iRobot Roomba j9+ Self-Emptying Robot Vacuum – Powerful Suction, Identifies and Avoids Obstacles Like Waste, Self-Empties for 60 Days, Best for Homes with Pets, Smart Mapping, Works with Alexa​

I purchased the iRobot Roomba j9+ in July 2025, so I’ve had plenty of time to really use it before writing a review. Overall, I’ve been very happy with it, especially in a home with pets. The suction does a great job picking up dog hair, dirt, dust, and everyday debris from the floors. I really like the smart mapping because I can choose which rooms I want cleaned instead of having to run it through the entire house every time. The obstacle avoidance is also a huge plus when you have pets and things occasionally get left on the floor. One of my favorite features is the self-emptying base. Not having to empty the Roomba after every cleaning makes it much more convenient, and I can schedule it to clean and basically forget about it. After owning it for over a year, I can say it has definitely helped me keep up with the floors between regular cleanings. If you have pets, kids, or just don't want to vacuum every day, the Roomba j9+ is a great addition to the house. I would definitely recommend it!

One star is being overly generous. I don’t write reviews, one way or the other, but this was too large of an expense not to. If it helps just one person, it will be worth my time. I purchased this unit in Dec. ‘23. I used it maybe 10 times within the first year because I found that moving all the obstacles before vacuuming was a bit of a hassle, and also it just didn’t compare to my push vacuum in performance. I did like the fact that it was able to get in difficult spots, such as under the beds. A couple weeks shy of its one year warranty date it lost its suction. After some degree of difficulty in reaching customer service, a lengthy amount of time on the phone, and photos sent via email, diagnostics were run remotely and they determined that there was an issue with the base. A new base was sent in a timely manner and they offered to extend my warranty by three months. After setting up the new base I ran a quick run of one bedroom. The robot would not seal adequately enough to the new base to provide enough suction to empty the bin and I got an error message. Again, I went through the same lengthy process with customer service and it was determined that the entire unit needed to be replaced. My warranty on the original robot was now within a couple days of expiring so I asked if they would still honor the three month extension. After checking with supervision they informed me that since they were replacing the entire unit they would not be able to honor any further warranty on the new unit. Ok. New unit. It should last a while, right? The new robot arrived, again, in a timely manner. It set up easily and I mapped the house and vacuumed without difficulty. A month later I went to vacuum and I got a message that the unit was unavailable because the software was being upgraded but would be available shortly. Three days later it was still displaying the same message. I rebooted several times. Nothing. I finally resorted to a factory reset and now I can’t connect to the robot at all. I’ve since done some online research and there is a definite trend here with issues occurring during software upgrades. Folks are being run through hoops via customer service only to be told that there is no fix, but…get this…they are offering 50 whole dollars toward a new unit. No joke. Check Reddit. I call b.s. Save yourself the aggravation, time and expense and vacuum the old fashion way. This thing has not been worth it, IMHO.

I bought the j9+ based on all the reviews I was able to find and also that the previous s9 model was no longer available. The setup was super easy as long as one is comfortable using your phone's app to handle all the tasks. The initial mapping was very cool to watch. If you're a tech nerd, you'll love trying to figure out how the algorithms are working to navigate the furniture, walls, entry ways, etc. In about 40 minutes R2D2 mapped out my first floor very accurately and was able to work it's way around the jungle of chair legs at the dining room table. It took a while, but it managed! After the initial mapping run, it went right back to it's base and started charging automatically. Next was the actual vacuum run, but before that we decided to put a "no fly zone" around the Christmas tree and blanket around it. The app easily let me set up a 5x4 square which I placed in the map of the house - which was very cool, and pressed the "Vacuum Everything" button on my app. It was remarkable how R2D2 started in the room with the most dog hair and then proceeded to follow it's map throughout the house. The suction on the wood floors was excellent, and I was impressed when it rolled over the few throw rungs we have, I could hear it kick into a higher gear because it recognized the carpet. Our black lab leaves plenty of hair around on our light colored floors which made it easier to see that R2D2 was doing a great job. During the first mapping, I kept all the bedroom doors closed off the main hall. While it did the first vacuum I forgot the master bedroom door was open. It noticed the new opening, but did not enter the room. I took this as a new mapping run I would need to perform, but I was amazed when it completed the entire house, paused in the living room for about 10 seconds, and then proceeded back to the new opening it discovered previously. It recalled it found a new opening but did not disrupts it's current task - it finished and then returned back. We've only run it two times, but already we discovered that it remembered the master badroom, added it to the routine and completed the room before returning back to base. It also updated the map in the app and asked me about the new room and what to name it. I was also able to place the new boundaries for the entrance to the bedroom and master bath (which it also found while exploring). The app also shows pictures of obstacles R2D2 came in contact with during it's journey. A wire under the curio cabinet was captured in a crystal clear picture taken by R2D2 and sent to the app for me to decide whether this should be considered a permanent obstacle, or something which I could remove and it could continue working in this space next time. I simply moved the wire closer to the wall, let the app know it was taken care of, and we'll see how R2 does with it next time. I love this robot... I am super impressed by the effectiveness of the vacuum, the ease of the app, and how simple it was to set up. I have seen other reviews about noise, and speed, but it's no where near as loud as our Shark standup (which is a beast) and regarding the time, I set and forget. So far I have not had to come to it's rescue, but we also don't have a lot of things laying around on the floor which I guess would complicate things. For about 500 sq feet, the app tells me it's taking 90 minutes. No where close to fast, but I am writing this review while R2 is taking care of the floors! Very happy and I'll come back in a few months with an update....

