iRobot Roomba j7+ Self-Emptying Vacuum Cleaning Robot (Renewed)

Update 7/12/25 So if you are debating whether you need a robot vacuum here are some thoughts after buying and using two of these for a year. I'm not convinced it actually saves any work. These do have decent obstacle avoidance, but by avoiding obstacles they also avoid a significant part of your house, unless you prep the house for the vacuum cleaners to clean. This is not Roombas fault but it is the reality. Second forget about running these with kids or dogs around it becomes a moving target... Literally like flies to .... it will be harassed until it stops or you stop it. 3rd after prepping the house for vacuuming it takes 30-45 minutes to do an area that might take ten minutes with a regular vacuum. It does a good job but it's noisy enough that you don't want it running if you are using the space for other stuff, so really just doing a quick regular vacuum after picking up everything is not a big deal. 4th there is a lot of stuff it doesn't get very well, ie. corners under or around stuff etc. so you have to vacuum those by hand anyway. Summary after a year, good vacuum, Amazon renewed worked great, but I think if doing it again I would just "stick" to a normal vacuum, pun intended. I'm not sold that these really save much work. Maybe without kids and dogs and clutter this could just run in the background, but that is not the world I live in. Still five stars because it does everything it claimed and still functions perfectly. Original Review So I will post an update after some use. However I will address the renewed since that is most likely what people are interested in on this particular item. I paid $300 for the Roomba j7 with clean base #7550. It was renewed excellent condition. It came in a box that clearly stated refurbished. With irobot tags on it. And model number. The robot, base, and cord were separated in plastic with cardboard strategically holding everything in place. With the exception of everything being clearly identified as refurbished, stickers and permanently typed text on box, it was obviously professionally packed and sealed. It had a card talking about irobots return policy as well. The unit looked brand new upon removal and set up. No obvious scuffs or stains, bin was completely clean (which is amazing if anyone actually ran a cleaning cycle with it). It connected immediately and executed a smart map on the app over the first hour of use. I have vacuumed my downstairs twice since than and everything appears to work flawlessly. This is my second experience with Amazon renewed and I will see initially I am impressed, this may as well be a new product. I also appreciate the extended return window and of course most of all the price being approx 50 percent of new. The Roomba j7, is an addition/replacement of a 4 year old Roomba 675. It is night and day smarter than the 675, with mapping, obstacle avoidance and self emptying bin. I wanted a robot that got stuck less often and I definitely got it with the j7, it effortlessly deals with furniture, cords, baby toys etc. and the map is also fairly good. I will definitely update once I have some use on this unit. But my initial thoughts are that Amazon renewed is awesome and so is this robot.

It was great on arrival. Didn't have to factory reset it, was able to connect to my Wi-Fi just fine, and was able to build it into my schedules with my other Roombas. Worked great for the first 30 days, then suddenly, the base stopped working entirely. Wouldn't charge the Roomba at all. Wouldn't self-empty. I was able to charge the Roomba itself by using another basic Roomba base station (again, I already had another Roomba), and it continued to work just fine. So, I was able to confirm that the self-emptying base station itself failed. So, I unplugged it, left it off for a bit hoping there was just a bad capacitor or something. Plugged it back in and... nothing. So, I contacted Amazon support (who were basically useless, except telling me to try putting my Roomba on the base station and cleaning the contacts [again, I already tried these things because I own another Roomba], and sending a message to Woot [who still has yet to respond]). If they don't have a different base station here in 48 hours, I'm returning this junk and reordering from the iRobot refurbished store. Great vacuum, but really let down because I hoped everything would work.

General Review - I was hesitant about buying a robot vacuum being a first time buyer however I love it so far! I had done some research before buying one and out of all of them the iRobot seems to have the best reputation. I found this one on sale during Prime Day as a refurbished from factory for HALF OFF its normal price!! Worked and looked brand new! PROS: - Does really well at cleaning on our high pile carpet - Excellent cleaning on hardwood flooring (pet hair included) - Self empties into its base - Can be setup to clean when you leave your home - Can be set to clean in certain areas of your home and even around certain objects by creating a zone. - Can place no-go zones to where the robot will not goto (had to do this with our closet because there were too many things in the way for me to want it to attempt to vacuum around) - Sends a notification to your phone with pictures when its done cleaning if it detects any objects in the way that allow you to tell it if its a temp object or if it should create a no-go zone automatically for you. CONS: - VERY NOISY when its emptying into its base station (only lasts a few seconds but be weary if running it at night with the base station near a bedroom!) - Replacement parts are kinda expensive if not bought on sale! Gives you an estimate of hours remaining on said part (which seemed kind of low in my opinion, making cost of ownership more expensive that you may realize. Example: Filter will last around 50 hours which will add up to around 2 months of usage if you run multiple times a week, filters cost about $30 for a 3 pack if you buy authentic ones) - Does OK at navigating around things but has caused scuffing on the body from where it bumps into things (there are 3rd party scuff guards you can buy off here that will help this issue (ie: foam pads, covers)) - Sometimes doesn't clean around certain areas too well that tend to have more objects in the way (such as dining tables and near some living room furniture) OVERALL I would highly recommend this robot for first time robot vacuum buyers! Especially if you get a steal of a deal like myself!

