Roomba j9+ Self-Emptying Robot Vacuum for Hardfloor, Carpet – Powerful Suction, Identifies and Avoids Obstacles Like pet Waste, Self-Empties for 60 Days, Smart Mapping, Works with Alexa​

I bought the j9+ based on all the reviews I was able to find and also that the previous s9 model was no longer available. The setup was super easy as long as one is comfortable using your phone's app to handle all the tasks. The initial mapping was very cool to watch. If you're a tech nerd, you'll love trying to figure out how the algorithms are working to navigate the furniture, walls, entry ways, etc. In about 40 minutes R2D2 mapped out my first floor very accurately and was able to work it's way around the jungle of chair legs at the dining room table. It took a while, but it managed! After the initial mapping run, it went right back to it's base and started charging automatically. Next was the actual vacuum run, but before that we decided to put a "no fly zone" around the Christmas tree and blanket around it. The app easily let me set up a 5x4 square which I placed in the map of the house - which was very cool, and pressed the "Vacuum Everything" button on my app. It was remarkable how R2D2 started in the room with the most dog hair and then proceeded to follow it's map throughout the house. The suction on the wood floors was excellent, and I was impressed when it rolled over the few throw rungs we have, I could hear it kick into a higher gear because it recognized the carpet. Our black lab leaves plenty of hair around on our light colored floors which made it easier to see that R2D2 was doing a great job. During the first mapping, I kept all the bedroom doors closed off the main hall. While it did the first vacuum I forgot the master bedroom door was open. It noticed the new opening, but did not enter the room. I took this as a new mapping run I would need to perform, but I was amazed when it completed the entire house, paused in the living room for about 10 seconds, and then proceeded back to the new opening it discovered previously. It recalled it found a new opening but did not disrupts it's current task - it finished and then returned back. We've only run it two times, but already we discovered that it remembered the master badroom, added it to the routine and completed the room before returning back to base. It also updated the map in the app and asked me about the new room and what to name it. I was also able to place the new boundaries for the entrance to the bedroom and master bath (which it also found while exploring). The app also shows pictures of obstacles R2D2 came in contact with during it's journey. A wire under the curio cabinet was captured in a crystal clear picture taken by R2D2 and sent to the app for me to decide whether this should be considered a permanent obstacle, or something which I could remove and it could continue working in this space next time. I simply moved the wire closer to the wall, let the app know it was taken care of, and we'll see how R2 does with it next time. I love this robot... I am super impressed by the effectiveness of the vacuum, the ease of the app, and how simple it was to set up. I have seen other reviews about noise, and speed, but it's no where near as loud as our Shark standup (which is a beast) and regarding the time, I set and forget. So far I have not had to come to it's rescue, but we also don't have a lot of things laying around on the floor which I guess would complicate things. For about 500 sq feet, the app tells me it's taking 90 minutes. No where close to fast, but I am writing this review while R2 is taking care of the floors! Very happy and I'll come back in a few months with an update....

My wife and I wanted a robotic vacuum cleaner to manage dog hair. She bought a Eufy for upstairs, I bought this for downstairs. Simply put, this does not work (details below). If you are thinking of rolling the dice on this despite the reviews, be warned, Roomba does not do returns through Amazon and I ended up paying $80 to ship it back to Roomba. It is not worth the risk. If you are still deciding, let me go into more detail. A little context - after I returned this I ended up getting a Roborock unit so I'll be comparing this to my wife's Eufy and my Roborock. The software is bad - compared to the Eufy or Roborock, this thing is comically dumb. The first time I turned it on, it took forever to map the room (didn't clean while mapping), barely sucked up the dog hairs, then spent the rest of it's battery life trying to "dock" back into the bottom of my fridge before dying. I thought it was a glitch - everyone makes mistakes - so I picked it up, put it back in its dock, and waited a day for it to recharge. On day 2, I tried turning it on and low and behold, there was an error that prevented it from running. This thing sucks in every way other than that which a vacuum should suck. Comparing the Roomba with the Eufy and Roborock, this is MILES behind either. Ranking the three, Eufy is the clear leader - strong vacuum and hair gathering plus intelligent AI that prevents it from committing suicide off a staircase. Roborock is second to Eufy - the AI isn't as smart, the software isn't as good, but it gets the job done and I'm going to be keeping mine since all I need it for is dog hair removal.

This machine is well worth the money. It is very easy to set up, iRobot does all the work since it maps your house as a cleaning zone or zones. The self-emptying feature is very handy since the sensors handle that when returning to the dock. We have stamped concrete floors resembling weathered barn wood, so there’s lots of ridges etc. and the robot works very well on that surface. Even goes up a retractable door track to clean, so traction is not a problem. Highly recommended. The app is very easy to use for scheduling a cleaning, suction power etc.

