The Future Is Here With the Roomba J9+ Robot Vacuum and Mop Combo
Real life rarely fulfills the techno-utopian visions of science fiction writers, but the Roomba Combo j9+ robot vacuum cleaner and auto-fill mop come pretty close. This is a real robot cleaner that vacuums your carpets and mops your floors without any human effort or complaint – just like a robot should.
Many robot vacuums are more trouble than they’re worth – useless gadgets that are soon abandoned because they’re difficult to set up, difficult to set up, or don’t actually clean well. But the J9+ is different. It operates quietly and rarely requires attention other than emptying the trash can and filling the water tank. It really does what you’d expect from a robot vacuum, and it does it in style. I don’t want to vent, but this thing is like a childhood dream come true if you dreamed of robots cleaning your house.
pros
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Cleans floors well
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Very easy to set up and use
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Human-Centered Design
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Doesn’t smear feces or suck up wires.
Minuses
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Cannot be used in the dark
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There is no possibility of direct access to the camera.
Characteristics
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Price: $1,399.99.
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Robot Weight: 8.9 lbs
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Robot Dimensions (inches): 3.4 x 13.7 x 13.7.
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Battery type: Li-ion
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Base Dimensions (inches): 15.8(W) x 16.4(D) x 16.3(H)
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Base Weight: 21.9 lbs
How well does it clean?
Before I dive into the ins and outs of the j9+, let me highlight the most important feature of the robot vacuum: it cleans really well. The device is powerful enough to suck up anything that might end up on the floor and varies the suction strength depending on whether the floor is hard or carpeted. The machine’s sensors even detect particularly dirty areas and perform a second pass. It also covers as much of the floor as possible for a round object – oddly shaped obstacles might prevent it from getting anywhere, but that’s geometry for you.
Wet mopping is similar in functionality: it cleans floors very well, performing a double cleaning action: using water or a floor cleaning solution. However, it can’t clean a hard floor as thoroughly as a person on all fours with a broom, so it’s not completely obsolete for humans, but it’s not disgusting for everyday life. that’s more than enough.
An advanced, self-contained cleaning system you don’t need to know anything about.
From a technical standpoint, sending a robot into a random house and asking it to learn how to navigate obstacles, vacuum and mop floors without throwing yourself down the stairs or sucking up the socks you left in the bathroom is a technical challenge. on par with a driverless car moving along city streets. But the complexity required to make the J9 work is never passed on to the consumer. Your role is simple: you connect the base, fill the water tank, download the app and connect it to the network. The robot takes control from there.
During the first few runs, the vacuum disc begins to patrol your home, probing everything using the front-facing camera and various sensors, lightly bumping into obstacles, and knowing where the stairs are without stepping over them. It identifies different types of flooring, determines which part of the house is particularly dirty, and gives each room a name (“living room,” “kitchen,” etc.). A map of your home is then sent to the app. From here you can correct any errors manually, as well as mark areas as “no-go zones”.
I tried this at both my home and a friend’s, and both times it was 100 percent correct regarding the rooms and layout. I placed a “don’t go there” instruction around the cat’s water bowl, but otherwise she did everything.
Once you approve the maps, the device creates a logical and efficient cleaning path that includes determining suction power based on floor or carpet type, when to remove the wet attachment, and which areas to avoid. .
It might go against the device’s “you don’t have to think about it” vibe, but I wanted to control the camera view so I could see things from my vacuum’s perspective and be able to manually guide the dial like a remote-controlled car, but those features aren’t available. Perhaps an update will come out someday.
Control Roomba j9+ from your phone
You can control and customize all cleaning features from the application. You can create different cleaning tasks, such as “vacuum and mop everywhere” or “vacuum the dining room.” You can either press the Start button when you want to mop your floors, schedule a cleaning time, or set it to start as soon as you leave the area around your home. This is done through a logical and simple interface that you will immediately understand if you ever touch the application.
