Customer Ratings & Reviews

The Roomba Plus 505 Combo Robot Vacuum and Mop with AutoWash Dock is a new robot vacuum and mop from iRobot. The offering is one in their new line of vacuum/mop combination robots. If you are familiar with their products, then the 505 will be in line with those. Components The 505 combo comes with the robot vacuum and the dock. The dock has two water resoviors. One for the clean water and one for the dirty water. Both are easy to access and sit on top of the dock. The robot is a little larger than some of their vacuum only robots. Setup Setup is simple and as straightforward as you would expect. Charging takes a little time. The clean water reservoir is easy to remove/insert in the dock. Use There is an app that needs to be used with the 505. The app helped me to register the 505 and get the firmware updated. In the app, I initiated a mapping of my home. The mapping didn’t take too long. Once that was done, I was able to schedule the first cleaning operation. The app also allowed me to designate space that was not automatically designated by the mapping. I was able to use that feature of the app to mark my hallways and my deigning room and kitchen. The two are essentially one large room, but due to the feature of the app to manually set boundaries for rooms, I was able to separate those to. The downside I experienced when doing that is that it takes a few minutes to do it. The app was really slow at setting the new boundaries. A plus to the app is that when I want the 505 to clean everything, I can set settings for each individual room if I want to. For instance I was able to set vacuum and mop for my hallway and set vacuum only for my carpeted living room. Putting the mop pads on the 505 is easy to do. The pads are located underneath the rear of the robot. The robot can extend one pad out a little to edge while mopping. This designed worked ok for the most part. Whether vacuuming or mopping, the robot doesn’t get up as close to edges of baseboards and other things as I would like for it to have. It is better than my 600 series iRobot vacuum though. The 505 did brush up against a few things, but it didn’t do that often. With the camera helping it, it doesn’t bump into things like my earlier model which bumped into everything. As expected, the 505 fills with clean water when it needs to and empties dirty water when it needs to during a cleaning operation. It will also return to the base when it needs to charge or clean the robots dust bin. As one would expect, I only have to set settings for an operation and schedule it. I don’t have to do anything else except make sure the clean water reservoir is filled and the dirty water reservoir is emptied. The 505’s motors are quieter than my previous model. I like that as my previous model was somewhat loud. Final Thoughts The 505 is a good offering from iRobot. They have improved over the previous models. The vacuum and mop combination is helpful to me. I can now stop using the slow cumbersome robot mop I was using. There are only two things I would like to see improved. One, I would like to see the app not be so slow when marking rooms. Two, I would like it to do just a little better at edging when mopping and vacuuming. Three, the latches for the lids on the water reservoirs could have been made a little better. Time will tell if the cheap lid latch design will be a problem. It’s not as if I will be opening the lids each day, but still, iRobot could do a little better with that. None of these three things are a show stopper type of problem, but it’s something to be aware of. If you are wanting to get a robot vacuum/mop combination system. iRobot’s Roomba Plus 505 combo robot vacuum and mop with auto wash dock is and option. iRobot is a brand that most know and they have been doing this for a long time. Quality is good, vacuum and mop capability is good, and the app is good. Not perfect, but two of the three things mentioned above can be addressed by firmware updates and app updates.

I’ve been a big fan of Roomba for years and have steadily upgraded as the technology got better. When I had the opportunity to grab this new model I absolutely jumped at it! There are many things this one does well compared to my last one. The first thing being that it’s a pretty excellent mop! When I saw the waste water after the first time it cleaned I was impressed and a little embarrassed. I’m kind of astonished at how great a job it does given it’s just two small mop pads, but it’s definitely the star of the show. The area where I still struggle with usefulness is the ability to effectively pick up pet hair. It certainly tries its might, but I end up with various patches of pet hair ‘tumbleweed’ around the cleaning area. This after I’d already used my more powerful vacuum to pick up the majority of it. It’s an easy fix to go around quickly and suck up the patches with another vacuum, but I’d really like to get to a point where Roomba can handle the complete job. All things considered, it’s super easy to set up - has very, very detailed voice prompts when it’s doing something (or runs into an issue) and considering it’s still much better than the last one i had, I’d definitely recommend it.