This is a big upgrade from my old Roomba 650. The first, and best feature is the self-emptying. This is really how these automatic vacuums should have always worked, and I wouldn't buy one that couldn't do this now that I have it. In terms of cleaning this is also better than the old Roomba. I think the rubber rollers on the bottom work better than the old brush too, and it's easier to clean hair off of them. It's also a tad quieter. You can have a conversation around this without raising your voice, most of the time (its sound levels vary depending on what it's doing, and it's quieter on carpet). Another feature that seems to work very well is the "don't drive into the cat food (or other nasty things that you don't want to a robot to smear all over everything" feature. So far (I've had it for about 4 months) it has driven around the cat food dishes every time. And although that's a lot of good stuff, there are problems. The big obvious one is that the self-emptying feature is too loud. Like really loud. Like you-know-the-roomba-is-about-to-empty-so-you-walk-into-the-other-room-and-close-the-door-but-still-can't-hear-the-other-person-talking loud. Another is that it gets stuck, a lot. And when it gets stuck, it gives up too easily. Not only that, but once it's stuck until you put it back on its base. The app doesn't have a "resume" button. It also has a real hard time parking. Sometimes it'll drive in front of its dock and sit there rearranging itself for 5 minutes because it can't quite line itself up right. Sometimes it gives up altogether. The app is just ok. It needs an override button. As I mentioned before, you have to send the robot home if you want it to do something new. It would be nice to have manual control and a camera view too, then I could get it unstuck remotely (I thought this was a feature when I bought this robot, but it doesn't seem to work). And if there's one thing I absolutely don't need, it's a log of the history of vacuum jobs. But since I have it this detail, I know that the robot gets stuck or has to be rescued 25% of the time. Basically, this robot does a good job cleaning, but requires a lot of attention. I bought the refurbished model on sale for $299. I had zero issues with the refurb, it looks like a brand new unit. I think it's well worth it at that price. There's no way I'd spend $500-800 for a brand new one, it's not good enough. Also, you can buy replacement bags, but they're expensive and single use. I found a set of reusable bags that can be opened, emptied, then resealed. You can reuse them several times, and they work just as well as single use bags. It's a great way to save money and keep extra junk out of the landfill.

The Roomba j7+ works really well and the self-emptying base is a huge time saver. Navigation and obstacle avoidance are impressive—it avoids cords and furniture better than expected. Picks up dust, crumbs, and pet hair with no problem. The Renewed Premium unit arrived in excellent condition and performs like new. Highly recommend, especially for the price.

The ONLY reason I purchased was for its ability to avoid pet excrement -- and it does a good job of this. BUT it does NOT do a good job of cleaning on a daily basis! It misses areas, leaves all types of crumbs on my bare floor, has to re-charge constantly, gets stuck and dies, can't find the charging dock, etc. It's literally a nightmare! Every 2-3 days it stops charging and I have to jiggle it until it connects again. It's ONLY redeeming virtue is that it will avoid excrement - otherwise I WOULD NOT get this item.

Perfect unit and it’s worked fantastic for the past 6 months. I jumped on the sale and it hasn’t been a problem at all. Cleans exactly as advertised.

First off, the unit comes in a box with no peripherals. No cord, no documentation, nothing. I was glad it at least had a bag in the base. You'll need a standard power cord for consumer electronics (like a computer or stereo). The setup: Without documentation it's google and guesswork. It took an eternity to get mine set up and customer service was no help. They wanted me to charge it an additional 24 hrs before helping me. That turned out to be no part of the issue. The app could not complete setup no matter how much I tried. After a few fruitless hours I got to manually give it the wifi information. One very important thing here, if you have a modern Wifi6 or higher system you should just create a guest network that is single band, otherwise the unit will never connect (so no smart connect, no Wifi6 or 6e, no dual band). Yeah it says it will work with 2.4 or 5ghz networks but not with modern load balancing setups. You'll waste some time finding this out. Once you get your phone and the unit on a single band (I chose a 2.4ghz guest network) you will be able to manually configure it and it will finally set up and you can then use the app on any wifi (like your normal Wifi6 connection). It's much smoother sailing from there. Going refurbished saves a LOT of money and the unit was nice and clean when it arrived, but the lack of parts and documentation plus the frustrating lack of support (tech support was foreign and heavily accented if that's something that bothers you) require you to be pretty comfortable with tech. Buyer beware. Edited down to one star from two. The vac cares not for what you want it to do, throws error codes for no reason, and generally misbehaves constantly. It's overpriced, underperforms, and generally isn't worth having. Trying to get it to finish cleaning or go to it's dock or do anything after an error is pointless, you have to carry it back to the dock yourself. Never again. Added picture of how well "pet detect" avoidance works. 4 months in this thing has the battery life of a five year old iPhone and eats s**t like a Canadian hockey team in the finals, but don't worry it takes pictures of you naked sometimes before selling the data. How did Amazon pass on buying these guys? Buy a Shark.