Customer Ratings & Reviews

This is honestly the best robot I’ve ever had. It’s actually my second one, I keep one in the living room, which is on a lower level, and the other takes care of the kitchen, bedrooms and hallway. It’s low maintenance and it’s great, once you set it up, you can basically forget about it for days. The auto-cleaning and self-emptying functions are a game changer, no need to constantly change the mop or add water. It just takes care of everything on its own. I leave the house for work, and when I come back, the floors are spotless. It picks up all the dog hair (I have a Golden retriever, so imagine the challenges) dust, and even gets under the furniture without getting stuck. Honestly, this thing is worth every penny.

Very thorough cleaning with vacuum and mopping, love that it does multiple passes, and everyone has noticed how nice it looks in my living room. Would buy it again in a heartbeat as it's so much better cleaning than my old rock.

I have had an iRobot for several years that only vacuumed to my floors when I saw this new model I was excited to purchase it because I have all ceramic tile floors. Unfortunately, the machine did not stand up to my expectations after several hours on the phone with iRobot and they were not able to fix it. They sent me a new one unfortunately the new one I got had a totally different problem than the first one I got l so there was several more hours on the phone with Tech Support for them to tell me they’re gonna send out a part for me to install I’ve had this iRobot for roughly 5 weeks now and has yet cleaned my floors I will only hope that I received this part and it fixes my problem and I will have no problem changing this review although the Service I received from iRobot has been unacceptable. A few of the people I spoke to were extremely rude and did not follow up with what they told me they were going to do

Highlights: * Easy to set up * Simple app with good features * Roller mop is much better than spinning discs * Mop guard keep carpets dry * Good suction * Attractive materials and finishes Room for improvement: * Noisy when operating * Large base station * Missing some features that competitor flagship models have * Initial setup was a tad rocky iRobot was a pioneer in vacuum robots years ago. The technology has improved not only in navigation but also in cleaning performance. What remains the same is that the value of these robots is in how well they navigate your home and keep your floors clean. This Roomba Max 705 Combo is the current flagship model from iRobot. It not only has a camera for obstacle avoidance but also a sleek embedded Lidar for navigation without needing a turret on top. The allows the robot to have a lower overall height and fit under more furniture better. This unit vacuums and mops, and its base station not only empties the robot’s dustbin but also has large tanks to store fresh and dirty mopping water that it transfers to/from the robot when docked. Setup: The basic hardware setup is typical. he packaging was labeled very well and nothing was confusing. You unpack things, connect and install anything that ships in accessory boxes, and then place the base station where you’d like to keep it. You’ll periodically need to replace the dust bag, empty the dirty water and refill the clean water, so best to place the unit where you can easily access these things in the dock. Once everything is connected, plugged in and charged up, the next step is to add it to the free app and let it map your home. App setup was super easy and the app found my Roomba quickly and easily got it set up on my home’s WiFi. After a brief firmware update, next was allowing it to wander my home and figure out where to clean by creating the initial map of my home. This was a little tricky during my setup. The app got a bit confused and it just didn’t want to do the mapping run complaining that it needed “assistance” without telling me what it needed help with. I finally coaxed it into doing its job and map creation went quickly. I was a bit surprised that it immediately decided to start a cleaning job right after map creation without letting me adjust the map, but that’s OK. Once it was done and returned back to the dock to empty its bin, clean the mop, etc…. I went into the app to see what it created for a map of my home. The map wasn’t perfect but it was a great start. I was easily able to separate rooms that got joined, join rooms that shouldn’t be separated, create a no-go zone for areas that frequently have obstacles and name everything for easier reference later. Usage: The first few runs of the mopping left me a bit underwhelmed. The mop wasn’t yet primed and it left streaks on my tile floors. Fortunately this improved over the next few jobs and the mop started doing a great job. What didn’t improve, though, is how much motor noise this unit has. The whirring and grinding while cleaning is so noticeable that even when the robot speaks notifications of what’s going, I can’t easily hear them over the motors. The mop rotates and slides out to clean edges. There is guard that prevents the wet mop from moistening your carpets which is great. There are two “whiskers” in the front that spin to push loose dirt toward the “mouth” for suction. There’s the main drive motors and finally the vacuum itself. All of these motors make a considerable cacophony of noise. After getting primed, the mopping worked well and the suction isn’t bad, but I think that competitor flagship models not only navigate better but also clean better and do so with less noise. In fact, the features of this Max 705 Combo unit are merely table stakes for some competitor models. I have a robot from the competition that also rises up to traverse transitions and get up on high-pile carpets. This other robot also has a spinning brush in the front that extends out to get into corners better. Then there’s the dock - other models have the ability to drain the dirty water directly into the house drain and fill from the house water supply so you basically don’t have to touch it… at all. I do appreciate the “Live Activities” on the lock screen of my iPhone when the robot is cleaning. It even says the room that is being cleaned and what’s next. The map shows where the robot is currently working and what has been done already. Aside from the Live Activities, most competitors do this and more. Overall, this robot is great for an iRobot Roomba flagship but it lags behind the competition in features and capabilities. While this robot does have some nice material and finish choices for the robot and the dock, iRobot does need to keep up with the Jetsons a bit better. The noise also needs to be reduced quite a bit. The app needs some more features. The navigation could be a bit better. It’s nice, but others just do it better.