I have been using my Roomba Plus 505 Vac and Mop and simply put, Love it. Over the years I have had different iRobot robot vacuum cleaners and even though they were and are great products, they simply were behind the curve, always trying to catch up and I think they have finally caught up with this new Roomba. So, lets go over what Rooma Plus 505 Vacuum + Mop with the Autowash Dock has to offer. Setup: The setup process for the robot was simple enough. Took everything out of the box, put everything together and download the “Roomba Home” app. So, this robot does not use the traditional “iRobot” app. This is where I ran into a bit of an issue. It took me about 5 tries to get the app to register the robot and once the robot was registered, I was finally able to start the mapping process. The mapping was completed without any issues and in about 10 minutes, Cleaning: This is where this robot shines. I absolutely love how amazing of a cleaning job this robot does. It offers great suction, picking up every little crumb and dirt in the house and getting close to the wall and corners without bumping into the walls and leaving scuff marks. The mop pad also extends out cleaning close to the walls and corners and empties itself out when needed and washes the pads depending on your settings, leaving your floors spotless. The robot offers multiple cleaning modes, such as Smart, Light, Normal and Deep Clean. There is a clean and dirty water tank on top, and since I have it set to clean every night last about 3 to 4 days on average and a dust bag which is supposed to last up to 75 days. The robot features a built -in light in the front which automatically turns on and off depending on lighting in the area. It also features an auto lifting mop pads so not to drag dirty mop pads all over your area rugs. Once all the cleaning is done, the robot will return to wash and dry the mop pads, so you always have a fresh mop pad every time. App: I am not a fan of the new “Roomba Home” app. In my opinion, the app is not very user friendly, I ran into issues first with the connection and secondly with the automation. For some reason it would not let me set up a schedule and would not save it and finally one day it just decided to save on its own, weird!! But it is working now. Also, you if you have older iRobot robot vacuum cleaners, they will not work with he new app, so you will have to use the old app, don’t know why they decided to go that route, but it’s just a hassle to switch between 2 different apps just to manage your robots. Hopefully, iRobot can look into this and fix these issues with an update in the near future. Overall, this is a great robot for keeping you home clean, that requires little human interaction, when the app wants to cooperate. If you are in the market, I would recommend that you check out the new Roomba Plus 505 Vacuum and Mop with the Autowash Dock.

I had a few weeks to not only test this vacuum but I use it as my primary cleaning tool in my home. It has a compact size footprint that does a good job of blending into the background so that it does not standout or look tacky. SETUP The connection setup was pretty easy, the app connects to your wifi and then guides you step by step. The vacuum just needs to have the stickers and safety cushions removed, attach a brush and fill the water tanks. I do wish it came with some cleaning solution but it did not. Overall the setup process took about 15 minutes and it was painless. CLEANING I have two reactions to the vacuum aspect and the mop feature. The MOP feature does a really good job cleaning the floors, the circular motion of the dual cleaning pads makes for a visibly cleaning process...you can see the brushes rotating, plenty of water to get any hard stain out and the vacuum feature sucking up the excess. It's really satisfying to watch clean because it is the one machine I have tried that actually looks like it's mopping not just dragging a wet rag behind it. VACUUM- this feature was good but not as great as the mopping feature, it did a great job with suction and picking up dirt but it left a little to be desired when it came to edge cleaning. There was small debris left behind near the edge of the walls and furniture. I went behind with my stick vacuum to just clean the outline of the room. APP The app is pretty much standard when it comes to scheduling and mapping the floor layout. Where it stands out is the versatility when customizing the type of cleaning per room, suction, mop or vacuum or both. It lets you do a light vacuum in a gently trafficed area and lets you go FULL cleaning cycle in a room with heavy use. BONUS FEATURE The self heating drying pads is a big plus, I used to wash the pads and dry them because if you did not you would get a funky smell. You still have to wash and dry them but you can go much longer period of time and let the cleaning station and vacuum do it's thing with minimal attention. GREAT PRODUCT! I have lightly clean vacuum 2x a week and mop once a week. The floors look good and the motor isn't too loud, enough so that my dog doesn't run for the hills when it's cleaning.

