Recently, I’ve had a bit of a 'mare with my robot vacuum. I’ve been using the iRobot Roomba Combo J7 Plus since I first reviewed it a year and a half ago, and while it’s been a stellar sucker until the last few months, a litany of sudden issues has me wanting to try something new.
It’s not the first iRobot Roomba I’ve tried, and I doubt it’ll be the last, but given its lofty price, I’m pretty surprised by some of its issues. Despite my regular cleaning and maintenance, the mop function has stopped working almost entirely. Suddenly, the vacuum is rubbish at cleaning edges, and despite the really impressive navigation technology I observed during my test, my Combo J7 Plus somehow managed to gouge out a chunk of its camera lens during a cleaning job, meaning obstacle detection is permanently marred.