I have tested several “mopping” vacuums, from varying manufacturers over the last few years – including iRobot J5, and all of them were a tad painful to use to the point I kind of gave of on the mopping. But this unit addresses everything I didn’t like about previous products I had tried. Unpacking was easy – just plugged in (large) base, filled water container, removed some packing on robot itself and set in base. I already had the iRobot app installed on phone for use with prior I6 and J5 vacuums, but starting early 2025 (?) there is a new app - Roomba Home - that must be used/installed. App walks you through adding the vacuum and Wi-Fi network (even connected to my 2.4, 5 & 6 GHz combined node). It comes with an extra set of side brushes and filter. Mapping my 3100 sq ft ranch took around 30 minutes to complete. I did pick up a few things and made sure doors were open, etc., before starting. The mapping was maybe 70% correct – but editing was easy to do adding/combining/renaming rooms was easy although the map orientation was 180% off so had to turn it and then save. The vacuum is noticeably taller (4 inches) than my previous 2 (3.5 inch) Roombas. It still fit under guest bed and cabinets (barely) – but the wide rotating brushes on either side help it get into edges. App has a multitude of settings; Preset cleaning routines, create your own – create your own schedules - or select rooms one by one. You can choose to vacuum and mop, just vacuum, just mop – or vacuum first then mop. You can choose from smart clean, light clean, standard clean and deep clean. There are 4 suction levels (quiet lower suction and extended run time, balanced for all floor types, powerful and high). There are 3 water levels - light, balanced and high. You can choose 1 or 2 cleaning passes as well as smart scrub for sticky messes (on/off) Water level – light, balanced and stubborn. You can also choose mop functions for global use Water temperature (room, 104 F or 161F) – I choose 104F. Mop cleaning frequency (standard – before/after routines, medium - during refills and before/after routines and high – in between rooms, during refills and before/after routines). Cleaning solution (on/off) – I used the provided iRobot StayClean (good luck finding it) – good news is you can add your own directly into the water. Mop Dry Duration – 3/4/6 hours. Since I am in a dry area, I choose 3 hrs. AutoEmpty Frequency – every 270ft, 540ft or after every routine. I initially had set to 270 initially but WAY too often so changed to after every routine. For initial run I decided to clean my living room which is a mix of hard flooring and large area rug to see how vacuum worked. I choose smart cleaning, vacuuming (powerful suction), mopping (balanced) and 1 pass. It seems to do all the edges first and watching the Roller mop Perfect edge extend out to mop along the baseboards is kind of freaky. It ran for about 20 minutes then went to base to empty water. It did this continually until it was done with area ultimately taking 1 hr and 15 minutes to complete 600 ft using 46% of battery. It cleaned/mopped the hard floor areas very well as there were a lot of dusty shoe prints that were gone when completed. It vacuumed the area rug also and it was not wet at all. I then had it vacuum/mop the kitchen, which after Thanksgiving was just a tad messy. It got 99% of spots off the floor (only missed little very stick spots) and 100% of crumbs – using just 1 pass. The floor is dry as it mops – so no waiting around for floor to dry. May require more time using more water. I cleaned the rest of the house (60% carpet 40% floor), and it used about ½ of the water and left about 2 inches of dirty water in dock (I emptied as even after a couple of days it started to smell). There are LED indicators on dock to indicate dirt bag is full, dirty water is full and that clean water is empty. So, you can tell with just a glance if anything needs attending to. I decided to divide my house up into 3 routines. 1 to do rooms with just carpet (vacuum only) as one routine. 1 to do all rooms with hard flooring (vacuum and mop). 1 to do rooms with mix of hard flooring and carpet/area rugs (vacuum and mop). This seemed the easiest and quickest way to complete entire house. The ClearView Pro LIDAR + PrecisionVision AI Technology works great. I did not have to create “no go zones” as with previous Roombas. It did not get tangled anywhere even with all the wires under my desk. It worked around tables/chairs with no issues. It did get stuck on one throw rug but hasn’t since. It seems much gentler on trim, etc. that previous models – which was also an irritating issue with prior models. You can monitor the cleaning in real time on the map. It shows areas cleaned and exactly where robot is as it continues to clean. It is color coded so you can tell what cleaning function it is doing/finished. Grean is for vacuum, blue is mopping and aqua (?) is for mixed. Vacuum is a tad squeaky when running on carpet and when emptying/refilling at base but not to bad when mopping. Lower suction level would probably help. The PowerSpin Roller Mop + PerfectEdge is a HUGE step up from the vibrating pad and it has a “door” to contain itself when vacuuming. Remote access works well. I started it at sons house across town. It does work with Amazon Alexa and Google Home, but I don’t use them with this. 1-year warranty on parts only. Not sure how long brushes/mop will last but app does give a long list of usage information to help keep track of components. Still uses bags for dirt in base – why not bagless? Overall, this new 705 Roomba has changed my mind on mopping vacuum robots. It easily converts itself from vacuum to mop and back again while cleaning. It is self-contained – it empties the vacuum as well as emptying and refilling the mop function, it is delicate on woodwork, has excellent navigation (although initial mapping took a little editing), the software/app is relatively easy to use, and the mop is now a rotating “brush” instead of vibrating pad. I would say it mops on par with my Tineco Cordless 6 series just a tad behind my Dyson GenDetect5 for vacuuming – but I don’t have to manually run it. This is my 4th iRobot to test and each has worked well, with this one being the best yet. If you are looking for an “all in one” low maintenance robot – this is one you will want to consider. I recommend it.