Overall I’m happy with the Roomba 505. As a vacuum/mop combo it’s very well suited to my mostly hardwood main floor. The navigation and cleaning is very good, but it still can get tripped up on things like light floor mats and cords and mopping and vacuuming does take a while with frequent return trips to the home base. It does its job well for the most part though with minimal interference required on my part. In the box is the robot, the dock, and an extra set of mop pads and a dirt bag in addition to the ones already installed. According to the manual, the dock requires a spot with 1.5ft of open space on either side and 4ft of open space in front of it. It also should not be in direct sunlight. I did have to make some minor rearrangements to our living room to create this spot and I suspect most people will need to do the same. The dock with the robot is about 14 inches wide, 17.5 inches deep, and 18.5 inches tall. The dock contains the auto-emptying dust bin and the clean and dirty water for the mop pads. The water tanks lift off easily and latch shut in a way that makes it difficult for them to come open by accident and they can be carried over to the sink to be filled and emptied. Both tanks have a dark tint to them, but the dirty water tank is even darker so you don’t have to look at it. The textured panel on the front of the dock lifts off to reveal the dirt bag, which can be slid out and thrown away when it’s full. There’s also a spot for the additional dirt bag that shipped with it to stay. On the backside of the textured front panel is also a cleaning brush, which I honestly would never have found if I hadn’t noticed the manual mentioned it was supposed to be included. The power cord connects at the back of the dock and is about 6ft long and there’s some cable management in the back of the dock to take up any excess length. The robot has a variety of sensors for detecting its environment, as well as a camera upfront and LiDAR up top. The bottom has the main brush roller, a single edge sweeping brush, and 2 mop pods. The top has a textured panel similar to the one on the dock that can be lifted up to reveal the dust bin and filter. The dust bin doesn’t appear particularly large and its size isn’t specified anywhere; I assume it’s around 0.5L similar to previous models. I’d say the overall build quality is good. It’s plastic pretty much throughout, but everything comes together and apart as it should and I didn’t find any deficiencies with the design. I will say simply from an aesthetic point of view, it doesn’t ‘feel’ like it’s a $1000 vacuum, but that’s a very subjective opinion. Getting the robot setup through the Roomba Home app wasn’t too bad. This is a different app than what the i3 I already have uses, which is kind of annoying that both vacuums cannot be managed in the same app. After assembling it and plugging it in, I was able to get it connected and updated in the span of about 30 minutes, with most of that time spent waiting on an update to process. After that, the first order of business is mapping out your space. My main floor consists of our living room, dining room, kitchen, 3 bedrooms, and 2 bathrooms. I was surprised at how quickly the robot was able to make its way around and it did not have to cover much of the floor at all in order for its sensors to see everything. This initial mapping process took around 20-25 minutes and after that I was presented with a map of my floor with some automatic room segmentation. It did a pretty good job of separating the rooms and even named a couple of them, but I did have to go in and give names to the rooms it didn’t identify and will likely do some further segmentation myself to break up the living, dining, and kitchen areas. You can also add furniture to the map as well and I’m not exactly sure what the purpose of that is and the placement/sizing seems limited. Once the initial setup is done you can setup lots of routines in the apps for cleaning particular spaces, whether or not to use vacuum only, mop only, or both, and other things. There’s a fair bit of automation and scheduling there. For cleaning, as I do with every other robot vacuum I’ve owned, I tried to prep my space for the robot to do its work. I picked up loose dog toys, clothes, pillows, etc. and put them all up to give it as much space to clean as possible and then I started the job in smart mode, which utilizes both the vacuum and the mop and engages them based on the surfaces it detects. The pathing was interesting to watch, and for my home it seemed to start with an outside-in approach for the first few passes in my living room before focusing in on other areas. The movement of the robot has this kind of shuffling motion, which as I understand is supposed to help with maximizing the cleaning by coming at the floor from different angles. The mop pads sit at the rear of the robot and can reach out a little as needed to get into corners and crevices. It kind of reminds me of a person reaching their leg out to get a scuff off the floor. The vacuuming performance seemed good and I saw most of the debris on my hardwood get sucked up no problem. My living room has a medium pile rug that when the robot moved up on top of it raised its mops to prevent them from getting the rug wet. The auto detection for this worked well, though it seemed to struggle a little bit in the tight spaces where it had to straddle the rug and the hardwood. Even with the mops touching the rug though they didn’t get anything overly wet. The robot doesn’t have a water tank and the mops are made wet by the dock and the robot returns at semi-regular intervals to get clean and re-wet the mops, so they start at wet and get drier as they go along. It did a great job of navigating and got itself in and out of spaces I wouldn’t have expected it to make it to, though there were a few moments with hanging cords that we had to pull out of the way and a light floor mat near our back deck that it tipped the corner up on and proceeded to tangle itself in. I think with just about any robot vacuum though there’s a certain treatment that you need to give to your space like pinning up loose cables, securing mats, etc. to make sure it’s running optimally. It did need to go back and charge once during its cleaning and resumed later. Overall, the first mop/clean run on just my living room area took about 3 hours and I was happy with the job it did and feel it could keep me floors clean as long as I’m running it at regular intervals. While running, I’d consider the robot to be pretty quiet; you can definitely watch TV while it’s running. When it goes to empty its dustbin in the dock it does get loud for a moment, but it doesn’t take more than a few seconds for the auto-empty to complete. I’d say the Roomba 505 is a good vacuum/mop combo. It’s not perfect, but it handles itself well most of the time. There’s a lot of competition in the robot vacuum space though and a lot of the Roomba competitors have met or even exceeded them in terms of features and capabilities over the past several years. It feels like the Roomba 505 is playing catch up a little bit in this regard, but I’d still recommend it based on my experience with it.

