iRobot - Roomba 800 Series

I have been using roomba 805s, two 960s and two 980s without the app - no wifi connection. They are probably the best irobot made, but they are really old. I recently bought a Matic vacuum (there is a reddit group for it) since the security is much better than other new robots. That was part of the design criteria.

Yeah it was iRobot’s game to lose, and, well, they fucked it up royally in ways that will be case studied for decades to come. That said I have an iRobot 805 as my garage roomba and what an unstoppable little beast it is. Except for the fact that it gets stuck under my 911, it’s practically perfect for that use case.

I have high thresholds. I use doormats and put them over the threshold like a bridge. It worked for my Roomba 860. I did have to put 'steps' under the doormat to reduce the ramp angle. Just pieces of board I had around. I bought a Roborock Q Revo Curve. It actually raises itself up and goes over no problem. I had a Dreame x40 Ultra. It would ask you if it was a threshold that was crossable. If you marked it on the map as crossable, it would just send it. Backed up, took a running stab and jumped the thing. It had mop issues so I sent it back. Next was a Ecovac T30 Ai. That did not make it over thresholds other bots could. It went back. Now I'm running the Q Revo. It will likely stay.

I had an 870 that lasted forever till two years ago.. it started speaking Chinese so I decided is time had come

I bought a new roomba in 2016 i think it was an 800 series. It was an absolute piece of crap from day 1. Would get lost, couldn't get up on its dock, would just spin around and move it along. Wouldn't run on schedule. And eventually got to where it would just run into things full speed like it's sensors didn't work at all. We did customer support and they just said to do firmware updates but never fixed. Gave to my sister who ultimately threw it away. I'll never own another.

Not aware of any random navigation models avaliable with a self empty station. At least none that are currently avaliable and work adequately well. Even budget models are more often including lidar and app functionality. Your options are going to be limited no matter what, and all the random navigation models are going to be the cheapest of the cheap now and unlikely to perform all that well. It might be worth finding a used irobot roomba e5 or 800 series model or similar. Those are about the highest performance random navigation models irobot ever made. You could also look for a 980 which had smart navigation but works totally offline if you prefer.

Buy an old roomba instead, (500/600/700/800/900) they are the most reliable you can get.

We have had roomba for 12 years now (first a series 8 , now a J7+). Couldn't live without, esp with kids, keeps the house clean with no effort at all, but you know this already. Buy something quality, sensors and software really make a difference, favor companies with solid software development. If i had to buy now, i would go for a roborock, the J7+ while very good, sometimes is just disappointing dumb. Also good brands have all aftermarket replacements parts, we keep reviving our roomba 8 from 10+ years ago.

I bought one a while ago for the novelty since it was a black Friday sale (and I suck at keeping a schedule to vacum. Didn’t have mapping but I thought it would be smart enough to still navigate just fine. Instead it just rams into things then randomly changes direction. Meanwhile, a coworker bought some  bootleg that cost a fraction of the price and it runs flawlessly. All the extra shit that roomba charges for in it’s higher tier models are included for free.  Never buying another roomba product. They’ve clearly just been coasting off of brand recognition.

I’ve had an 800 or 900 Roomba for decades until one died and then luckily somebody was upgrading and I got another one. The more fancier ones did not seem to clean as well and the newer ones with mopping. I only use on my carpet works relatively well, but it doesn’t get into the corner and against the walls as well. I’ll keep him until they die and then hopefully they will have something that works well on rugs.