I've had a couple different robot vacuums and each have been OK but usually lacked one feature or something. It was usually a feature that just didn't quite make the vac as useful as it could've been. However, with this one, I think it's a winner both in terms of functionality and feature packed. My other robot vacs have all been just vacuum bots. For my place, it works really well since I have a decent mix of hardwood/carpet. These are great in general just for keeping everything clean and dust free without the need for me to get up and manually vacuum every week or so. The older robot vacs I had did a decent job at vacuuming for the most part. A couple were a bit underpowered and the others were just slow for some reason. At the end of the day though, they did their job and cleaned my place without too much issue. However, with this vac, I now have vacuum and mop functionality which is a pretty huge step up in the functionality department. My two bedrooms are the only rooms I have carpeting so now I have the "luxury" of getting the rest of my place mopped each week as well which is pretty cool. Needless to say, the extra spin cycle does add some time to the cleaning routine but I think it's well worth it now. One of the nicer things I noticed about this robot in particular was how quickly it was able to create a 3D map. Took maybe half an hour or so whereas some my older robot vacs would take an hour or more for this same task. Everything is controlled through the smartphone app which makes using the robot vac a breeze. It also allows you to creatine routines, manage the voc as well as order new supplies for it when needed. As far as a robot vac, I think this is the one I'll be sticking with for awhile.

