iRobot Roomba

Long-term owners

My roomba (Rosie) is going strong 8 years in. It's just the bump into everything vacuum only kind but it gets the job done

Sep 2026 · comment

I am mostly satisfied with it (after ten years I guess I got used to its quirks)

Jan 2026 · comment

my previous robot (iRobot model from 3 years ago) was better at this

Jul 2026 · comment

What hackers pick instead

• Roborock robot vacuumStrong cleaning, mapping and long life for the money, with replaceable parts and easy setup. Caveats: data privacy concerns with a Chinese maker and getting stuck.48recommend
• Eufy robot vacuumPeople recommend it for cleaning floors automatically and consistently every night, with good value for the price. Common caveat: the roller brush needs frequent hair clearing and obstacle avoidance is weak.10recommend
• Dreame robot vacuumPeople recommend Dreame robot vacuums for good obstacle avoidance and as a top brand alongside Roborock. Critics mention getting stuck and concerns about data sent to China.9recommend
• Matic robot vacuumRecommended for making vacuuming unnecessary; people call it awesome. Caveat: too tall for under some beds, and some think Dreame and Roborock are better.8recommend
• Neato robot vacuumPeople recommend Neato robot vacuums for lidar mapping and remote use, often over Roomba. The main caveat: functions stop when the company's cloud service goes down.7recommend

Every quote

The 40 most detailed of 216 comments. Each links to the original.

1. My roomba (Rosie) is going strong 8 years in. It's just the bump into everything vacuum only kind but it gets the job done

   Recommends · Sep 2026 · in “GPT-6 Astra on robot arms”

2. has gotten dumber over the years. Not only does it get lost, but it physically gets stuck under things

   Mixed · Jul 2026 · in “Mistral's Robostral Navigate: a state of the art robotics navigation model”

3. I love how easy it is to service a Roomba. And the parts (both original and 3rd party) are plentiful.

   Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges”

4. It wasn't clear to me that any competitor could match their repairability and availability of parts.

   Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges”

5. You can still find ones that don't need to be registered online and will work without WLAN or app.

   Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges”

6. I have to prep the room for my roomba so it doesn't eat my rug and commit suicide by cable.

   Mixed · Jan 2026 · in “Tesla ending Models S and X production”

7. The maker was famous for keeping parts readily available for even the oldest models

   Mixed · Dec 2025 · in “Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges”

8. I am mostly satisfied with it (after ten years I guess I got used to its quirks)

   Mixed · Jan 2026 · in “Revisiting the original Roomba and its simple architecture”

9. being able to buy and swap out the parts easily seemed like a nice feature

   Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges”

10. it gets the vast majority of stuff up and keeps the cat hair under control

    Mixed · Dec 2025 · in “Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges”

11. My Roomba, on the other hand, almost never gets hair caught in the brushes

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Wall Street ruined the Roomba and then blamed Lina Khan”

12. it's great to be able to have floors cleaned every day while I'm working

    Recommends · May 2026 · in “I've Covered Robots for Years. This One Is Different”

13. the modular nature of their parts replacement is a super welcome thing

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges”

14. my previous robot (iRobot model from 3 years ago) was better at this

    Recommends · Jul 2026 · in “Mistral's Robostral Navigate: a state of the art robotics navigation model”

15. Never connected it to wifi or a phone app (no phone). Works great.

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges”

16. No highres 3d scan of your home being phoned back to the producer.

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Revisiting the original Roomba and its simple architecture”

17. A number of parts replaced over time, so refreshingly repairable.

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Wall Street ruined the Roomba and then blamed Lina Khan”

18. My Roomba has many years by now, and I've swapped a few parts.

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges”

19. the old one still runs well (with some maintenance, of course)

    Mixed · Dec 2025 · in “Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges”

20. It still works great, following the same schedule for 7 years.

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges”

21. served us well until it could no longer charge its battery

    Mixed · Jul 2026 · in “Building an Open-Source Robot Vacuum – Meet Oomwoo”

22. They both practically genericized themselves by inventing and dominating the product category, then just couldn't keep up with the competition.

    Criticizes · Jul 2026 · in “Is this the end of the once-mighty GoPro?”

23. Robots with vision + sounds sensors and connected to the internet in professional homes across your country are definitely a security issue.

    Criticizes · Aug 2026 · in “Nvidia agrees to acquire Hugging Face for $13B”

24. It just was not really worth it to use it in an environment where you can’t keep everything nailed down and off the floor at all times.

    Criticizes · Dec 2025 · in “Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges”

25. A robovac just didn't really do anything for me and would have had various issue with cords or random stuff on the floor.

    Criticizes · Dec 2025 · in “Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges”

26. I still haven't come across a Roomba-style robot that's actually smart enough to detect which obstacles it can go over

    Criticizes · Jun 2026 · in “Hyundai buys Boston Dynamics, Atlas humanoid to be used at vehicle plant by 2028”

27. The article discusses it photographing people exposed on the toilet, and employees sharing the images for lulz.

    Criticizes · Dec 2025 · in “Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges”

28. Many of those vacuum cleaners have cameras, can move around on their own, and are connected to the Internet.

    Criticizes · Dec 2025 · in “Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges”

29. Roomba was living off of name recognition for most of that period and was far behind in adopting any of it.

    Criticizes · Dec 2025 · in “Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges”

30. Roomba was not competitive in the market, no amount of Amazon market manipulation would have changed that.

    Criticizes · Aug 2026 · in “Nvidia agrees to acquire Hugging Face for $13B”

31. they made a bet to use CV instead of Lidar for their mapping robots for a long time until it was too late

    Criticizes · Dec 2025 · in “Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges”

32. It navigates very well, including figuring out where it’s at within seconds of being manually moved to a new location on a different floor.

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Revisiting the original Roomba and its simple architecture”

33. in a perfect world where it could avoid cat/dog toys scattered around the living room floor, makes pet ownership much more pleasant

    Mixed · Dec 2025 · in “Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges”

34. With furnishing optimized for dust generation and daily Roomba runs there is very little to dust off of surfaces.

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges”

35. I like being able to tap my phone a couple times and tell it to clean out e.g. the area around my cat's toilet

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges”

36. it has no problem enforcing exclusion zone and does precise navigation decisions when it needs to move around

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Revisiting the original Roomba and its simple architecture”

37. It was remarkably easy to hack, the brilliant human Tod Kurt (todbot) did amazing work hacking them

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Revisiting the original Roomba and its simple architecture”

38. the old dumb roomba's bumpy nature is a good motivator to keep my place somewhat free of obstacles

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges”

39. though I actually still do once a month when I move furniture to vacuum places the Roomba can't go

    Mixed · Nov 2025 · in “A trillion dollars (potentially) wasted on gen-AI”

40. Roombas may not have solved the vacuuming problem for everyone, but they solved it for me

    Mixed · Dec 2025 · in “Roomba maker goes bankrupt, Chinese owner emerges”