Tl;dr: Roomba’s latest vacuum is a nod to those households which mix hard floors and rugs. It has two scrubbing pads which wash down hard surfaces using a refillable water reservoir. It’s less efficient than cleaning with traditional tools, but can do its things when you’re not around. One of the standout features was the speed at which it mapped the entire cleaning area. It swiftly created a comprehensive map, which is crucial for efficient navigation. Its object avoidance capabilities were impressive. The robot navigated around obstacles, seamlessly integrating furniture into its mapped environment. The map reflected separate, distinct rooms out of large areas to make it easier to manage the cleaning schedule. Additional refinement can be added by adding lines to the map. In terms of performance, the vacuum did a good job picking up dirt, as well as the cat hair which had been floating in a number of places. There were no tangles or wet hair gumming up the cleaning pads. Overall, the Rooba was effective at reducing dirt and making the areas feel more comfortable. Robots do not move as fast as humans. Cleaning the living room alone took the robot about an hour. With a broom and Swiffer, this takes me about 15 minutes. However, the robot can do it’s cleaning while I’m at work and the cat is napping. All said, it ultimately saves me time as long as I set it to clean different rooms on different days. The Roomba won’t fit under my chairs, so they have to be moved on the days it’s cleaning the dining room. A point to consider is the requirement for proprietary cleaner. While this is a minor inconvenience, it does leave the room a little less clean than when I use the Swiffer. It’s likely that a no-rise formula would work in place of plain water, but Roomba doesn’t warranty that option. As much as they’re charging for the robot, they don’t need to be greedy and make us shell out for supplies as well. That’s the main reason to take off a star.

Going to be fully transparent here. I've purchased and used a ton of robot vacuum's over the years. This isn't my first rodeo and it for sure won't be my last. I was honestly quite excited to see a LiDAR based navigation system on a Roomba product. Previous Roomba's deployed a mixture of optical floor and or cameras to predict and determine where to go. This specific 505 uses a LiDAR + camera. Opposed to optical + camera. My previous Roomba's include a 960 (camera + optical), i3 (Optical), and the more recent j9 (camera + optical). I've also used a few competitor LiDAR bots, one in which I still keep around, but more on that later. UNBOXING AND SETUP: Unboxing was pretty straight forward. Base is a lot bigger than my previous i3 and j9 robots due to the large water reservoirs. Pretty easy to setup and get running. Requires APP setup and firmware update and then charging the unit. Battery had around 60% charge from factory. The 505 Requires a newer Roomba home app relative to legacy models. BUILD QUALITY: It's okay. Doesn't stand out, but it also isn't exactly terrible. Just decent. The two large tanks seem pretty "cheap" in regards to having a plastic latch that just has to be forced down.. I think they could have really done a better job here. With that said, I've noticed a significant downgrade from the 960/980 and "I" series generations.. IE: iRobot started removing things like cliff sensors (7/9 series) and started making the dust bins cheaper.. The dustbin in this specific robot is smaller than both my Legacy i3 and j9. So it's just average for a better lack of terms, even compared to entry robots 1/3rd the cost. PROS: - Large mops. Does a very good job and getting deep stains out in small areas like kitchens. - Navigation is significantly better than the j9 and previous Roomba's before it. - Crisscross LiDAR patterning. Goes over areas twice in default mode when vacuuming. - Has very modern features like mop drying CONS: - Mopping tends to run out of water in larger areas. This is due to having no internal tank to keep it topped off or produce continuous flow. Seems counterproductive for something that's suppose to have emphasis on mopping. This indirectly causes obvious water streaks at the beginning of run and seems very dry after it's been running for a while. -Vacuuming and or deep cleaning carpeted areas is honestly terrible. The 960 from 2016, The i3 from 2020 and the J9 from late 2023 all do a better job. In fact, I think the i3 has the best overall performance on a specific black rug that I have in my living room. The 505 is also worse than a competitor single roller LiDAR robot from 2019, so I assume it's just a combination of removing the extra roller and less overall suction power vs my legacy robots. -Battery drains fast in conjunction with mopping and vacuuming large rooms. A whole house run at ~1800 SQ FT requires multiple runs. Relatively, the original battery in my competitor robot model from 2019 can still finish the entire home when set to normal power. -Legacy parts like side brush are completely new.. That means if you have older Roomba accessories in supply, it's not going to work with this newer model. Brushes, roller, and filter are a completely new design. -Will mop dry in the middle of a room cleaning run. Takes around an hour to get back and running. OVERALL: I do like the general design and move to LiDAR but I think iRobot has to go back to the drawing board. The Navigation improvement is well welcomed coming from a slower VSLAM optical and camera system, but at the same time, the job this product is suppose to do has been downgrade from my perspective and experience with other robot vacuums, even those 5 years older. The best analogy I can give is comparing it to the Roomba i3. It had a stronger auto empty bin, and better overall performance than my other Roomba's in my specific environment, but it was slow and dumb in regards to navigation. It's like they traded off the best parts of what "made a Roomba" only to be an average LiDAR robot in a sea of competitor options. I'm actually very disappointed with this, especially on a scale of relative value. The competitor LiDAR robot that I keep around is still VERY good despite being a single roller model from 5+ years ago. It can deep clean my black rug and is comparable to the legacy i3 that I unironically praise for being a good deep cleaner. Yes, I have to manually dump the bin on my other LiDAR bot, but it does per room cleaning quick and fast.. With the Roomba 505, I find it takes a long time to clean and more or less just leave streaks when it should have an optimal emphasis on mopping. If you've made this far, I cannot recommend the 505. It has well improved navigation coming from last gen flagship Roomba's, but it's just an average robot that doesn't excel in any specific area.