Unpacking the Roomba Max 700 Series Combo + AutoWash Dock was incredibly simple, and the setup process took only a few minutes from start to finish. The initial software update installed in about eight minutes, and the unit was ready to go immediately afterward. Despite its strong performance, the Roomba Max 700 is impressively quiet. Suction power is excellent, and the AutoWash Dock makes maintenance almost effortless its self-cleaning cycle runs smoothly and reliably every time. The smart cleaning functions are also well designed, adapting to different floor types and room layouts with ease. One standout feature is the level of cleaning customization available. You can select from Smart Clean, Light Clean, Standard Clean, or Deep Clean depending on how thorough you need the job to be. It also offers multiple cleaning modes, including mop-only, vacuum only, vacuum + mop simultaneously, or vacuum then mop for a more detailed finish. In my experience, it ran for about thirty minutes before returning to the dock to empty debris. The mapping capabilities are excellent. The unit excels at obstacle detection, accurately identifying stairs to prevent falls and even avoids cords, socks, and pet waste. Its room and zone selection tools are highly precise, allowing you to send it exactly where you want. With four cats in the house, I was especially impressed by how well it picked up pet hair and it even leaves clean, sharp lines in the carpet. Overall, the Roomba Max 700 Series Combo + AutoWash Dock is a powerful, quiet, and highly customizable cleaning system that takes everyday floor care to the next level. It’s an easy recommendation for anyone looking to simplify home maintenance.

In summary, the 705 Max Combo is a good at both vacuuming and mopping, but is held back by a immature (at the time of writing this) mobile app, and being louder than its competitors. With roller mops being relatively new, there are also a few pain points with the mop that may be resolved in future product releases. We have around 2400 square feet of tile with some rugs. 3 dogs, a cat, and 2 younger kids. I've been a long time user for older Roomba models (S9+, J7+), along with Roborocks S8 Max V Ultra and the Saros 10R. I was looking for a robo vac that had excellent mopping performance, and the 705 does deliver there. The Good: It's quick to map and navigate around now that Roomba is using LIDAR. The unit gets all dog hair out of our rugs, and seems to do well on tiles floors as well. Mopping performance is great, I've noticed a big improvement in how our floors look after mopping with the 705 compared to my Saros 10R which has spinning mop pads. It also seems to use far less water to mop than my 10R unit which means I don't need to fill it up as often. The Bad: The mobile app is very immature at this time. As of 10/20/2025, you can start, pause, and stop a routine from the app, as well as setup a schedule. You can pre-set your desired clean level (suction power, water level for mopping, etc) before the routine starts, but you cannot change it during. This is a feature that Roborock offers on its vacuums, and I'm pretty sure older Roombas did as well. The unit is very loud over our tile floors even on the lowest suction setting compared to older Roombas and our Roborock which is much quieter. If not for the great mopping performance, I'd return this for how loud it is. Over carpet and rugs the noise level is very good. The roller mop, while it performs well, can leak foamy water all over the floor if any debris gets sucked into it.

The iRobot vacuum does a decent job for everyday cleaning, especially on hard floors and low-pile rugs. It navigates fairly well on its own, and the scheduling feature is convenient if you want hands-off cleaning. The dustbin is easy to empty, and the app setup is straightforward. On the downside, it can be a bit loud, and sometimes it misses spots or gets confused around furniture. Battery life is acceptable but not exceptional, and the unit occasionally needs help if it gets stuck on cords or transitions. Overall, it’s a solid option if you want a simple automated cleaner, but it’s not perfect and still benefits from occasional manual touch-ups.

