iRobot Vacuum and Mop Combo Review

iRobot's new Combo j7+ robot is the first combined vacuum and mop. It looks like the Roomba, and has similar rug-eating intelligence. However, the mops can be used with a wider variety of cleaning products and are self-filling.

When you ask it to mop using the iRobot Home voice assistant or app, a little robot arm will rise out from the base. The mops only activate when the robot senses it's on a hard floor and avoids dragging across rugs and carpet.

Features

A robot vacuum and mop is a useful device to keep floors tidy without relying on the Swiffer or broom. It can remove sticky messes, and keep grime at bay. This means that you don't need to worry about mess accumulating in areas with high traffic such as mudrooms or kitchens. It also does a better job of cleaning hard floors than a vacuum alone, and it can do this in a way that is automatic.

The majority of iRobot vacuum and mop combos are made to work on both hard floors and carpet, making them the best choice if have different flooring types in your home. The best models have features that allow you to control how often and how powerfully the robot cleans. Some also have automatic emptying and can be controlled with a voice commands.

The j7 Combo+ is irobot roomba vacuum cleaner's most well-known robot mop and vacuum combination. It can be transformed into a fully-featured robot cleaner by pressing one button. It comes with the same sophisticated obstacle-avoidance technology as the j7, plus new onboard acoustic sensor to help determine the type of flooring. When in mop mode, the mop only activates when it senses hard flooring such as wood or tile and never over area rugs or carpeting. I've tried a few times to trick the J7 Combo+ into deploying over the rug, but it always backed up and then returned to where it had left off.

As with most combo robots it's slow to remove fine dust that a vacuum can miss however, it's a master of getting rid of dried milk stains. It comes with mopping pads that are easy to refill.

The J7 Combo+ is less expensive than some other robot mop and vacuum combos, but it's expensive for a basic device. It's limited in terms of battery capacity and life and must be returned to the dock to recharge between cleaning sessions. It is also necessary to manually move it to a new room each time you clean, and its small size and absence of a scheduling feature mean it can only clean 200 square feet at a time.

Design

irobot has created an app for its robots that allows you to schedule and track cleaning jobs, as well as create "clean zones" or "keep out zones." The robots can be controlled through the app or via voice activation using the smart speaker of your choice. Many robots are equipped with different modes of opera>Cleaning Performance

A robot vacuum and mop will save you time by keeping your floors clean all the time. It's still necessary to pull out a traditional mop to clean hard-to-clean spots or stains that are particularly dirty however this is much less often than you might otherwise have to do with a single vacuum cleaner or a standard bucket of water and a brush. It's a great option for areas with a lot of traffic such as bathrooms, kitchens and the mudrooms.

Think about a robot for mopping if you want to get an even more sophisticated cleaning. They typically make use of a microfiber pad with a reservoir of water filled with clean water, and a scrub-like motion to clean dirt away and dust, making your floors cleaner than a regular vacuum. Some of them, such as our upgrade pick, Braava Jet M6, even squirts detergent into the pad to give it a more thorough clean.

The biggest downside to mop-only machines is that it's unable to perform any work on carpet or area rug. If a robot comes across these surfaces in mop or vacuum modes it will lower its pad to prevent getting the surface wet. However, this also means it can't navigate around them unless you have set up special 'clean zones' and 'keep out zones' in the app.

Combination robots are better in this. Our top choice is the iRobot J7+ combo. It works much like a normal j7 vacuum but it also comes with a wet mop that it uses when it spots hard flooring. It's more aggressive than other robots in crossing thresholds and rugs. However, it still is able to back off when it encounters these obstacles instead of trying mop over them.

If you really want to take your hands off of cleaning, you'll need a vacuum cleaner that is able to learn the layout of your floors and move between rooms without assistance (our upgrade choice is the iRobot Braava Jet M6) or a model that uses lidar navigation (like the Roborock S5 Max). It is possible to create a 'clean zone' and a 'keep out zone in the app so that it can determine where the furniture is.

Cost

A robot vacuum that doubles as a mop can be a excellent way to keep your floors. It is more expensive than a standalone mop or a separate vacuum. The cost will vary based on whether you'd like an expensive model that comes equipped with mapping technology that allows it to discover the layout of your home and then clean the space without running out of battery power. This feature is essential if you have rugs and carpets in your home and the newer Ecovacs Deebot X2 Omni or Roborock S8 Pro Ultra are the best models with this feature.

Another thing to take into consideration is the size of your floors and the amount of rooms you'll have to mop and vacuum. Smaller rooms require a smaller robot. It is possible to use a robot that vacuums or mops, but not both. For example iRobot's Combo J7+ is an upgrade option that comes with a mop robot with its top-rated Roomba vacuum, and costs less than the price of a standalone mop bot like the Braava Jet M6.

The Combo j7 Plus also includes iRobot's Clean Station, which auto-empties the dirty mop water from the tank for cleaning when it's full. The base isn't included in the standard model of the j7 and has to be purchased separately. This is the reason the combo robot costs $1,099 since it's not included in the standard model.

The j7+ is a sleek modern-looking, contemporary-looking vacuum-mop. It looks almost identical to Roomba's i7 vacuum. However, it lacks certain key features that other mop-only robots have. For one, it does not have the same powerful 8,300Pa suction that iRobot's vacuums provide. It does not come with the automatic mop pad washing feature, that is becoming more commonplace on top mop robots. However, you can still buy an add-on to the j7+ to wash the mop pad if you're not using it. This will keep the pads from drying out and becoming messy. The j7+ is a great value and one of our top robots to clean your floors.