Started with the j9 model was so so webt to the 10 model better but not by much now been using the Combo 505 Plus for 3 weeks daily and it is awesome even in our kitchen our most dirty greasy room it does a great job. We actually stop our old fashion vacuuning and mopping and just have our Roomba do the dirty work. Great product

The app was easy and intuitive to use. Had zero issues mapping hardwood floors. Make sure to use the Roomba Home App. It was a little confusing over which app to use as there is an old app. The vacuum/mopping function works as advertised however I would strongly suggest sweeping a mopping before hand and use the roomba for daily maintenance. Obsticle avoidance is great, The mopping function works as advertised. The robot will need daily maintenance especially if there are long hairs.

Roomba was easy to setup and maintain. We are also very impressed with cleaning as it mop the foors

Best vacuum robot we have owned. It cleans the house pretty well. It ain’t perfect but it helps keep the house clean while working and taking care of kids, this has been a great little helper. It is a bit loud but the trade off from what I see is nicely clean carpet. I set it to clean while house is empty and I come home to a clean house that way I don’t hear the noise

Its really loud and the IRobot Classic app is terrible. The Refreshed one is okay but it has next to no settings for the Robot. Coming from a RoboRock S8 Ultra its definitely worse for everything that isnt actually cleaning. It cleans like a beast but its again really loud and the software is bad.

The Roomba Combo 505 Plus with AutoWash Dock has been a big help around the house. It vacuums and mops well—my tile floors look spotless, and it handles pet hair with no problem. The AutoWash Dock is super convenient since it cleans the mop pad and empties the dustbin automatically. The only drawback is that it’s a little slow when mopping, so cleaning can take a while. Still, it’s easy to use, low-maintenance, and leaves the house feeling cleaner every day. Definitely recommend if you want a hands-off solution.

Best product for the home when it comes to cleaning. I have pets and children and it took away the headache of cleaning all the time.

I have porcelain floors and was initially worried they wouldn’t look shiny after cleaning, since I read online that porcelain doesn’t shine easily. Thankfully, I decided to buy the Roomba anyway—and I couldn’t be happier! My floors look spotless and beautifully shiny. Every time I come home from work, I’m greeted by a floor that looks absolutely spectacular.

The Roomba 505 Plus is a powerful robot vacuum and mop that cleans floors thoroughly with strong suction and smart navigation. Its self-emptying and self-cleaning dock makes it super convenient, saving time and effort for busy homes.

Takes forever to setup. Even when set up can't map the whole house. Very frustrating. The part that it IS cleaning around the house works great.

Works absolutely wonderfully!! Does a very good job at cleaning

Ive been an Irobot user for about six years. I wanted a robot that could replace both my vacuum and mop robots. I had been resewrching this model for exactly that. I almost didnt putchase because of all of the negative reviews. Im glad i disnt let tye negative people sway my purchase. This was the best investment ever. I couldnt be happier.

it is easy to use, But you need to clean up the hair or other things stuck in it frequently