This product is such a time saver! Vacuums, mops empties, and cleans itself. The roller is so efficient, extending out to clean the edges, while continuously cleaning itself, and has a retractable cover for when on carpets. LiDAR exceeds expectations mapping and maneuvering around my house with ease. Very happy with my purchase!

This robot vacuum/mop combo works amazingly well for keeping my hardwood floors and rugs clean. I’ve had several Roombas, and this one is by far the best as far as mapping and cleaning capabilities. Keeps the dog fur tumbleweeds from over taking my house!

Really great. It's basically magic that it knows when to mop and when to vaccum. Don't be concerned that the first run takes forever and it goes back to base a dozen times - it's just learning your house.

I had high expectations for this product after having a previous model of the same brand for 5 years prior. The new app is not as user friendly as I expected, the mop is constantly in error mode and must be emptied during every refill because it says it’s full (it’s not) & it leaks dirty water everywhere around the base and the robot itself. The vacuum function leaves debris on the floor-I would not recommend buying this

I’m happy with my purchase. The AI cleaning feature works

This product was returned twice. I would not recommend buying this. Go with Ecovacs X11

I've had a couple robot vacuums over the past handful of years. There was the Deebot T10+ and the Deebot X2. The T10+ had a pad that oscillates back and forth to scrub, but it had a drip reservoir that needed to be refilled about every other day. The X2 had two spinning pads and a clean water and dirty water tanks that needed to be refilled/emptied about once a week depending on how you manage the application settings. While the X2 was an evolutionary step from the T10+, in some ways it took a step backwards. I have a low pile runner style rug in front of my front door. The T10+ would skip it when it had the mopping pad installed, but when only vacuuming, it was transitioning just fine. The X2 would get caught on the edge of the rug to the point where it would pop off the mopping pads and then the X2 would just stay there until the pads were reinstalled. I just switched to the iRobot Roomba 705 system. I have to say that I'm impressed. It has more suction power, it has counter rotating roller brushes for the vacuum. This counter rotation should reduce the need for me to take the roller brush apart every week to clear out the tangled hair. The mopping mechanism is now a roller brush like a paint roller cover. What really surprised me is how the Roomba 705 now has the ability to kick the roller brush about an inch out to the right hand side. This is a really neat feature and it does this to sweep up against the baseboards. I would say that if you have quarter-round shoe molding, the Roomba will cover this. This is a vast improvement over the X2 that I had. The X2 would do a little bit of a shimmy as it crossed my floor to try to sweep closer to the baseboards, but it didn't get as close as I would have hoped. This meant that I would have to occasionally run over the edges with a stick vacuum to grab the pieces that were left behind. One of the nice parts is that when the Roomba 705 encounters a table leg, it also kicks out the roller to get as close to the table leg as possible. Another annoyance with the X2 is that it only had one side sweeping brush. This would typically kick light things like hair out further than its next sweeping path, then if the robot turned, its exhaust would push it further out. This in combination with the X2's random path would mean that sometimes things would not get picked up. The Roomba 705 seems to address this very nicely. It has dual sweeping side brushes and it has a very predictable path. The Roomba 705 seems to favor sweeping the edges of the room and then systematically sweeping from one side to the next in a zig-zag pattern with a good amount of overlap. The previous two Deebots sometimes had a similar zig-zag pattern, but it would just randomly cut a diagonal and miss the middle of the floor. Noise level. I would say that the Roomba 705 is a little bit noisier in operation than the Deebot X2. The empty cycle of the base is a bit louder too. However, the X2 was definitely louder when it came to pre-wetting the mopping pads. The base on the X2 sounded like it was making drip coffee. The Roomba seems to have a smaller onboard dustbin and it has a dirty water bin onboard in the rear. The Roomba has two small buttons on top. One to return to base and one to pause/resume the cycle. I would have liked to see these buttons a little bit larger in case I need to use them mid-cycle. One of the unexpected surprises is that the base station has lights for the clean and dirty water bins to indicate when they need to be refilled or cleaned. It's very handy in case you happen to pass by the base and notice it. With the Roomba 705, I've noticed that it is a bit taller than my previous two vacuums. It doesn't make a huge difference as the Roomba is still able to get under one of my bureaus. I don't think it can fit under my kitchen cabinet toe-kicks but honestly my previous robot vacuums didn't do a spectacular job keeping those clean anyways. The app experience was a little confusing. There are two apps in the Android Play store, the iRobot Home and Roomba Home. I started with the iRobot home (with millions of downloads), but that was wrong. I guess it covers previous robot vacuums, but the Roomba 705 is supported by the Roomba Home app. I also noticed that iRobot has made the overall package feel a little more premium with contrasting textures. Some parts are smooth plastic, some parts have a little bit of a stipple accent. Over the years, I've picked up a few things I would share with other robot vacuum first timers. I've been trained to put my chairs up after breakfast to make sure the robot vacuum doesn't trap itself among the chair legs. I also had to pull my runner rug into the other room so the robot vacuum doesn't get tangled in it. I also keep in mind that these robot vacuums are great for day to day sweeping. They aren't a substitute for a good deep cleaning of the floors once in a while. Overall, I'm very impressed with the iRobot Roomba 705 system. It's got great vacuuming power, it mops very cleanly and gets right up to the baseboards. I found this robot vacuum to be more thorough with its cleaning efforts than my previous two robot vacuums. The only thing I could think of to improve is maybe some kind of lifting mechanism to help get the vacuum up onto thick pile rugs.

