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iRobot Combo Review

Combo is the first mop from iRobot and vacuum robot. It's also the most attractive. The top of the machine is brushed aluminum, and the iRobot Logo are more elegant than the loud designs from rivals.

You use the iRobot Home app to set up and guide your robot. The app gathers data on usage and maps of your home, including furniture and obstacles. Maps and images are only shared with Efficient Cleaning: iRobot Roomba Combo j5 - 2-in-1 Smart Vacuum in the event that you choose to opt-in.

It's a mop

The Combo irobot, a very intelligent mopping robot, combines all the capabilities of the fantastic Roomba J7+ and adds a water reservoir onboard as well as mopping pads and a robot arm that can lift and lower the pad. It can complete a lot of work in 11 minutes before running out of juice and automatically returning to its base station for recharge.

The combo model includes the iRobot Home app, so you can initiate or stop cleaning runs. The robot is also attractive, with matte black material that doesn't show fingerprints or dust and a brushed aluminum top piece that has small iRobot Logo.

It's a fantastic vacuum cleaner and is able to cross over large areas of carpet or transition strips between flooring surfaces. It can even pick-up fine dust that other robotic vacuums don't. It's not very good in mowing. It can't obliterate dried milk stains, for example unless you've sent it out at least four or five times.

IRobot's specialized Braava Jet M6 mopping robot, that is available as combination with the J7 Plus often for less than the price of the combo Combo and performs much better in this and other difficult tasks. It is also able to clean up ketchup and wine spills, but I would not recommend sending it after any liquids that contain a large amount of sugar.

It's an air vacuum

It's also among the more attractive robot vacuums with a smooth, rounded top that doesn't show dust and fingerprints as easily as competitors. The small water tank and dustbin of this vacuum are easy to open, but they're not the most spacious. The Combo J7+ also comes with the features you'd are used to from iRobot Roomba i7: Smart Mapping Robot Vacuum (www.robotvacuummops.com), including map and obstacle avoidance mapping that works effectively and swiftly. But it's the mopping arm that really makes this a standout model in its class. The mop pad is placed on the top of the robot vacuum. However, when it spots a surface that requires mopping the pad is moved underneath and behind the robotic vacuum. This is a major improvement over other robot vacuums, which require you to take out the mop pads to clean hard floors or carpets manually. It is possible to shut off the entire unit to mop.

It's a charging station

Place your Combo Irobot on the charging station, and align the metal contacts on the base. The charging station works well and is easy to put in. In my tests it took about a couple of minutes for the robot to begin charging and make a sound when it was done. When the Combo iRobot is charged, you can start an exploration run within the app to help it understand your home. You can also mark specific objects, such as lamp cords as permanent avoidances in the app. You can also connect Alexa or Google Assistant to your robot so that you can use the voice commands to navigate around the house.

It's a smart device

Combo irobots make use of acoustic as well as onboard sensors to learn about the type of floor it's stepping on and the furniture in your home. This information is then combined with images taken by the robot's onboard camera and maps of your home, to create a customized plan for cleaning each room. This allows it to be smart enough to stay clear of your sofa, lamp cords and other objects you wish to keep. Of course, like any device that is connected, there are concerns about the security of this data. iRobot however, claims that it will never sell any customer data and no images are captured without the consent of the customers.