My original review follows this 4 month update. After 4 months and some software updates this machine now works as well, or better than the unit it replaced. I found the ridiculously small filter has to be watched closely and kept clean. I rotate three. I vacuum the filter that is replaced, blow it out with an air compressor, and put it back into the rotation. The battery life is incredibly long and its ability to empty its bin by itself is nice. It sounds like it varies the intensity of the suction according to floor surface. Seems to get extra strong as it cleans area rugs. I updated my original 2 stars to 4 stars now. ================================================================================= The suction sucks. Well actually it doesn't suck worth a hoot, even on high. It wanders all over with no rhyme nor reason. I think that camera system is the pits. Both my kids have the i7+ and lovem. Probably the much better buy at this juncture. There is no handle to pick it up when it gets lost either. Has a great battery life though. But it has to because I have to run it two or three times over the same room to clean everywhere. Update... just spent 15 minutes trying to stop this abomination from sitting in one spot pirouetting like a ballerina on crack. Pretty significant buyer's remorse blended lightly with anger. I'm particularly sorry that I gave my 900 series to my brother when I got this state of the art ... well use your imagination. Dropped another star off after further review.

We have a J8+ on the main floor. When our upstairs 891 had issues with a tired and apparently NLA dust bin, we looked for another J8+. Then saw the J9+ with significantly more suction -and- uses the same consumables (rollers, bags, brushes, filters) it was an easy upgrade choice. The J* found its way upstairs, and the J9 starts main floor duty today. Our duty here is all dark hardwood floors with some kitchen mats and rugs/runners for high-traffic areas, an interesting mix of surfaces and duties. We share the home with two cats, and really need every-day fur and fuzz removal especially with the dark floors. The J9 is now our fourth Roomba in a dozen years, and they have been a fabulous solution to the cat fur challenges. The self-emptying feature is pretty luxurious especially considering how much they seem to find. I've been replacing the bags about every six weeks, vs. emptying the on-board bins every day or two. I'll admit that I'm still, um, progressing with my scheduling areas programming skills for these. After it 'learns' the layout of your cleaning areas, you may choose to try and schedule different areas for different cleaning schedules. I'm at the point where I'm trying to segregate those areas in the configuration software, and build a couple area schedules that work around our activity schedules. We are both retired work-from-home consultants, so don't actually "go to work". And as much as I like to think I'm capable of all this, in my 70's there's still plenty of room to learn a lot of this stuff. It's trailing-edge technology in the giant picture, still a fun exercise for me.

Edit: iRobot just went bankrupt (and they deserved it) so besides all it's other problems, don't buy this! This thing is a buggy piece of junk compared to the j7+ I had previously. The j7 could run for weeks with zero intervention, the j9 rarely goes a single day. There's always something wrong with it. It can't find its way straight onto the charger (which is totally unobstructed, the j7 had no problem) and therefore doesn't charge. It can't talk to the wireless and needs to be force rebooted. It gets stuck all the time. It literally can not do more than one cleaning without intervention and usually even can't manage one. The j7 had none of these issues. When it does work, it seems to clean just as well as the j7, I will give it that? Edit: I got so sick of this after 6 months that I bought a Roborock QRevo and it's like light and day. Compared to the Roborock, the j9+ is: - Twice as expensive - Over twice as noisy - Bumps into things 20x more because they didn't want to add LIDAR - Has just *terrible* software. The Roborock app has so many thing I always wondered why the iRobot app didn't have. - Can't recover. If I ever manually stop the j9 for any reason and try to restart it gets confused and demands to be carried back to its station. The Roborock spins around a few times then it's fine. So I'm back to my robovac just working instead of failing every day. Not saying you need the Roborock specifically, it's just what I got. But DO NOT BUY THIS.

