iRobot Combo Review

Combo is the first mop-and-vacuum robot, and is the company's best-looking. Its aluminum top piece brushed and iRobot logo are more sophisticated than the loud designs of competitors.

The iRobot Home application is used to guide and set up your robot. The app gathers data on usage and maps of your home, including furniture and obstacles. Maps and image information are only shared with you if you've opted-in.

It's not a mop

The Combo Irobot is a clever mopping robot that combines all the smarts of the excellent Roomba j7+ and adds an onboard water reservoir, a tiny mopping pad, and a nifty robot arm that lifts and lowers the pad. It can do many tasks in 11 minutes before running out of juice, and then automatically returning to its base station to recharge.

The combo model also features the iRobot home app, so you can initiate and stop cleaning runs. It's also a good-looking robot, sporting matte black plastic that doesn't show dust or fingerprints and the top piece of aluminum is brushed with the small iRobot logo.

It does a great job of vacuuming, and has no issue traversing over large area rugs or transition strips between flooring surfaces. It is able to pick up fine dust that other robotic vacuums miss. However, it's not well in mowing. It's not able to eliminate dried milk stains, for example unless you send it out four or five times.

IRobot's own Braava Jet M6 mopping robot, that is available in an assortment with the j7 Plus, often for less than the combination Combo is much more effective in this and other difficult tasks. It is also able to clean up wine and ketchup spills, but I wouldn't recommend sending it after any liquids with a high amount of sugar.

It's a vacuum

It's among the more attractive robot vacuums. The top piece is smooth and doesn't show dust or fingerprints as easily as other models. Its tiny dustbin and water tank are easy to close and open but they're not the most Efficient Smart Mapping Robot Vacuum - iRobot Roomba i4 EVO in terms of capacity. The Combo j7+ has all the smarts you'd expect from iRobot. This includes map and obstacle avoidance maps that function effectively and swiftly. The mopping arm is the thing that makes this model stand out in its class. It keeps the mop pad tucked away on top of the vacuum, but if it recognizes an area that requires mopping, it lowers the mop pad below and behind the robot. This is a major improvement over other robot vacuums, which require you to take out the mop pads to clean carpets or hard floors manually. You can also shut off the entire unit to mop.

It's an electric charging station

When you're ready to charge your Combo Irobot, simply place it on the changing station and align its metal contacts with the ones on the base. The charging station is reliable and is easy to install. In my testing, it took a few minutes for the robot's to start charging and to make a noise when it was finished. Once the Combo iRobot Braava Jet M6 - Advanced Smart Mapping Robot Mop (official Robotvacuummops blog) is fully charged, you can begin an exploration run within the app to help it better understand your home. You can also mark certain objects, such as cords for lamps, as permanent avoidances within the app. You can also connect your robot to Alexa or Google Assistant, so you can use voice commands to guide it around the home.

It's a smart device

Combo irobots depend on the acoustic sensors on board and onboard cameras to determine the type of floor they are cleaning, and also the objects in your house. It also combines this knowledge with maps of your surroundings and data from the robot's camera to create a customized cleaning schedule for each room. It's intelligent enough to stay clear of your couch, lamp cords as well as other objects you wish to keep. Of course, as with any other connected device, there are concerns about the security of this information. iRobot however, claims that it will never sell any customer data and will not take any images without the permission of the customer.