Over 20 years have passed since the first Roomba debuted, in an era long before smartphones were in nearly every pocket and where dial-up Internet was still the most popular way to get online. iRobot was selling a glimpse of a future that wasn’t yet certain, taking a chance by starting a new wave of home automation that was further ahead than its time. Many bright and futuristic ideas fizzle out shortly after debut, but two decades on the robot vacuum market is bigger than ever. Iterating on their success in a competitive market, iRobot’s Roomba options compete up and down the pricing gamut. The new Roomba Combo 705 sits at the top of the home robot vacuum stack, offering both iRobot’s most advanced dry floor vacuum yet and integrating a mop wash function to clean multi-surface floors. Offering both dry and wet floor cleaning in the same device made me wonder where the compromise is, but much like my previous Roomba i6, I was impressed by its overall performance and ease of use that makes full cleanings a far less frequent chore. More time to put my feet up and watch NASCAR on the TV! - Unboxing & Setup Setting up the Roomba Combo 705 will take some time. The biggest consideration for this dry-wet vacuum is where to locate the base station, as ideally you’ll want it on a hard floor, in or near a kitchen, bathroom, or laundry room where a sink is available. The Combo 705 uses reservoirs to wet and empty the mop portion of the vacuum, so while you can place it anywhere that it fits, keep in mind you’ll need to manually empty the dirty water and refill with clean. You will also need some clearance around both sides of the base station and a few feet in front for the Roomba to navigate entering and exiting the base station. Setup with the Roomba Home app (available on both Google Play and iOS App Store) is as streamlined as it gets. The app acts as the device’s manual with picture guides and animations showing basic maintenance for the vacuum, and really does a thorough job walking through setup. Sadly, an iRobot account is still required (it’s 2025…single sign-on with an AppleID or Google account should be the standard), but the app seems to stay logged in in perpetuity making this a one-time frustration. One annoyance with the new Roomba Home app is that it cannot control older Roombas, and you’ll need to keep the iRobot Home Classic app installed to control older models. I hope iRobot will merge apps soon, but this smells of planned obsolescence. Funny enough, in my review of the Roomba i6 from 2021, I pined about this exact topic and now we have a “Classic” app that we can only hope will continue to receive security updates. Foreshadowing! Once your Roomba is set up and fully charged, an initial Clean Everywhere will run so that it can begin mapping out your floor. The process can take up to 30 minutes, though mapping the 600 square foot floor area where I have the Combo 705 was done in under 10. - Cleaning Performance As with my previous Roomba, I was expecting good “in-between cleaning” performance on dry surfaces, and that’s exactly what I got - with standard cleaning settings. Now featuring four power levels to balance noise and battery life against cleaning performance, the vacuum and rollers of the Combo 705 do a great job pulling dust and dirt out of medium-pile rugs on the standard setting, and the corner brush sweeping along the wall gets almost everything. Hardwood and laminate vinyl plank floors are no trouble at all for the Combo 705. I did notice that the dust container fills fairly quickly, but the self-emptying mechanism makes this a non-existent pain point compared to my older, beloved Roomba i6. Though I enjoyed messing around with the multitude of vacuum settings, what I was more curious about was the mopping function as two-thirds of the floor area I’m running the Roomba Combo 705 on are hard surfaces. There are tons of settings you can adjust for the mop function, from water temperature (yes, this thing has a heater!) to drying time, and enabling cleaning solution to be dispensed from the base. In an ironic twist, my partner spilled a can of soda in our kitchen while I was looking through the options for the first time, and decided to let the Roomba handle cleanup with cleaning solution and warm water selected. It was a little noisy and squeaky when mopping (but about what I expected there), though once it was finished the spill on our kitchen floor was nonexistent, with our freshly washed floor looking good as ever. The fact neither of us had to mop, scrub, or otherwise bend over to