Customer Ratings & Reviews

I'll preface by saying I have a one bedroom apartment that's roughly 600 square feet with not very much open space. However, this Roomba has done a great job so far. Unboxing: The Roomba 694 includes the charging base, robot, and one additional filter. There is one filter inside the robot already. The charging base is small and takes up minimal space while also efficiently charging. Upon opening the box, you need to pull out the plastic tab and then place on your charger. The charger will like up green and the battery indicator will show an amber light until fully charged. The indicator lights only light up for one minute and then turn off to conserve power, but rest assured your Roomba is charging. App pairing/experience: Once your robot is charged, download the iRobot app on your phone to start the setup. The setup is fairly easy in general, but I had issues the first attempt. I had gotten all the way through the setup until it tried to connect to wifi and was stuck for about 20 minutes before I exited the setup. After this I had to go through the entire setup again, which was a bit frustrating, but after the second time it paired successfully so I could use the app. Once you're connected you can easily access your robot through the app. From the app, you can either start your robot or also schedule cleanings even if you're not at home. You can also change your settings to limit the time of cleanings. There is also a history tab that will show your previous cleanings and stats. One great feature is that it's compatible with Google home. I was easily able to pair my robot to my Google home mini so I can simply ask my Google to start the Roomba and it will begin cleaning. Cleaning: You can either start your Roomba from your app, home assistant, or simply press the clean button on top to begin. The Roomba backs out and begins making its rounds. One feature that's been amazing is that it cleans under my bed in places I cannot reach. My cats often lie under the bed so it has picked up TONS of cat hair and crumbs from my son. It can navigate easily out from under the bed and into the living room. I have limited space and a lot of furniture, since my apartment is quite small, there are a lot of road blocks. However, the robot does a great job of detecting these areas and moving onto areas it can clean in. Mine has only gotten stuck twice and it was due to a phone cord and cat toy that got trapped in the brush roll. If your Roomba is stuck, the app will notify you. Once you've figured out the problem, it will restart cleaning with ease. A great feature for me is that once it's completed its cycle, it will navigate itself back to the dock to begin charging again. Issues: As mentioned before, even with a fairly closed off space, my robot has only gotten stuck twice due to items on the floor. One other time it got itself trapped in a corner for a few minutes but was able to navigate itself out after a few minutes. This vacuum will work best for people that have a more open floor plan, but it has actually done really well even in a small apartment. Filter Cleaning: To empty the filter, simply push the button to release and empty. I empty my filter after every clean because it is usually fairly full. If desired you can run through water and air dry. Overall, I've really enjoyed my new Roomba. It has been amazing for picking up cat hair as well as picking up crumbs and messes from my four year old son. I feel that it helps immensely during allergy season by minimizing the amount of cat hair and dander on my floors. This vacuum is a huge time saver that helps me avoid having to manually vacuum every day to keep my floors clean. It does have some small issues, but overall the benefits and convenience make it worth it.

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

After years of hearing how good the robot vacuums were I got the Roomba 694 wifi connected robot vacuum by iRobot in charcoal grey. Mainly because after multiple surgeries it’s a bit harder for me to spend a lot of time on my feet so I thought this would be good for the in between times. It does not have the mapping technology so it just bumps into things and turns itself to go a different way. Sometimes it gets all areas if I let it run as long as it wants other times it misses some areas and redoes the same area repeatedly. This is a bit annoying as I have to go through and see what it did each time to know if I need to do that area. The areas is does vacuum seem to be done well and it does pull a lot of debris and pet hair up. The container is a bit small and doesn’t seem to tell you when it’s full so I find myself having to check it frequently to keep it from being so full it won’t pick up more. The size given the overall size of the unit would be hard to improve however I think they could improve it by giving an indicator that the debris container is full. Setup is very easy and straight forward. I had it up and running in a matter of minutes after letting it do the recommended initial charge. It also gives the option of setting a schedule so you can basically set it and forget it. The app also shows how long it ran and if it had any “dirt events” where it detected a heavy amount of dirt and did an extra job cleaning there. It moves smoothly from the carpet areas to the hard floor areas. It doesn’t seem to have any issues with throw rugs or mats. The only time it did was on my kitchen mat that goes under the cabinet so it got wedged in there. Overall this isn’t a bad vacuum but I wouldn’t mind seeing some improvements.