Because the machine navigates using a camera rather than LIDAR or random chance like many other robot vacuums, the J9 won’t perform well in the dark, so you’ll have to leave the lights on if you want to clean at 3am.
When the vacuum cleaner’s built-in trash tank is full, the robot will automatically return to its base, empty itself into the trash can, and then return to resume its work. It does the same thing with mopping – if the water tank runs low, it goes home and refills from the base tank, and then starts mopping the floor again – no need to do anything.
Your experience may vary, but for me everything went smoothly. I didn’t have to look up a manual online or figure out why it wouldn’t connect to my Wi-Fi—it just worked intuitively. Other than replacing the machine-washable mop head (it comes with two), you don’t have to do anything until it uses up all the water in the reservoir (this takes a month or so) or until the base’s vacuum bag is full. every 60 days or so.
Obstacle dodging and pooping is the official promise of pet owners.
From a robot’s perspective, the landscape of your home changes every time you leave something on the floor, so avoiding obstacles is vital, especially if the obstacle is animal waste. One of the benefits of the iRobot J9+ is that it won’t track pet waste throughout your home. iRobot takes this so seriously that it offers customers the Pet Owners’ Official Promise (POOP). The company will replace the entire plant free of charge if it processes animal waste in its first year of operation.
When the machine detects an obstacle, animal waste, or anything else, it swerves around and sends an image to the app, asking you to help it know what it sees. Essentially, it asks, “Is this a permanent feature or did you just leave your socks on the floor?” Once you throw your socks in the trash, you can send them back to clean up what they missed.
I tested the J9+’s poop-preventing technology (as well as its connection to cords and whether it would fall down the stairs or get stuck in some weird corner and start beeping for help) by creating a robot glove. I placed candy bars and assorted wires throughout every room of my house and moved furniture around to try and get it to line up on the stairs. But alas, he outsmarted me and got through it all without breaking a sweat. However, he sent me these overview photographs, which helpfully highlight the animal’s fall:
However, geometry still exists, and some household items are so oddly shaped that they can get stuck – they once got stuck under a bike tire in my hallway (don’t judge my lifestyle), but that was a one-off case of “I’m trapped!” misery. which he experienced over a month of constant use.
The overall design of the Roomba J9+ robot vacuum/mop is ideal if you just don’t want to think about cleaning.
The technology inside this robot is as cutting-edge and cutting-edge as anything on the vacuum cleaner market, but I was just as impressed with the overall design aesthetic of the device—everything about it is simple, understated, and unobtrusive, thanks to an intuitive user interface. applications, right down to home base design. By the way: the base of the J9+ is impressive. It enhances the overall experience of the product by being intuitive when you need to use it and unobtrusive when you don’t.
When you need to replace your machine washable squeegee or install a new filter or vacuum bag, you don’t have to search a website or consult a manual, you can just do it. The rest of the time the base is aggressively neutral. Its soft faux wood top and lack of any visible controls mean it can pass for a coffee table and fit almost anywhere—it’s so innocuous it’s practically invisible. You can even put plants on it.
Will your Roomba spy on your home?
A vacuum cleaner as a possible safety hazard seems a little silly, but the device does use a camera to help get a detailed look at your home. I’m not sure a bird’s eye view of my kitchen floor would be of interest to anyone, but who knows, so I spoke with an iRobot representative specifically about privacy concerns regarding their vacuum cleaners. He assured that no photographic information is tied to individual users or used for any purpose other than identifying obstacles, and then only if you give your consent. No data about the layout of your home is also sold to anyone.
Overall: This vacuum cleaner is truly great.
I went into this as a robot vacuum cleaner skeptic. Other devices I’ve tried essentially hit the walls until they found my speaker wires and ate them. But after about a month of using the j9+, I began to believe in it. I couldn’t get it to run over fake poop (and I tried) and my floors were as clean as ever without having to vacuum or mop like a caveman.