clean up a spill was something we swooned about through half of dinner that night! The most impressive part of the vacuum and mop functions is how well it transitions between the two when moving from carpet to a hard surface and vice-versa. The Combo 705 has a mop “door” of sorts that keeps the wet rollers from touching carpet, and though it takes a second or two to process the surface change, I found only a hint of moisture on the edge of the carpet in my living room immediately following a full vacuum & mop section, and it was dry within half an hour. The Roomba will perform passes similar to a lawnmowing job, working in discrete rows across the floor and navigating around obstacles only as necessary, ensuring it doubles back to get around all sides of an obstruction in a circular fashion. It will take several full passes of the space to reach a point where the Roomba makes an accurate map of the floor and improve its cleaning efficiency. - Navigation & Noise Mapping your space is something the Roomba Combo 705 gets somewhat right. Unfortunately the mapping algorithms don’t seem particularly improved from my i6 (which is about four years old), but they give a good starting point for you to tweak, edit, and finish in the Roomba Home app. What *is* improved is the Roomba’s navigation. While it will still occasionally bonk into a chair or table leg, the Combo 705 is significantly better at avoiding obstacles and covering the entire area to be cleaned without getting lost or stuck. The LIDAR sensor is putting in work here. In my week of testing the Roomba only got stuck once, dipping a wheel into an HVAC vent on a floor register I didn’t know was loose. I also noticed that the Roomba Combo 705 was better at low-light navigation, which let me run daytime cleaning cycles without needing to put any of the house lights on while my older i6 ran into issues in the early evenings. As mentioned earlier, the Roomba has four power level settings for the vacuum and this has a direct impact on how loud the Combo 705 is in operation. At standard cleaning performance it seemed no louder or quieter than my old model, which is to say you’ll know where it is if you’re a room or two away, but even up close the noise level is never obnoxious. On maximum power, though, the whirr of the vacuum motor gets much louder and a little irritating…still better than any canister vacuum I’ve owned, but worse than any stick vacuum as well. The drive wheels also squeal a little bit from time to time, most notably when changing from one surface type to another. Think this might simply be a lubrication issue as it’s reduced a bit in the week I’ve had it. - Emptying & Maintenance If you thought previous Roombas were easy to empty, auto-emptying ones like this are a dream. The vacuum compartment in the base station can hang on to weeks’ worth of dust and dirt, though iRobot’s claim of 75 days is a tall order unless you’re running passes fairly infrequently. The mop compartments are also a bit overrated in terms of time between emptyings…and the dirty water especially is something you’ll want to empty the same day as the mop cycle runs. That stuff starts to reek fast, and even if the base station can contain it I’d rather not open up to two-month-old rancid liquid. Yuck. All the basic maintenance tasks are shown in the Roomba Home app with step-by-step instructions and animations to guide you through each function. While I personally would have preferred a physical manual, the app is well laid out, intuitive, and definitely more eco-friendly than a printed manual. Most consumables can be ordered through iRobot or Best Buy, and the app can both show you the estimated remaining life of the consumables and notify you when it’s time to reorder. - Bottom Line With the competition heating up, the best needed to get better than ever, and iRobot delivered. My first Roomba was transformative in how it let me approach cleaning my newly-acquired house, and now years on it’s been another transformative experience. Though not without its faults, the Roomba Combo 705 is a huge step forward in quality and outright convenience, making cleaning the most trafficked areas of my house ten times easier. Just about worth the price of admission! And that price of admission is the last thing to comment on. At its MSRP of $1,299 I would have some pause, but on sale the Combo 705 matches its best competition on price, and having had plenty of friends and family share their stories of rival offerings, let’s just say the iRobot brand name commands the premium. Recommended!