This is my first robo vac ever and buying this was probably best money I spent for the house. We've never had many issues when running this through our home. Suction is very good as well with this and will get most things on the floor. It tends to always get all the edges as well in our home. You can also setup no-go zones in the app which have helped out with some of the issues we've had with getting hung up. It also does a better job or cleaning these runners we have in front of our doors more than our full size vac. The full size likes to just suck it up into the brushes but with the Roomba this doesn't happen. I have noticed that it will struggle with sucking up larger leaves that get carried in. We have also had it running over cords and getting hung up. We have small kids too and also have a bouncer for one of them. It will seem to always try to run up over the floor supports and either keep trying or get stuck and just stop until we move it. We have also had it try to run over clothing pieces as well like socks and it doesn't seem to always try to avoid them. We did have an incident too when it ran over and sucked up a mess made by our cat. Thankfully it didn't do any damage and we were just able to clean it out. There is also a issue with using the app and Alexa. We will try to use Alexa to send it to a certain room or to clean the entire house but if you don't use the exact right words with Alexa it will not go where you request it too, possibly try to do the entire house, or Alexa will just say something off the wall that you weren't even trying to do. For us Alexa will say I can't set the living room bulb to that setting. Wait what? No I want you to send Roomba to clean room x or the entire house. In the app also if you want to get it to say skip a room you can't just have it skip a room. You have to cancel the job and set up a completely new custom job. So you have to wait for it to go back to the base and then empty the bin. Possibly update it's internal maps which can take a bit of time. You don't seem to be able to change any job parameters once a job has started. I would think this would be an easy thing to do but it has been added or developed as far as I know. You must also keep the sensors relatively clean on the dust bin otherwise it will make multiple trips to it's base to empty when it's not really full. You also have to contend with replacing some parts periodically. I hope that one day they make a base with just a dust bin you can empty in your trash can instead of having to use bags. Also rollers, air filters, and the edge brushes have to be replace periodically. That is unless you can find another solution. Even thought with all these little issues I definitely recommend it. In a family of 5 this has helped us a lot with keeping the house up and clean.

We have a J8+ on the main floor. When our upstairs 891 had issues with a tired and apparently NLA dust bin, we looked for another J8+. Then saw the J9+ with significantly more suction -and- uses the same consumables (rollers, bags, brushes, filters) it was an easy upgrade choice. The J* found its way upstairs, and the J9 starts main floor duty today. Our duty here is all dark hardwood floors with some kitchen mats and rugs/runners for high-traffic areas, an interesting mix of surfaces and duties. We share the home with two cats, and really need every-day fur and fuzz removal especially with the dark floors. The J9 is now our fourth Roomba in a dozen years, and they have been a fabulous solution to the cat fur challenges. The self-emptying feature is pretty luxurious especially considering how much they seem to find. I've been replacing the bags about every six weeks, vs. emptying the on-board bins every day or two. I'll admit that I'm still, um, progressing with my scheduling areas programming skills for these. After it 'learns' the layout of your cleaning areas, you may choose to try and schedule different areas for different cleaning schedules. I'm at the point where I'm trying to segregate those areas in the configuration software, and build a couple area schedules that work around our activity schedules. We are both retired work-from-home consultants, so don't actually "go to work". And as much as I like to think I'm capable of all this, in my 70's there's still plenty of room to learn a lot of this stuff. It's trailing-edge technology in the giant picture, still a fun exercise for me.

One star is being overly generous. I don’t write reviews, one way or the other, but this was too large of an expense not to. If it helps just one person, it will be worth my time. I purchased this unit in Dec. ‘23. I used it maybe 10 times within the first year because I found that moving all the obstacles before vacuuming was a bit of a hassle, and also it just didn’t compare to my push vacuum in performance. I did like the fact that it was able to get in difficult spots, such as under the beds. A couple weeks shy of its one year warranty date it lost its suction. After some degree of difficulty in reaching customer service, a lengthy amount of time on the phone, and photos sent via email, diagnostics were run remotely and they determined that there was an issue with the base. A new base was sent in a timely manner and they offered to extend my warranty by three months. After setting up the new base I ran a quick run of one bedroom. The robot would not seal adequately enough to the new base to provide enough suction to empty the bin and I got an error message. Again, I went through the same lengthy process with customer service and it was determined that the entire unit needed to be replaced. My warranty on the original robot was now within a couple days of expiring so I asked if they would still honor the three month extension. After checking with supervision they informed me that since they were replacing the entire unit they would not be able to honor any further warranty on the new unit. Ok. New unit. It should last a while, right? The new robot arrived, again, in a timely manner. It set up easily and I mapped the house and vacuumed without difficulty. A month later I went to vacuum and I got a message that the unit was unavailable because the software was being upgraded but would be available shortly. Three days later it was still displaying the same message. I rebooted several times. Nothing. I finally resorted to a factory reset and now I can’t connect to the robot at all. I’ve since done some online research and there is a definite trend here with issues occurring during software upgrades. Folks are being run through hoops via customer service only to be told that there is no fix, but…get this…they are offering 50 whole dollars toward a new unit. No joke. Check Reddit. I call b.s. Save yourself the aggravation, time and expense and vacuum the old fashion way. This thing has not been worth it, IMHO.

After using this product for over a year I feel I can give a fair review. When it works it's great and the app functions pretty well. The issue is that it rarely, if ever, finishes a job without problems. I understand the occasional getting stuck but more often than not it says the bin is full (when it's not) or simply says it can't communicate with the base. Charging is probably the most common issue. I have to wiggle and move it just right so that it makes some contact and can fully charge. I routinely get messages on my phone that there was a problem and that the job was not complete after just a few minutes of running. For the $599 price tag I paid for this I expected something that needed way less baby sitting and would at least charge properly. We have a pair of $100 robot vacuums that we used before this that don't have all the features but work much more reliably and seem to be able to find their charging bases with much greater ease. For my next robot vacuum I will definitely be exploring a new brand.

We upgraded to the iRobot Roomba j9+ specifically so the trash could be dispensed automatically, and it has been 100% worth it. The self-emptying base is a game changer, it empties itself without us having to touch the debris at all, which makes cleaning completely hands-free for weeks at a time. The suction power is excellent and noticeably stronger than our previous model. It does a great job picking up pet hair, dust, and everyday messes, and the obstacle-avoidance feature works extremely well. It reliably identifies and avoids obstacles (including pet messes), which gives real peace of mind.