iRobot Roomba Combo Important Evaluation



The $274.99 iRobot Roomba Combo Important is an inexpensive robotic vacuum and mop hybrid with a couple of helpful upgrades over its predecessor, the Roomba 694. It has an attachable mop pad, for one, together with stronger suction energy and smarter navigation. In testing, it proved proficient at each mopping and vacuuming, rivaling the efficiency of fashions that value much more. Although it lacks good mapping know-how for custom-made zone cleansing or the comfort of a self-emptying dustbin, it helps app and voice management. So, whereas comparatively easy, the Roomba Combo Important works effectively for its budget-friendly worth, incomes it our Editors’ Alternative for entry-level robotic vacuums. Design and Options: Simply the BasicsiRobot launched the Roomba Combo Important alongside the vacuum-only Roomba Vac Important ($249.99) as a brand new line meant to interchange its entry-level Roomba 600 collection. The hybrid Combo Important has the identical $274.99 worth because the vacuum-only Roomba 694 and comes with upgrades like improved navigation, 20 instances the suction energy, and 25% higher hardwood pickup, based on iRobot, along with mopping skills.
iRobot makes a whole lot of totally different Roombas and refreshes its lineup usually, so it may be complicated the differentiate them. Generally, Roombas with Combo within the title each vacuum and mop, and people with a plus signal are self-emptying. The j collection provides a digital camera for impediment avoidance, and higher-end fashions in that line just like the Combo j9+ ($1,199.99) have a retractable mop to wash hardwood flooring and carpeting in a single run with out getting the latter moist. The Roomba Combo 10 Max + Auto Wash Dock ($1,399.99) is probably the most hands-off mannequin in iRobot’s lineup, with the power to not simply empty its dustbin however mechanically wash and dry its personal mop pads. Provided that the Combo Important prices a fraction of the value of high-end robotic flooring cleaners from each Roomba and its opponents, it is understandably lacking a whole lot of niceties, resembling pc vision-powered impediment avoidance and self-maintenance skills. It will probably’t nimbly navigate round obstacles like its costlier siblings, so you will wish to hold your flooring comparatively away from muddle.

(Credit score: Andrew Gebhart)

On a mopping run, you’ll want to dam off your carpeted flooring or manually detach the mop pad for a vacuum-only run. Contained in the robotic’s dustbin is a mopping liquid reservoir, which holds sufficient water to mop as much as 500 sq. toes in a single run. Between runs, you’ll have to manually empty the dustbin, wash the mop pad, and refill the mop water reservoir. When it comes to design, the Combo Important blends in with the remainder of Roomba’s lineup with its largely black exterior and disc form. It’s 3.15 inches tall and 12.99 inches in diameter, so it’s barely shorter and smaller than the Combo j9+ (3.4 inches tall and 13.7 inches in diameter). At 6.17 kilos, it’s additionally lighter (the Combo 9+ weighs 8.97 kilos).

(Credit score: Andrew Gebhart)

On the underside, it has a multi-surface foremost brush roll with V-shaped bristles designed to cut back hair tangles because it cleans, and a single edge-sweeping brush. The mopping pad Velcros onto a tough plastic attachment that snaps into place on the underside of the dustbin while you wish to swap to mop mode. The underside of the robotic additionally homes contact sensors for regaining cost, cliff sensors to assist it keep away from falling down stairs, two foremost wheels flanking the principle brush roll, and a entrance caster wheel for turning. The highest has three buttons: The middle button begins, pauses, and resumes cleansing. The button on its proper, with a circled dot, begins spot cleansing, the place the robotic navigates in a spiral sample to completely circle the world. The third button sends the robotic again to its dock. The entrance of the robotic has a reflective panel housing specialised sensors, together with a gyro and infrared sensor for navigation. The again homes the dustbin, which you’ll take away by urgent down on a grey launch lever. The dustbin is simple to tug free for handbook emptying. The highest flips open so you possibly can dump its contents into your garbage can, and the bin has a small brush nestled in a slot on prime that you need to use for a fast wipe-down. A blue plastic lid subsequent to the flip-open prime pivots up so you possibly can refill the mopping water compartment.

(Credit score: Andrew Gebhart)

The Combo Important has Wi-Fi, so along with the buttons on prime, you possibly can management it with the iRobot Dwelling app (accessible for Android or iOS) and even voice instructions when you’ve got a tool geared up with Alexa or Google Assistant. Within the app, you possibly can customise cleansing runs with three ranges of suction energy and three ranges of water output.Setup and App Controls: Maintaining It SimpleThe Roomba Combo Important consists of the vacuum itself, the bottom station, two mopping pads, the mop mount attachment, the aspect brush, and directions.