Packaging The packaging has improved, not as much waste as before. Really nice to see its improved, and most of it is recyclable. The bin for the trash and water, the vacuum itself paperwork. And power supply. The step by step instructions / quick instructions are not in the most convenient place, i was digging through everything and started putting it together without it. It was inside the box with the roomba itself. I would suggest having it be right at the top of everything when you first open the box. Device The bin for the trash and water has a good weight to it, it is larger than expected, it takes up a bit of space. The instructions are an improvement from previous models but are still not very clear. Theres a black plate inside the housing where the roomba sits that has a green tab, i removed it but wasn't sure if the tab still needs to be there or can be discarded ( it’s not needed). The green tab could make it a bit clearer. After finally getting the bin and robot to turn on and connect to the new home app it started to do a software update. Downside is now I have two different apps for the different roombas. I do wish they could consolidate all under one app. Setting up the initial mapping was quick and easy. Once that was set it gives you a layout of the floor and has you confirm it. After setting it as the map, you can then select the job, either vacuum or mop and vacuum. I went with initially just vacuuming. The job was completed within an hour and a half. Which was a lot quicker than our older model. Doing a combo mop and vacuum I’ve encountered issues with the mop portion. The unit has yet to complete a whole job. It has stopped and completely lost charge. Other times it has been in a loop cycle where it keeps going back to one spot staying theres an issue with the bin, goes back to the home base, empties the trash then goes back to the same hallway and repeated the cycle till i finally interrupt it to cancel the job. I’ve tried canceling and restarting the job, letting it do a full charge cycle. The wash fluid in the home base bin is full. I’ve emptied the water in the device and dumped the water. I’ve looked through some community post and tried their troubleshooting steps, its seems there are a few issues with the mop part of the unit. The Vaccum works great and have had minor issues with it getting stuck but no major issues when just using it as a vacuum but for it being a combo unit and for what it cost I would not want to get it to only use the vacuum portion. The voice assist that speaks and tells you what the mop is doing is a bit hard to hear and understand hopefully. I do wish that the messages that it is staying. Would show up as notifications in the app itself. Summary If you are willing to trouble shoot the mop and risk it not working as well as expected then give it a go. The idea behind the mop is great but needs some work. The vacuum works just as well as their other robots. The voice notifications on the robot needs improvement.