Customer Ratings & Reviews

This is an entry-level Roomba robotic vacuum. It will introduce you to the wonderful world of Roomba, without breaking the bank. Roomba is on the cutting edge of automated vacuuming, and this model provides some of the benefits of the more expensive Roombas at a lower price point. The Roomba 694 is very good at it’s primary job, which is to save time by automating the vacuuming of your home. This model does that task extremely well. It is quite powerful, and does a great job of keeping my home clean. I was pleasantly surprised by how much dirt and particles it is able to suck up. This Roomba is about as loud as a cordless hand vacuum. This is not surprising because suction is created by a motor that makes noise. The more powerful the suction, the louder the noise. My dog doesn't mind it much, but she keeps her distance. Before putting it in use, it is necessary to clear obstacles and pick up loose items from its path. This is a robot vacuum not a jeep, so it can get stuck on things that get in its way. I have a two story home and it was able to completely clean my whole home with one charge. I deploy it on the second story first and then move it to the first story, where I keep the docking station, so that when finished it automatically returns to the charger. The Cliff Detect feature works and stops it before it goes off of the edge of the stairs. The App is easy to use and very functional. The Roomba and App connect via Wi-Fi, and make scheduling, controlling, and monitoring it very convenient. The App features a high degree of control and customization. Everything needed to use it is included, as well as an extra filter.

It won't even charge at all, and it's only been a few months of use.

Dumb technology. Floor must be clean of any foriegn material or gets stuck inside robot.

Despite my bad impression, this is a very nice vac. It’s a speedy dirt chaser, in comparison my current smart vac literally crawls. If I had to guess, since I didn’t actually take readings, Roomba runs at about 1 mph while my vac at roughly half its speed at .5 mph. Its design makes for an easy clean of the collection bin. Just a simple press of a button and a flip of a swing door to empty its contents. I will add that the swing door is the only area of concern as it feels quite flimsy, only time will tell how it holds. App integration is pretty straight forward. Open app > connect to vac SSID > follow prompts/passwords > done. Then just send it out on a task from the app. Either by setting schedules or clicking “clean everywhere”. It features 3 button sensors along the push bumper, a top-side central radar, and 4 drop sensors/radar along the bottom below the bumper. I can tell the lower sensors are fully operational as I see just before it crashes into a wall it slows to a slow roll and lets its push bumpers determine the object. But when it rolls under my cabinets it sees the wall up ahead but the top-side radar does not tell it to stop or slow. The upper portion of the vac hits and scrapes along the higher protruding section of the cabinet. My biggest disappointment with the vac so far, it crashes everywhere and seems to randomly just bounce where it feels like. I can’t really see a pattern. In comparison, my Neato will bump something and if it can, goes around it, if not will follow that wall then circle back, covering the adjacent area it didn't already vacuum. Roomba has that generic Chinese vacuum pattern where it will bump something then slingshot back out in a cross or zig zag pattern. Another issue, In the short time I’ve owned Roomba, I haven’t been able to watch it complete a cleaning cycle. It will just keep going around the house cleaning even if I send it home from the app or button on top of the vac. I waited a little over 1 hour 40 minutes before I lost patience and cancelled its clean cycle. With my aging Neato, the most I can recall it taking to clean the same 3-4 areas, since bedrooms are off limits to them, is roughly 1 hour 20 minutes. I’ve certainly had hiccups with it, such as it ending its clean session in the middle of the living room and then beeping asking for help finding its base. But most of those situations I can certainly blame either the small dogs blocking it or occupants not moving in time for the vac. With this particular Roomba, I can’t really find a culprit. I’ve rearranged furniture, moved area rugs, and closed room doors to make its cleaning area smaller. The result… Nothing has worked. I still find it doing some odd zig zags after bumping something. I’ve double checked to make sure everything is up to date and hope that fixed the issues. Nope same thing. On the off chance that there’s something wrong with my home setup I’m leaving it at 3 stars, seeing as so many others have gotten good results. But seeing as my other smart vac navigates my layout just fine and returns home on its own, well I just can’t recommend it.

Very easy to use and clean. I just wanted a basic vacuum because I have a pet cockatiel who is very messy. There are always seed/pellets and feathers all over. My Roomba vacuums them up and all I have to do is empty the bin and check/clean the brushes. Works better than I expected.