(Credit score: Andrew Gebhart)

To set it up, it is advisable to obtain the iRobot Dwelling app and create an account. Place the small, rectangular base station towards a wall close to an outlet, and with some free area round it in order that the vacuum can simply come and go. Particularly, iRobot recommends giving the bottom station 1.5 toes of clearance on both aspect, 4 toes of clearance in entrance, and 4 toes of clearance from stairs. Plug within the base station and use the recess on the again and the Velcro strap to safe any extra wire, then get up the vacuum by lining up the charging contacts on the underside with the contacts on the bottom. The robotic chimes as soon as it is awake. The directions warn it will possibly take a couple of minutes, however it occurred inside moments for me. Subsequent, open the app and faucet the button within the higher proper nook to open the choices menu and hit Add Your Product. The app walks you thru the remainder of the setup course of: You undergo numerous agreements, then join the robotic to your Wi-Fi community. Be aware it wants a 2.4GHz sign particularly. From there, you press the clear button on the robotic to verify setup and provides it a reputation. Altogether, the method took me lower than 5 minutes. As soon as it’s arrange, the app walks you thru suggestions and controls, and you then’ll see a picture of your robotic with its standing and battery life on the prime of the system web page. Buttons on this web page allow you to shortly begin the robotic in vacuum-only mode or vacuum and mop mode. Different app options allow you to change suction energy and water utilization settings, arrange a cleansing schedule, and provides the robotic a time restrict. Underneath Run Historical past, you possibly can see a tough define of the place it cleaned. Hit the menu button within the higher proper to attach it to your good house ecosystem and allow voice controls by Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant.

(Credit score: iRobot/PCMag)

In contrast to its costlier siblings, the Roomba Combo Important does not produce a customizable map within the app. Different fashions allow you to label particular rooms on the map for focused space cleansing and arrange Hold-Out Zones so the robotic mechanically avoids these locations. Earlier than you begin a mopping run, it is advisable to fill the water reservoir, moist a mop pad, connect it to the mop mount with Velcro, and snap the mount to the underside of the dustbin. Because the robotic doesn’t mechanically keep away from carpeting whereas mopping, you’ll additionally wish to be sure to’ve eliminated any space rugs and blocked off any areas with carpet in order that the robotic doesn’t drag the moist mop pad over them. Good Battery Life, Common NavigationAfter giving the Roomba Combo Important time to cost, I turned it free in my house. In testing, it ran for as much as 127 minutes on a cost, outperforming iRobot’s estimate of 120 minutes. When it comes to sheer battery life, it beats the high-end Roomba Combo j9+, which lasted 115 minutes.Once I closed it in a single room, it had no bother completely cleansing all the area. It not often bought caught on frequent family objects like chair legs and flooring thresholds, which are inclined to halt funds robotic vacuums, although it did stumble upon issues whereas shuffling itself out of jams. Throughout whole-home runs, it struggled to cowl my complete 1,500-square-foot, two-bedroom condominium. Out within the open, it constantly bought misplaced, repeatedly overlaying sure areas whereas lacking complete rooms. Or, it lined some rooms completely however solely traced the perimeter of others earlier than returning again to its base. It generally ran out of battery in the course of the ground because it was unable to seek out its manner again to the bottom station in time.Given its sub-$300 worth, it understandably lacks a digital camera or any form of laser radar detection like costlier fashions, so you possibly can’t anticipate excellent navigation skills. For probably the most thorough cleansing, it is best to shut in a sure room as an alternative of giving it the total run of your home, if attainable.

(Credit score: Andrew Gebhart)

Its predecessor, the Roomba 694, makes use of bump navigation to get round, that means it runs in a straight line till it hits one thing, then turns, shifts over, and begins off in its new route. The Combo Important’s gyro and infrared sensors assist it create a warmth map as it really works and transfer in additional systematic rows for much less theoretical overlap. With out gathering reference factors or visible information, although, its inner map is definitely confused. So whereas it will possibly clear in organized rows, it will possibly additionally pretty simply get misplaced towards a given wall and begin cleansing the identical space once more from a barely totally different angle whereas the vacuum thinks it’s in a brand new spot. For probably the most half, in order for you a robotic vacuum with higher navigational capabilities, you’ll want to leap up a tier by way of worth or look past Roomba. The older Eufy RoboVac G30 ($349.99, however usually on sale for much less) solely ran for 88 minutes on a cost in our exams and does not have mopping performance, however it has no downside systematically navigating between rooms. Cleansing Efficiency: A Nice Shock Throughout our mopping check, the Roomba Combo Important’s random navigation truly performed in its favor. I unfold 1 / 4 ounce of raspberry jelly on my closed-off kitchen flooring and let the vacuum run. After a single cross, the Combo Important left a big smear and a lot of the jelly on the ground, however then handed over the sticky substance two extra instances whereas bumping its manner round. By the point it had accomplished the job, a lot of the jelly had been wiped up, with just a few seeds remaining caught to the ground close to the unique stain, and nothing unfold elsewhere within the room.

