iRobot Combo Review

Combo is irobot black friday deals's very first mop-and vacuum robot, and it's the most attractive model of the company. Its aluminum top piece brushed and iRobot logo are classier than the loud designs of rivals.

You can use the iRobot Home app to set up and guide your robot. The app collects usage data and maps of your home, which include obstacles and furniture. Maps and robotvacuummops image information are only shared with you if you have opted-in.

It's not a mop.

The Combo irobot, a very intelligent mopping robot, takes all the capabilities of the superb Roomba J7+ and adds a water reservoir onboard and mopping pads that are small and a robotic arm that can raise and lower the pad. It can accomplish a good amount of work in just 111 minutes, before it gets power cut off and returns to its base station to recharge.

The combo model includes the iRobot Home app, so you can begin or stop cleaning runs. The robot is also attractive, with matte black material that does not show fingerprints or dust and a brushed aluminium top part with the tiny iRobot logo.

It does an excellent job of vacuuming, and has no problem traversing over large area rugs or transition strips between flooring surfaces. It's even able to capture fine dust that many robotic irobot roomba vacuums fail to pick up. However, it's not well at mow. It can't get rid of dried milk stains unless you do it at least four or five times.

IRobot's own Braava Jet M6 mopping robot, that is available as a bundle with the j7 Plus frequently for less than the price of the combo Combo is much more effective in this and other difficult tasks. It can even suck up spilled wine and ketchup, though I'd advise against sending it after any kind of liquid with a significant sugar content.

It's a vacuum

It's among the more attractive robot vacuums. The top part is smooth and doesn't show dust or fingerprints as easily as some competitors. The tiny dustbin and water tank of this vacuum are easy to open, however they are not the biggest. The Combo J7+ also has the features you'd expect from iRobot with features like map and obstacle avoidance mapping that operates efficiently and quickly. The mopping arm is the thing that makes this model stand out from the rest of its competitors. It keeps the mop pad hidden behind the vacuum, however, when it spots the need to mop a surface, it lowers the mop pad below and behind the robot. This is a major upgrade over other robot vacuums, which require you to take out mop pads from hard floors or carpets manually. You can even shut off the entire unit to mop.

It's an electric charging station

When you're ready to charge your Combo irobot, just place it on the charging station and align its metal contacts with the ones on the base. The charging station is simple to set up and works well. In my testing it took just a few minutes for the robot's to start charging and to make a noise when it was done. After the Combo robot is charged, you can start mapping runs on the app to help the robot better understand your home. You can also mark certain objects such as cords for lamps, as permanent avoidances in the app. You can also connect your robot to Alexa or Google Assistant, so you can use voice commands to guide it around the home.

It's a smart device

Combo irobots utilize acoustic and onboard sensors to understand the kind of floor they're navigating, as well as the objects in your home. This information is combined with images taken by the robot's onboard camera and maps of your home, to create an individual plan to clean each room. It's smart enough to avoid your lamp cords, couches, and other objects that you wish to keep. As with any connected device there are questions about the security of these information. iRobot however, claims that it will never sell any customer information and no images are captured without the consent of customers.