iRobot Vacuums

The Roomba went on sale in September 2002 and passed a million units by 2004, a dozen years after Rodney Brooks, Colin Angle and Helen Greiner left MIT's Artificial Intelligence Lab to found iRobot. The last few years have been rough. Amazon's planned takeover, announced in 2022, collapsed in January 2024 under European antitrust scrutiny; on December 14, 2025 iRobot filed for Chapter 11, and it was bought by Shenzhen Picea Robotics, the company that already manufactured Roombas, with Santrum Hong Kong. It still operates from Bedford, Massachusetts.

The models listed here span two generations. The older ones navigate by camera or by bouncing around: the Roomba 694, the j9+, the j7+ and the Roomba Combo j9+, whose mop pad lifts onto the robot's back over carpet, all now discontinued. The rebooted line moved to ClearView LiDAR, which maps up to three floors and cleans in rows even in the dark. It starts with the Roomba 105 Combo and the 105 Vac, which adds an AutoEmpty dock iRobot rates at up to 75 days, and climbs through the Max 715 Vac + AutoEmpty Dock at $500 and the Plus Combo + AutoWash Dock models from $500 to the Roomba Max 875 Combo + AutoWash Dock at $1,200; the earlier Max 705 Vac and Roomba Combo 10 Max are discontinued. Two outliers: the Essential models at $100 and $170 navigate by gyroscope only, and the now-discontinued 205 DustCompactor Vac squeezed debris inside the robot instead of using a dock.

Owners keep praising one part above all, the dual rubber brushes: j7+, j9+ and Max 705 Vac owners with shedding dogs report hair that never tangles, and the j-series pet-waste guarantee is a reason some stay loyal. Value is the common complaint. Combo j9+ owners object to rinsing the mop pad by hand when rivals wash theirs automatically, j-series owners say the camera struggles in dark rooms, and Max 705 Vac owners describe app glitches and firmware updates that tie the robot up. Owners of the budget LiDAR models are more mixed on hair: 105 Vac owners in long-haired homes report heavy brushroll wrap, and 205 owners say pet hair jams the compactor paddle.

iRobot publishes no suction figures, so comparisons rest on owner reports rather than published specs. Every model listed here carries a 1-year warranty, and how the new owners will support the older camera models is still an open question. iRobot's own store offers a 60-day home trial, which is the safest way to buy one.