iRobot was founded in 1990 and has had its robotic hands in multiple pies over the last few decades.
Currently, its mainstream offerings are Roomba, an autonomous robot vacuum cleaner, and Braava, a floor mopping robot. Both come in many different shapes, sizes, and budgets, and all are designed to give back some precious time that you'd otherwise spend on two of the more tedious tasks that housework offers.
I got my hands on the Roomba i5+, iRobots new self-emptying, wifi-connected robot, and being truthful I didn't have high hopes.
I hate doing the hoovering, and I've always wanted someone to come in and take charge of the task for me. Unfortunately, I live in a two-up-two-down house in the suburbs, when really I have enough clutter to fill a three-up-three-down house in the city.
As a result, most of the rooms in my house are something of an obstacle course around the edges, with boxes and furniture pushed haphazardly against the edges with no clear pattern or theme in mind.
On top of this, my house is full of trailing wires and cables - a prime target for a dust-hungry robot without eyes.
Because of this, although I really wanted a Roomba (or some other cheap imitation), I wasn't entirely convinced I would be able to get one.
I didn't think it would be able to navigate my ground floor, and I was concerned I'd spend more time stopping it from eating the wires than I would have done if I just hoovered myself.
It turns out my fears were unfounded, as the i5+ is able to deal with everything my house threw at it and more.
Setup was actually easier than I anticipated for a wifi-connected robot and is all dealt with via the iRobot mobile app - all you have to do is follow the on-screen instructions and the app takes care of the rest in the back end.
It comes with a rather tall base unit, but the actual footprint of the unit is fairly small, coming in at (at least according to my personal measurements) approximately 36 cm from front to back, 31 cm from side to side, and 48 cm tall.
The robot itself is also pretty sizeable, coming in at 45 x 42 x 12.7 cm, but it's lightweight at just 3.18kg.
Once he's set up (I called mine Roomba Ralph) usage is pretty simple. Everything is done from the iRobot app, if you want him to start vacuuming, you just hit the big green "New job" button. You have a bunch of customization options, including using the "smart map" that the Roomba can create during a dedicated mapping run to specify exactly where you want him to clean. You can also set a time limit - either 15 mins, 30 mins, or 45 mins.
Once you've got one you like, in my instance a "15-minute hoover everything" job, you don't need to go through the job creation process - it adds to the "favorites" tab, meaning you can start it with literally a single tap.
In addition to manually sending the Roomba out, you can also create a schedule, running certain predefined jobs at certain times. You can also set a "start when I leave home" setting, meaning that when it detects you leave it will start cleaning.
Personally, this feels like a risk to me, since I won't be there to help him if he gets stuck. The thought of poor Ralph tangled in wires underneath my desk doesn't bear thinking about, however, in the 10 days, I've been using him I only had this problem once.
The actual process of vacuuming is pretty fascinating, and I've tried a few things to push the limits of the AI a bit.
Wherever you put the base (and it's recommended you don't move it if you want to use the smart map), the Roomba will navigate its way off and back on the base. At one stage I placed the base between and behind a sofa, a wall, and a TV cabinet, making a weird obstacle course for Ralph to get out and into the room. He managed it just fine - both when going out and returning home.
While it travels around, it keeps a mental map of where it's been, what it's cleaned, and where obstacles might be. The first few times I used it I had a huge stack of boxes, bags, and clutter against one wall.
Ralph was able to navigate this pretty easily, and even remembered where it was - he returned periodically to check, pausing just in front of an obstacle for a moment before gently nudging it in a "yeah that's still there" kind of way.
It's actually very aware of its surroundings - when it bangs into something once the magical sensors that surround it seem to get a good bearing of the obstacle without needing to nudge it again. Bags, boxes, and partly open doors are no issue for it, it touches it once and somehow seems to know exactly where the free space is to go around it. I've seen some robot vacuums before that run on a much more "trial-and-error" system - they keep bashing into things until by luck they make their way around it.
It's self-emptying - the base contains a bag and when the job is done (or if something gets blocked or full) it heads home and empties itself into the base. This is relatively loud (slightly louder than an ordinary vacuum), but I didn't mind this, since it needs to be strong to get into all the nooks and crannies of the machine's insides.
On top of this, you can get into the machine's stomach yourself in case he's eaten something he shouldn't (mine ate a 12-sided dice at one point). It's an easy process, which I was really impressed by.
The actual job of hoovering is also good considering it needs no human input. I think it's actually stronger than my Dyson, which I actually found surprising considering how quiet the Roomba runs.
It has a little spinning arm on one side that it uses to scoop delicious dust and dirt into its mouth, and it uses this arm to run along the edges of walls and furniture to get into the corners.
The arm unfortunately does sometimes cause it some trouble - there's a corner of a particular rug that the arm always gets stuck under if it goes from the wrong angle. Luckily Ralph seems to know this now, and he avoids it at all costs.
Overall he does as good a job as I do, which I like to think is above average. The only downside is that without eyes he can't see parts that are missed, whereas I would know to go back over an area or catch a piece of fluff that make a break for it into an area I'd already been.
That said it's really methodical - it does straight lines in an area and it goes back and forth as many times as it can in the time limit. My front room takes around 7 minutes for it to get around, meaning it does the whole room twice in the 15-minute window.
If you're a tech geek like me, the app has a lot of cool features that will tickle your fancy. This includes the smart map, but also if you click on a job once it's done you get a nice little map of your room through the eyes of the Roomba, meaning you can see where it went, what it cleaned, and where it thinks the obstacles are.
It can find its base no matter what you do - I picked it up a few times and moved it halfway across the room, and while this definitely confused it just returned to the base to get its bearings, emptied itself, and cracked on with the job at hand.
The battery life is also pretty good - it charges whenever it returns home, and it's able to do a 45-minute job without eating even half of the battery.
One downside however is that if the Roomba comes loose from the base (say if you move the base or your cat knocks it) it isn't immediately obvious that it's happened. The battery then drains, and when you want to use it next you get a lovely little red circle and some error noises asking you to charge it first.
It charges pretty quickly though - five minutes of charging was enough to get it through a 15-minute job when I had guests due imminently.
In addition, the app will let you know what the problem is in a lot of cases when there's a problem, it even pings your phone if it gets stuck or tangled up somewhere.
It is also possible to use it without the smartphone app too since it has three buttons on top of the machine. It's really not what it is intended for, however, and you lose a lot of functionality this way.
It even connects to your smart home system (Alexa, Google Home, etc), meaning you don't even have to physically pull your phone out of your pocket anymore - you can just shout at your home's native technology. The future really has arrived.
Verdict: 5/5
I am not going to mince my words here - I absolutely love this thing and I cannot believe I've been hoovering with my stupid human arms and hands this whole time.
It's not perfect - it's a robot after all - but it is robust and effective. It does the job and it does the job well the vast majority of the time. This machine could easily replace my need to ever hoover downstairs again, although sadly this makes the fact that I have to manually hoover upstairs seem ever more frustrating.
It's pricey, and given the obstacle course, that is my house I was really on the fence about getting one. I regret waiting this long, however, and any niggles that I have with it are really minor. iRobot seems to have designed it with a viewpoint that it's not infallible, and has tried to build in contingencies where possible.
Perhaps I'll get a second one for my landing and bedrooms.
The Wifi Connected Roomba® i5+ Self-Emptying Robot Vacuum is available now for £589.00 via the iRobot website, alongside the more affordable Wifi Connected Roomba® i5 Robot Vacuum for £399.00