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.

Good robotic vac for a reasonable price. I've been looking at robotic vacs for awhile now but couldn't see paying the high prices that most seem to have. This one is much more affordable so I decided to give it a try. Roombas seem to have a good reputation and better reviews than most. Don't get rid of your old vac though as this is only for floors. I like to use my old vac for dusting, cobwebs, stairs, the car, etc. Also there may be some small areas that the roomba might miss though it is pretty thorough. It definitely makes cleaning easier and cleans well. Has dual brushes which seem powerful. One conventional bristle brush and one with solid rubber ribs. Good suction too maybe better than my old manual vac. The third brush is designed to get into corners and it does that well too. Much quieter than my old manual vacuum. I have one cat (who sheds a lot in warm weather) and she used to hate it when I would vacuum. She doesn't seem to mind so much when this one is running and almost seems to think it might be a toy for her. I kind of enjoy watching it too. You do need to clear up clutter off the floor to allow it to get around better. Also watch out for electrical cords which it could get hung up on (possibly pulling down objects connected to them though that hasn't happened to me). Seems gentle on obstacles including furniture, woodwork, etc. with a sensitive bumper to detect them. Good app lets you set a schedule, timer, start/stop, return to base. Also lets you start it when you're not home. Finds the base (charger) pretty well, though I found it's better to locate it near the center of the house so it can find it easier from anywhere. Supposed to detect stairways to prevent it from falling down them but I can't really confirm this since my house is only one level. If you have an upstairs you may want to consider getting another for your second floor. I do have a basement but usually keep the door shut.

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.

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.

Honestly one of the greatest purchase i’ve ever made. Specially when you work 6+ days a week and have no time to sweep around the house, this vacuum does it for you all you gotta do is turn it on. This is a MUST.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

I’ve had the Roomba 694 for a week now. I’ve had the Roomba clean every day throughout the week to get a good idea of what it can do. Positives: It cleans. I emptied the dust bin after every run and there’s dirt being picked up each time. Negatives: It seems to get lost every run. It’s literally cleaning while bouncing off the walls. I turned it on today so I could it again before posting the review. The Roomba found the kitchen for the first time this week. It stayed in the kitchen for about 20 minutes and completed four rotations inside the kitchen. At this point, I paused it on the app and made it go back to the base. I then watched the Roomba take about 20-25 to find its way out of the kitchen and back to the base. At one point, the Roomba simply had to make a left turn to get back to the base and re-charge. Instead, it turned right and went around the room for 10 minutes before it found the base. Gets stuck. During today’s run, the Roomba went onto a landing section of hardwood near the front door. It could not transition itself to run on the carpeted area in a straight light. After several times, it turned itself at a 45-degree angle and was able to get into the carpet. I saw the Roomba transition from the hardwood to the carpet with no issues earlier in the week. Never finishes the job. I understand it’s an entry level Roomba, but some type of mapping would make this a lot better. Once realizing the Roomba went over the same area several times, I thought to myself “when will it knows it’s done cleaning?”. When the Roomba went back to recharge on its own, the app says the cleaning is cancelled, but I didn’t cancel it. So, if you’re looking for a starter Roomba and have a small open area, but this a good place to start. If you have a large cleaning area and/or lots of furniture, this Roomba may not be best for you. All that being said, I see the value and the Roomba does work.

The unit offers good price performance. When learning of the sale, I immediately referred iRobot to 3 people, who also purchased the product. I use these 2 units in low tech mode of operation with NO WiFi connection, and NO phone application. They seem simpler than newer models, work well, and play nicely with my WiFi-enabled iRobots. I wish I could program the time and vacuum schedule on the actual smart device as done with the prior generation.

Works better than I expected, easy to set up and maintain, great deal for the $$. I watch TV while the Roomba does the work. Ohh yeah.

Bangs into everything and is super loud. It loudly runs into walls and doors. It's like the sensor doesn't work right. Gets "stuck on a cliff" on an average bathroom rug. App is glitchy I miss my Eufy that had a remote so you could drive it to/out of certain areas, if needed

Works well but is a little noisy. Worth the money.

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…….

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