INITIAL IMPRESSIONS & SET-UP Having always heard that the Roomba vacs were the standard to which all others were compared to, I was looking forward to getting an iRobot. Family and friends have always talked positively of their Roomba’s, but quite honestly, the cost has always been an issue with me. With models costing upwards of $500 or more, I could not see spending that kind of cash for a robotic vacuum. With the introduction of the 694, Roomba has addressed my biggest complaint of the robotic vacuums and made a model more obtainable to many more folks. I was eager to give it a go. In a cost saving effort, Roomba has stripped this model of some very cleaver features that are on their higher end models. This model lacks the room mapping feature, it does not do boundaries, and there is no fancy dust collection built into its charging base, like their top-of-the-line model. The real question is: Are there too many features stripped out to have any good left in it? USE Initial set-up with the iRobot app and my Galaxy smartphone was not without issue. The app refused to connect to the vacuum without several attempts. With wi-fi, without wi-fi, the app would not connect to the vacuum. After a great deal of frustration and 5 or more attempts, somehow the app and robot figured each other out and it finally connected. Whew! The vacuum required a mandatory firmware update, and that update did seem to improve the functionality of the vacuum with the app. From there on out, the app and vacuum got along better and I was able to fully set up the Roomba and get it charging. The initial charge took about 2 hours to complete and then it was off. Like others and I have stated, this model doesn’t have any mapping features built-in. It really does aimlessly wonder around and clean your house. It is not a huge deal, but unlike competitors’ vacuums, you can’t really keep the Roomba from going where you don’t want it. It knows no boundaries. On the plus side, though, the vacuum does a much better job at finding its way around my house and furniture than my other robot vacuum from Shark. The Shark must be the dumbest smart vacuum I’ve seen. It has no finesse and no sense of direction. It wanders about, bumping and colliding into stuff the whole time. Granted, the Roomba will do the same, but it does figure out where things are at eventually. While it doesn’t seem too have many sensors on its left side, its right side (the side with the revolving brush) has numerous sensors. The Roomba will slow down as it approaches an obstacle and barely nudge it. Is the Roomba at the wall? No sweat. It will sense the wall and work its way along it. When it comes to a corner, it will magically guide itself around the corner and continue cleaning along the edge. Cool. Take note Shark. NEGATIVES My biggest complaint of this vacuum is its inability to clean floors with different materials. A majority of my house is hardwood, but there are several area rugs and rugs at each entry. The Roomba has no issues with the short nap rugs at the doorways, but it refuses to climb up on the heavier pile rugs. It senses an obstruction and turns away. This is not a behavior that my Shark robot vacuum exhibits. It has no issues cleaning different floor surfaces and will climb any of my rugs or carpet without issue. My second issue with the Roomba is that it only has one cleaning brush on its right side. My Shark has 2 rotating brushes, one on each side. Each pass of the Shark ultimately cleans about 50% more floor than the Roomba just because of the additional brush sweeping dirt into the middle of the vacuum. This is a far more efficient use of time. Lastly, the fact there is no real way to set boundaries is frustrating. I must keep and eye on the Roomba if I want it to clean my main living areas. If not, the robot will run off and keep going to all parts of the house without thinking otherwise. Don’t get me wrong, my Shark isn’t much smarter, but Shark includes some self-adhesive, magnetic tape you can put down on the floor to limit the travel and cleaning area of its vacuum. The only issue there is the fact that you would have to have ugly, black magnetic tape stuck to your floors all the time to limit travel while using. I don’t consider that a viable option either. CONCLUSIONS Roomba should be commended for bringing the iRobot line of vacuums down to a lower price point for the masses. The vacuum does a good job at cleaning and did not fail to remove any dirt or debris that has been on the floor while it has been running. I feel my complaints with the unit could easily be addressed by a firmware and app update. I could be wrong, but I think it is do-able. Roomba really needs to polish their Android app. It just doesn’t play nicely with the vacuum. While I’ve been able to get my vacuum set-up and updated, I still get constant communication errors with the vacuum. I get “Unable to Communicate with the vacuum at this time, please reboot to attempt to fix the issue”. The vacuum will reboot, but the same error still comes back. I also receive errors every single time I manually check for a firmware update. While there are issues with this vac and app, it is a better product than my Shark. Other family members disagree, as the Roomba refuses to clean the rugs, where the Shark does not. But, the overall operation of the vacuum itself is much more polished than my Shark. The Roomba will sense objects and slow down to mitigate the amount of force it contacts items with, and can clean its way around walls and corners. This is something my Shark vacuum only wishes it could do. I would rate the overall satisfaction a 3, but because the Roomba cleans with so much more finesse than its comparably priced competitor, I will give it a 4 star rating.

This is my third Roomba. When I first ran the new one I followed up by using my Bissell Pet Vac a few hours later. The Bissell picked up very little dog hair -- about what my dog would have shed in 2 or 3 hours. This one docks more reliably than my previous models. I wish that the filter was washable. I wish this model still had a handle like the older model I still have. The Roomba's are the only vaccums that my dog doesn't try to eat. He ignores it until he needs to step out of its path.

I am quite surprised with how this vacuum performs. It was a little tricky getting it connected to home wifi. Roomba has big enough wheels to go from hardwood to carpet with ease. We have a cat and it did a good job of pulling cat hair out of carpet however it wasn't prefect. Roomba is easy to clean and take apart. I think it even detected when it was about to run into me and stopped.

