iRobot Roomba Combo j9+

Frequent errors. Its almost impossible to just click a button and get a job, its always something that needs you to get up, study a manual, search online, try a bunch of things until it starts working. Once it does actually clean ots not that bad. It does miss corners even with the corner brush and doesnt mop well but it does most of the job. … Read more

But hope you never need any support from the Australian distributor. Its just one guy that sends generic responses, and answers 10 days later.

Had for just over 4 weeks now and it has a critical error with a sensor that makes it unusable. Worked great for the first 4 weeks but disappointing is an understatement. For the cost of it (~$1800) I was expecting far better than breaking down after 4 weeks. The biggest issue now is iRobot do not want to know me, they havent replied to any of my support emails, Tried JB Hi-Fi where we purchased it and they dont want to know me either. Show details

Works but sometimes makes more work – This is our very first robot vacuum… that also mops. (Never had a robot vacuum ever, so I bought the one that mopped and emptied itself and refilled its own water etc) Pretty exciting stuff! Needs home internet & wifi to work (not sure if it functions without it) Maps the house, takes photos of obstacles so we know why it has missed rooms or… Read more

areas - eg the teenager has dumped the school Bag right in the doorway lol

It’s been tangled on an elastic band - so hide the elastic band guns, it doesn’t like them.

The first one we had - the vacuum bag draw kept ejecting itself - it pushes in and would slowly move out, this meant that it couldn’t vacuum the entire house. It would Just stop after a few rooms.

Due to holidays and new year - I couldn’t get through to iRobot manufacturer help. “The Good Guys” just replaced the unit.

The second unit - painful - it had to map the house lol takes forever.

It also pops out so I just jammed a glasses case in there to keep it forced shut lol problems solved!!! It might stay closed now because I haven’t had an issue (but also have the glasses case still inside the door)

The 1 star deducted from It’s score is the turds it leaves everywhere

It’s like a dog with worms - scooting trails of turds (fluff and dust nuggets)

It will return to dock and empty but then doesn’t know to go back and clean up the turds of dust - it’s like it leaves skid marks on the carpet lol

We have only had it a month and used it about twice a week.

Would recommend it - just haven’t fine tuned how to get it to stop leaving sausages of dust with skid marks.

Maybe our house has too much cat fur and they need to bring out a “iRobot J9+ pets”

It’s a bit louder when it runs that the first few times… I’ve checked for obstructions and can’t find any blockages or hair tangled around the rollers. That’s a plus too - the hair doesn’t wrap around the rollers (that I’ve noticed)

Re: encounter problems every day time - today it encountered a box where it normally vacuums. It bumped it and then went home to the loading dock and did nothing. I had to restart it - then it cleaned the same room again; 15 minutes later it was back in the first room cleaning again.

So one room Got cleaned 3 times. It left a dirt trail and nuggets in the lounge room And one of the bedrooms. Then it decided to “map”??? or do the rest of the house without sucking… It did a detour of the kitchen but bypassed the mess on the lounge room floor.

Surely I just need to work out the app and shut the doors to each room As it’s finished in them. I dunno

Build quality 4 stars - because the vacuum bag draw seal isn’t perfect - it ejects itself like the rubber seal is too large at the moment. But I’ve seen reviews where it stops doing this after a while - this one seems okay if it keep it propped closed with the Star Wars glasses case.

J9+ Just doesn’t work as advertised and is a step backwards from previous vacs – I really wanted to love this iRobot J9+ vac. Sadly it is extremely buggy, and has about4 or 5 failed attempts at vacuuming, for every successful attempt. And each successful attempt needs a complete clean, a reboot, a reset of the map, and a fresh mapping run. Essentially it is quicker to manually vacuum and mop your house, which defeats the… Read more

whole purpose of having a robot vacuum cleaner.

These are the issues that iRobot need to address: 1. The map is not stable. Successive mapping over the course of its vacuum runs adds parts to rooms that don’t actually exist. It is as though its spatial orientation is very poor despite having the latest tech (a camera) to assist this, this isn’t working. 2. The sprays that wet the mop pad appear to also make the vacuum Shute wet resulting in both a wet and smelly vacuum cleaner bag (in the home base), and after a few runs the dust intake on the vacuum blocks up. The dust and cleaning solution forms a cake reminiscent of cement that is quite difficult to remove. Turning the amount of fluid used to its lowest setting only slows the process down. 3. The vacuum has to leave the base, turn around and reverse itself in to refill with fluid. This process seems to increase the likelihood of a failed vacuum run. 3 times out of four I come home to find the vacuum parked/stuck 3 feet infront of the dock, not having been able to get any further than this. 4. The vacuum seems to have trouble connecting to the wifi, and seems like in order to operate, it must be on the wifi 24/7. Power and internet outages mean that the robot will miss its scheduled time to vacuum. This is extremely annoying in rural Australia where internet and power have reliability issues. 5. When the robot is in its dock, you can’t tell if it is successfully charging or not. There is no light that indicates its status. A white light comes on when it first goes into the dock, but then it turns off and you have no idea if it is charging without checking the app. This means that if it hasn’t made contact with the charging pads you don’t know until you see that it hasn’t gone anywhere the next day. I don’t want to be continually checking my phone for this, I want set and forget. 6. The fluid reservoir refill seems to need multiple goes to completely refill, which means that when the robot goes out to mop/vacuum it is usually doing this with a 1/4 full tank. I have a lot of polished timber floor and this would mean having to return to base to refill which seems unnecessary. 7. While this is a vacuum and mop, when selecting the vacuum and mop function, the robot will choose where to mop. It seems to favour the first few rooms that it goes to and doesn’t bother to mop the rest. This is annoying as I often just want it to mop everywhere. There should be a “mop all hard floors” and a “mop only” setting. 8. After a few runs the vac seems to ignore the keep out zones you set. I think this is because of the poor navigation/mapping drift over time. 9. The smart scrub gets confused with timber grain and so I had to turn this off.

Here are the good things: 1. when it works, the areas that are vacuumed and mopped are pretty clean and dust free. 2. It is good at determining carpet from hard floor.

I have now owned this J9+ for 3 months. This is my 4th iRobot vacuum over the last 10 years and despite being twice the cost of the previous, it is almost useless. I still use the previous robot, which this one replaced downstairs and it is set and forget. This one is not. I am now trying to decide if I should just return for refund and go with a different brand, or wait it out for updates to the software/firmware.

I hope this helps.