Remaining jelly after one cross (Credit score: Andrew Gebhart)

When mopping, the Roomba Combo Important merely drags its moist pad behind the vacuum, and lacks the scrubbing energy of costlier fashions, so do not anticipate it to take away set-in stains. For comparability, the Roomba Combo j9+ applies downward strain on the mop and strikes in a back-and-forth movement, the Ecovacs Deebot X2 Omni makes use of two spinning mop pads, and the Roborock S8 MaxV Extremely makes use of a vibrating pad. These higher-end fashions additionally work extra effectively, finishing the job after a single cross over the stained space in our testing. The Combo Important isn’t a strong mop, however it’s a radical one. After the jelly check, a lot of the sticky residue was on the mop pad, however a couple of raspberry seeds have been caught within the brush roll. For vacuum efficiency testing, I closed the robotic in a 100-square-foot room with a certain quantity of particles unfold on an in any other case freshly vacuumed flooring and let it clear in Auto mode. I weighed the robotic’s dustbin earlier than and after the run, yielding particular particle pickup stats to match throughout gadgets. I carry out these exams utilizing rice (representing giant particles) and sand (superb particles) on each onerous flooring and carpet, in 4 separate runs. When you’re curious, take a look at the entire particulars of our vacuum testing.

How We Take a look at Robotic Vacuums

On hardwood, the Combo Important picked up 91.45% of the rice and 91.70% of the sand, each wonderful outcomes. The truth is, it surprisingly outshined the high-end Roomba Combo j9+, which bought somewhat misplaced throughout this check and sometimes flung grime with its aspect brush, solely managing to seize 88.40% of the rice and 54.30% of the sand. The Combo Important additionally accomplished its hardwood cleansing runs with a quicker common time of 23:57 towards the Roomba Combo j9+’s 42:59. The vacuum-only Dyson 360 Vis Nav ($1,199.99) additionally struggled in our hardwood vacuuming exams, choosing up simply 59.90% of the rice and 74.73% of the sand. Each of the higher-end fashions have been considerably higher at navigating my complete condominium in a single run, however in a closed room with a protracted stretch of darkish area below my mattress, they grew to become disoriented.
For reference, the Dreame X30 Extremely ($1,699.99) was the top-scoring mannequin on our hardwood vacuum exams, choosing up 96.70% of the rice and 94.70% of the sand in a median time of 13:58. In different phrases, for vacuuming small properties with onerous flooring, the Roomba Combo Important is sort of nearly as good as fashions effectively above its worth vary.That stated, its decrease suction energy in contrast with costlier fashions and the drawbacks of its randomized navigation grew to become obvious in our carpet vacuuming exams. Throughout these runs, it generally missed spots, and it left a clump of rice untouched. It nonetheless picked up a aggressive 90.68% of the rice however solely collected 23.78% of the sand, with a median cleansing time of 14:20. The Dyson 360 Vis Nav was the top-performing mannequin for this check with 97.60% rice pickup and 53.58% sand pickup in a quick 8:29. The Roomba Combo j9+ expectedly did higher right here as effectively, gathering 95.80% and 38.50% of the rice and sand, respectively, in 16:52.
For probably the most half, the Roomba Combo Important will completely vacuum and mop small areas, even when it doesn’t have the suction energy for a deep clear. It did effectively with pet hair, cleansing up after myself and my two cats with out leaving any mud bunnies in its wake or getting its brush roll tangled with hair.Verdict: The Proper Stuff on the Proper PriceThe iRobot Roomba Combo Important is a winner for its sub-$300 worth, constructing on its predecessor with the power to not simply vacuum, but additionally mop completely. And whereas it is not fairly as superior as pricier opponents, it nonetheless helps scheduling and might be managed by app or voice. Within the budget-friendly worth vary, it is onerous to beat the efficiency and flexibility of the Roomba Combo Important, so it earns our Editors’ Alternative award for inexpensive robotic vacuums. When you can enhance your funds, take into account upgrading to a mannequin with self-emptying performance just like the $699.99 Ecovacs Deebot Ozmo N8 Professional+.

iRobot Roomba Combo Important

Execs

Vacuums and mops

Wonderful efficiency on onerous flooring

Completely covers small areas

Seamless app setup

Helps scheduling, voice management

Retains cleansing historical past information

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Cons

Mediocre pickup on carpet

Not the very best for giant properties

No Good Maps, Hold-Out Zones

Requires common handbook upkeep

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The Backside Line
The Roomba Combo Important is iRobot’s least costly 2-in-1 robotic vacuum, with an attachable mop pad and adept hardwood cleansing efficiency.

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