The iRobot Roomba j7+ Robot Vacuum with Clean Base™ Automatic Dirt Disposal is a mouthful, and it’s also a big dent in your pocketbook. At MSRP $1049.99, it’s not your grandpa’s vacuum cleaner, nor is it your grandpa’s Roomba for that matter. It’s a pricey, sophisticated, dust-killing machine that, if SkyNet ever gets a hold of it, we’d probably all be in trouble.
We remember the early days of robot-vacuum cleaners, crude little devices resembling hacked together waffle irons on wheels. The early Roombas relied on sensors alone to navigate spaces and detect obstacles. Newer models, like the j7+, also have cameras which are used to map the floor and store in its memory. It’s a great use of technology and, unlike certain other adorable home robots, Roomba promises it’s not also hoovering up privacy-invading info.
By far the silliest aspect of the j7+ is its P.O.O.P. guarantee which, get ready for it, promises to replace any Roomba which fails to avoid pet waste. Honestly, the acronym is worth it alone. Other nice features include its dual multi-surface rubber brushes, bagless 60-day storage (so you can pretty much forget about emptying the accumulated dirt for months), respecting the designated “clean” and “unclean” zones you program into the app (thereby keeping certain rooms off-limits, as needed), and voice-activated commands like, “Go clean up the mess in the kitchen your brother just made!” The brother being, of course, your Sphero BB-8.
Speaking of, the j7+ is also pretty smart. It learns not just your household layout, but over time it begins to figure out the best times to deploy for cleaning, asking for permission to, for example, take on extra cleaning chores during pet shedding season. It also loves to report back about any roadblocks it ran into, so you can either teach it to ignore those things, or that it’s safe to roll over them.
One last point – though it’s quite the chunk of metal and plastic, once you’ve tucked it away in its housing, it blends pretty well into the decor. Guests may not even realize it’s a robo-vacuum parked on the floor in the corner. Aesthetically, this is 100% the correct way to design household appliances. BB-8 deserves all the attention anyway.
