There are signs of life in the U.S. at iRobot for the first time since December, when the company filed for bankruptcy and announced it was under new ownership. Today, the company announced the U.S. launch of five new Roomba robot vacuums, all with auto-emptying docks priced at, or under, $1,000.
The headliner is the $1,000 Roomba Max 775 Combo Robot + AutoWash Dock. The robot features LiDAR-based mapping, cameras for obstacle avoidance, dual anti-tangle roller brushes, and two anti-tangle side brushes. It uses a roller-style mop that can slide outward to clean closer to wall edges and has a cover that rolls over it to keep from smearing water on carpets.
iRobot makes a number of familiar robot vacuum claims, like that the Max 775 can identify “large wet and dry messes ahead and automatically increases cleaning passes” to compensate. The company says its auto-empty dock can let you go “fully hands-free” for up to three months by auto-emptying the robot’s dustbin and washing its mop, using water as hot as 165 degrees Fahrenheit. I’d guess that three months is a bit generous if you prefer frequent mopping.
In short, the Max 775 sounds a lot like other, pricier robot vacuums, particularly the Dreame Aqua10 Ultra Roller I reviewed last year, which also uses a self-covering roller mop and mop-washing dock but includes extras like the ability to prop itself up on little legs to climb short transitions between rooms. Hopefully, this new Roomba has better battery life and navigation chops than that example, though.
Then there’s the $800 Roomba Plus 575, which also uses LiDAR mapping and cameras for obstacle avoidance (in fact, all of the new models do). It also features spinning mop pads that lift themselves up when on carpet. I find those tend to be more streak-prone, and the self-lifting mop-pad robots I’ve tried tend to drag their pads across thicker rugs and carpet.
iRobot also announced the $700 Roomba Plus 515 and the $600 Roomba Plus 415, both of which also feature self-emptying and self-cleaning via their included docks. The Plus 515 has a similarly compact body to the 575 model and likewise features hot, 167-degree-Fahrenheit mop cleaning. The 415 appears to lack that hot water cleaning.
The odd bot out is the $700 Roomba Max 715, a vacuum-only robot. Like the Max 775, it has dual anti-tangle roller brushes on its underside, but unlike that model, it uses a single side brush and doesn’t do any sort of mopping. It’s visibly different from the other new products, too, thanks to the sensor cluster that protrudes from its top.
These are the first models Roomba has announced in the US since its acquisition by Picea Robotics late last year, but it’s not the first batch the company developed in concert with that company. It worked with Picea ahead of its launch of eight new Roombas last year. That’s a large part of why they sound so much like the seemingly countless models that now effectively make up the entire market.
All of the new Roomba models are available today through iRobot’s website.
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