I bought this at nearly full price, best Roomba I’ve ever owned, worth every penny. I’m super annoyed I didn’t wait for this deal
I broke up with iRobot after two decades because of this garbage robot. After 3-6 months it will refuse to connect to the dock and charge. iRobot sent me a new replacement and within months the same issue. I have owned a few high maintenance robots before like the older large Samsung powerbots but nothing prepared me for how frustrating the j7 is. You couldn’t pay me to deal with this robot again and it’s daily maintenance.
I bought an i7+ back in 2021, great robot. Here is what I wrote about maintenance:
Only advice: Every month or two be sure to wipe down the bottom front (where the nose of the Roomba is when it docks) plate on the base station. That is how the roomba talks to the base to empty, and if it gets dusty or dirty then the auto empty stops working. Simple to do, but there it is.
That and clean the contacts on the bottom every week or two seems to keep it in perfect shape. Yeah, I’ll buy one of these J3+ units for the middle floor, it’s about time.
I’ve had a J7+ since December 2021. It has given me no problems. I like how I can tell Google, “Hey Google, vacuum the whole house” and the machine goes about it’s business. After every vacuum, I do take a cleaning wipe to the front and the sensors underneath and the metal contacts for the charging base. Simple and easy. About once a month I replace the little filter on the machine’s dust bin, and about once every three months I replace the dust bag in the charging bin. About every six months I’ve cleaned underneath the rollers. It’s not a chore to keep it maintained since it does all the work I don’t have to do anymore.
I also have the m6 mop, the pair of them keep my home’s floors ship-shape.
I ended up getting two of these on eBay because the price was so high for retail. Every once in a while a deal on QVC would come up I believe it was for the j7 X? And apparently all it was was a repackaged j7 plus just missing one filter. Long story short I absolutely love these things I want on my first floor and one on the second floor I just saw they release a new combo robot that’s on pre-order the j9 plus. So looking forward to getting that in the future. I had gone dark on iRobot for about 5 years as I had two discoveries and all they were were a nightmare as they got older. And with dog hair it was constantly cleaning. And then once I saw some of the videos of roomba’s spreading puke or vomit from animals around I said forget this. But this new one has been tremendous and so far there’s been a couple issues with one of our dogs vomiting and Roomba did avoid it! So their p o o p avoidance does work. I thought about going with other brands but very happy that I stuck with Roomba. Disappointed that their support is not nearly as good as it was several years ago. But I did have one Roomba replaced at no cost to me and was very grateful for it as it kept going into a fault mode after going about 3 ft. Other than that my only recommendation is anyone with dogs or cats you need to clean the bin at least once a week if you run it daily like I do I take the HEPA filter out and just vacuum it out and then wash the van and let it dry overnight and the suction is way better cuz that mesh material inside the bin will start accumulating along with the sensors and it will keep running and taking short trips and having to dump the bin and I noticed it kept taking longer and longer to clean the floor but it was because it kept thinking the bin was full before actually was. Bottom line is this is a killer deal on what I think is their top of the line robot and I hope that if this is the Baseline of what they’re going to build off of it looks like they have a bright future.
When I click on the USER MANUAL the pdf has zero pages?
Can anyone tell me if you can just program this one from the vacuum itself or does that require wi-fi and/or smartphone?
We updated the link to the user manual.
Well the manual did not answer my question but did provide a good clue to how to find the answer, thanks!
Can my Roomba® robot or Braava jet® robot work without the app?
“Your Roomba® robot vacuum, Roomba Combo™ robot vacuum and mop, or Braava jet® robot mop can work without using the iRobot Home App. But, we recommend using the iRobot Home App to upgrade your cleaning experience and gain access to the latest features available for your robot.”
Prolly should not have looked into this 
I have never had a robot vac but if I get one, it would be something like the i5 that has no camera.
"There have been privacy concerns about Roomba before, but they escalated last year after the MIT Technology Review did a deep dive into how personal photos Roombas took — including one of a woman using a toilet — ended up on social media. "
That case was not about a consumer Roomba, but a development one. I’ve participated in the iRobot beta test program, and not only do you have to verbally agree in person and sign forms saying that you understand that all video from the roombas is recorded and will be reviewed by humans, but there are giant neon stickers on the robot that say something like “Video recording and remote monitoring in progress”. They also suggested that we wait until everyone has left for work for the day before starting the vacuum cycle.
I use a Magic Eraser and clean the charge contacts on the base and robot. Works like new afterwards.
oh! Thanks, that makes it much more likely I will get one soon. You hear all this stuff about babycams and such being hacked that I figured it was same as that… but your story clears it up for the vacs.
Mine arrived well packaged but the wrong dust bin was installed in the robot so it’s not compatible with the self-empty base thing. Also, something is raddling around inside the robot that seems to get caught up in the gears when in map-making mode.
Woot customer service has already responded with a replacement response (great news), but I worry about I-Robot’s refurbishment process (bad news) with glaring issues.
I have had nothing but problem with my j7. I ended up throwing it in the garage to collect dust. It required daily maintenance. Would not dock was the main isssue. I switched to Roborock Q Revo and it’s life changing.
I will add my feedback here. I have probably skipped a decade of iRobot vacuums because they always were problematic. We have pets in one of my concerns was the vacuuming up poop or vomit when we weren’t home along with daily bin emptying. After reading some reviews and watching some videos I decided to purchase this about 6 months ago I actually bought two of them pre-owned on eBay. So I jumped both feet back in the iRobot water. And I couldn’t be more pleased. One of the robots had issues would go a few feet and then go into error mode. I talked to Roomba and they replaced it no questions asked. The other ones been working strong since. I love the fact and not having an empty the bags and about a month ago I had my first experience with one of the dogs vomiting and Roomba went up to it took a photo of it sent it to me and continue vacuum around it part of the p o o p promise. I’m extremely happy with both of them. They run Monday through Friday and I probably have to empty the bag once to twice a month. Also Pro tip look for the compatible bag on Amazon that has a zipper in the back really saves on the cost of disposable bags.