nail in the coffin for this Roomba. I won’t be using it in my house.

If you're new to the robot vacuum game, iRobot has been upgrading and perfecting their Roomba vac series for years, with its latest machine offering the combination of powerful dirt-syphoning prowess and quality hands-free characteristics to make cleaning your floors an afterthought. At first glance, the Roomba 105 looks deceptively small considering it comes with an auto-emptying dock that collects the Roomba's dirty work after every job. Rather than housing the vacuum with a massive dock as in previous models, the small AutoEmpty dock is short and unassuming, with a simple opening that aligns with the Roomba automatically at the end of jobs and two small connector prongs that charge the vacuum when it comes in contact. The Roomba 105 itself is its usual black circle shape with almost no protruding parts except a small underside brush. Lastly, the vac comes with its mop attachment and an extra mop head for good measure. Getting to the down and dirty, the Roomba 105 startup sequence is really simple once it's out of the box and fully charged. While I'm not a fan of having to download yet another app onto my phone to control this thing, at least the the Roomba Home app is straightforward and easy to use. It provides cleaning recommendations, area maps, and automations that let you schedule cleaning routines. You can even point your vacuum to an area on the map, and the Roomba 105 will head to that location and spot clean the area. The app is also your one-stop shop to order any replacement parts or to contact iRobot for any support requests. Once it gets going, this vacuum/mop combo really does a good job. It moves seamlessly from carpeted areas to hard surfaces to rugs, automatically switching from mop to vacuum as needed. Its sensors pick up everything in front of it, so if you're like me and have kids that leave things all over the floor, you won't have to worry about the vacuum clogging up as often as you would think. My cleaning sessions did experience a few errors initially as it was populating and learning the room map and running into odd chair angles and busy corners of my living room. A big plus is the sensor catching stairway edges and unlevel door entrances - the Roomba 105 didn't have any problems cleaning in these danger zones, and I wasn't worried about finding an alert that the vacuum had fallen down the stairs or anything. Overall, the Roomba 105 does a fine job cleaning and even better job performing the duties without any oversight. A robot vacuum does have its built-in set of drawbacks. The vac is confined to one floor of your home or office, so you will either be satisfied with only one floor of hands-free cleanliness or you may need to consider alternatives for more floors. But for the floor you choose, your new Roomba 105 will be a set-and-forget automaton that keeps that area clean without the hassle of doing it yourself. That in itself makes this an easy recommendation.

Love my purchases. Use it everyday to keep the fine dust and dirt as well as the pet dust and dander at bay.

I absolutely love the roomba mop/vacuum battery life is great. Performs wonderfully no issues