This was my first robot vacuum purchase so it was a learning experience. It picks up well, no complaints about that. It was very loud! Made a grinding noise that was loud and annoying. The app left much to be desired and didn’t offer many options. Cleaning/emptying was easy and quick. It would not climb onto higher pile rugs. I didn’t know how important mapping was to me until I tried this and it didn’t have it. I returned this and went with a Shark and I am much happier with that one.

iRobot basically pioneered the robot vacuum space, and we've always wanted to get one. Compared to our other robot vacs from other big name companies, the Roomba is significantly quieter. We keep our other robot vacuums upstairs, and the noise will cause our infant to start crying and yelling, but he doesn't mind the Roomba at all. The Roomba maps itself around our first floor very well, and doesn't miss any spots. The spinning brush even manages to catch a lot of the corners of our rooms that we'd have to manually vacuum after our other vacs swept by in the past. Can't speak about Google Assistant compatibility, but it integrated seamlessly into Alexa along with our other Alexa-enabled devices. The higher tier Roombas have an automatically emptying dust bin, that you don't have to empty as frequently, but that's ok. There's construction on new homes on both sides of our house, so a lot of dust/debris gets kicked up in the air. Roomba has been doing a great job keeping our main floor nice and clean. Can't recommend enough, from the OG of robot vacuum companies.

It’s pretty easy to use and cleans great. I was concerned at first because it says it only cleans in tight spots but it moves all around the living room

Works amazing love it! Picks up all the cat hair! Its the best i have had so far!

Cleans where it goes but proof that robots are not always smart- this thing will drive you crazy getting stuck in the same spot over and over. I unfreed it from in between the same two legs of my desk chair 4 times. it cleans well but seems to hit the same area multiple times while the battery goes dead before it hits untouched areas…….

I've always wanted a Roomba to help with keeping my place clean and I'm so glad that I finally got one. I work a pretty dirty job with long hours and always find myself tracking dirt from my boots and clothes all over my place. I also like to watch movies and enjoy snacks while i watch making crumbs and dropping chips sometimes. My Roomba 694 has tackled all the loose dirt and spilled snacks with ease. Set up was incredibly easy and quick. The iRobot app lets you control and plan cleaning times for your Roomba making cleaning up a simple and hassle free process. I really love the Roomba and absolutely recommend it for anyone that has a lot of messes or wants one less chore to worry about.

I have a different brand robot vacuum and this is the second iRobot-Roomba I've owned. First, it is a vast improvement from my old one (over 6 year old Roomba). It is very quiet, has long lasting battery (did three rooms in one charge) and it is lighter than my other brand and my old one. Easy to clean filter as with most of these. It cleans well enough not to have to pass it twice. It is a bit tricky to set up the wi-fi but not a major headache. The app is simple and straightforward to use. The best robot vacuum thus far.

Great robot vaccum. Just kind of loud but definitely gets the job done. Also wish it was a little thinner to be able to go under the couches.

It works great! I do wish it gave you a notification when full, but this is one of the cheapest models available, and it definitely does the job! One of my favorite purchases of the year!

When I first took the Roomba out of the box, and plugged it into the wall to charge, it would not. I kept getting a message, "charging error one. " After going to YouTube, I found out the battery needed to be wiped off. After unscrewing the back, removing the battery, wiping it to remove dust particles, then replacing it, my Roomba works like a dream!

This is iRobot's new entry level robot vacuum, Roomba 694. It is powerful, has sleek design, and feels premium without being heavy. It comes with the home base charging station and an additional filter. As with all iRobot vacuums, this Roomba is Wi-Fi enabled and you need to download the iRobot HOME app to personalize your cleaning preferences and control the Roomba. It features 3 stage cleaning system that keeps your carpet and hardwood floors clean. The edge-sweeping brush grabs the dirt from edges, corners, and tight spaces. It comes with advanced sensors that makes this vacuum smarter. The dirt detect sensors lets the robot know of areas that need to be cleaned more thoroughly. The navigation sensors guides the robot to navigate under furnitures and around any obstacles while the Cliff Detect sensors prevents it from falling down the stairs. The robot's cleaning head automatically detects the floor type and adjusts the brush height and power accordingly. You can control the robot using Alexa or Google voice commands, although I wish iRobot included Siri as an option too. The vacuum runs for around 90 mins and it will automatically return to the docking station for charging. Once it is fully charged, it will get back to the spot where it stopped cleaning. Overall, consider this entry level robot vacuum cleaner with awesome features for a thorough home cleaning.

So far so good, I’ve had the vacuum for a little over one month now & it still amazes me how much it picks up from the carpent, I’ve even used the wi~fi. Truly it was a good purchase & kind of a fun one too.