Update to what i placed below. It failed literally one minute after writing my review. Warranty process was smooth and they sent a new cleaning module. This has caused the sound to be reduced considerably. I don't think I can change the star rating though when initial product was so poor. It did vacuum before it died, so I would have just accepted that as the functionality of this device possibly until the warranty expired. It is great that they have the warranty and replacement parts, that would be what keeps this from a 1 star review when it died immediately after writing the review for ~a year of ownership In general I would give at minimum 3 stars if a product does it's intended purpose, but honestly this one has so many problems that I feel like it deserves less than that. Does it do it's job? Yes, it'll vacuum and do a decent job mapping the room and doing that. At least 80% of the time. So what's it's problem? Multiple for me. 1. It sounds like a dying banshee when it's going. That's on low powered suction. Higher suction is worse. I've worn electric ear plugs that cut sound off when it gets to damaging levels and have had it cut off for this vacuum if that tells you anything. 2. It'll occasionally fail to connect and have issues requiring a reset. 3. Bags in vacuums is something that's been solved for the most part for multiple decades. Yet they bring it back in their self emptying base to try and get extra cash. I didn't realize this when I got this, so on me. It's ridiculous when there are other bases and products that can do without the bags. 4. It's avoidance system only works sometimes. It's using a camera and AI, so somewhat expected, but I've seen it drive up bookshelves, run right over towels, etc. I don't have a pet right now, but for advertising that it won't smear messes, I have to question that a lot based on what I see it do. In general I feel like there's probably a better robot out there for this. I had an ecovacs cheaper model without the self emptying base before this, and I feel like it's definitely comparable in functionality. They just had a way worse app. Although I'm slowly learning they're all trying to shill more crap at you and collect as much data as they can. These app driven products really seem to just be made terrible. Shouldn't really rate the product for the app though since it changes and in general they all suck.

I got this device after moving in to a new places. It was *incredibly* helpful to do a couple mapping runs, set up a schedule, and have it pretty much reliably clean the place while I was at work or otherwise out while the apartment was still in flux with things being moved, boxes being emptied, etc. I initially felt this was a great purchase, despite the significant cost. But as I got more and more set up with arranging this here, and that there.. it began to get far less reliable. First off, the IR sensors on either side scrape along the wall and pick up a lot of paint and scuffing from the walls. I'm not sure if that's the main issue and they're less able to reliable sense where they're at, or if it's a software issue.. But at some point within the first month or two (it's now been a total of four months and I haven't used it in at least two), it began to ignore whole areas, and eventually barely be able to navigate between the dock and a targeted room for cleaning. And I maintained the hell out of this thing. I liked keeping it clean and operating well, and would regularly inspect and wipe it down. Initially, after making more significant arrangement changes or getting new pieces of furniture, I'd notice it not working well, or failing to update the map any after a run, and wiped my entire floorplan map multiple times. It seemed to then map run well enough, but it just kept going back to this 'I don't know what the hell I'm doing' mode, and I just got tired of it. I even got the extra warranty, which stinks now that I'm thinking about it. Maybe I'll throw it down some stairs to get a new unit (likely just a refurbished one..) and resell that. Anyway. I was initially thrilled by the prospect of only having to spot clean and the majority being automated (and initially quite competent). But that illusory help with day to day life evaporated into a very expensive hunk of plastic that seems to only want to waltz in the middle of a room without actually doing much productive.

Truly, this thing sucks. In terms of vacuums, that’s what you want. It has good variable suction and picks up a surprising amount. It’s great at avoiding tangles and things you forget on the floor and its picture review helps define those items. Yes, the app has its bugs but overall, once automated, the bot goes on its happy little way. The noise level isn’t bad and it works out its paths fairly quickly. The base, that’s where it REALLY sucks. The vac inside of the self emptying bin is incredibly powerful. Does it empty every single thing? Not every time but it gets the bin emptied for the next job. In doing so though, a jet engine takes off. Would suggest programming it to run more daytime when not home. Now I’m looking forward to a Braava mop to compliment the vac.

My unit is faulty and the dustbin does not self-empty. This is a hardware problem. The battery does not last anymore. I missed the return window by 2 days. The support team is not able to support. I am so disappointed and do not recommend

Will not work in UAE at 220V. It needs 110V AC. No mention of voltage required anywhere in the listing. Finally had to contact iRobot in the US who asked me to return the item.

I gave the product a good year to allow for quirks / learning curve. Don't waste your money. I have never had a product work so poorly out of the box. Unreliable build and terrible software. Behaves like the device and the software were developed independently based on a list of specs and never actually tested together. 1. 20+ mapping runs won't correctly map even with furniture picked up to give a bare floor. 2. Ignores rooms on its list. Yesterday it cleaned about 25 sf and said it was finished. No errors thrown; it can and will completely fail and think it finished the job. 3. Errors, errors, errors. Gets lost in empty rooms, enters rooms it's not supposed to, thinks a scuff mark on the floor is an obstacle. 4. Doesn't update its map correctly so the navigation gets more and more distorted as time goes on. 5. Will go in the dark under/behind furniture but a lit hallway is 'too dark to operate' 6. Avoids dirt/dust because it thinks the dirt is animal waste. 7. At max power, still too weak to pick up bits of dry cat food. Just pushes it around the room. (Whiskas dry catfood, tiny pieces) 8. Dust and debris collects above the rollers instead of entering the bin, until it eventually fails. This is not a maintenance issue over time, it will happens during the first pass with a clean bin. 9. Asks you to clean and empty an empty bin. Repeatedly. I live in a tiny space, it only needs to vacuum about 300sf floor. Brother's Roborock can clean and mop 3x the square footage without any errors.

This j9+ is my second Roomba vacuum after my j5+ and was a really easy addition to the family and the Roomba app. I let the j5+ handle the main floor with its mainly hard surfaces and the j9+ is handling the 2nd floor which is almost all carpeted. The j9+ has noticeably more suck power than j5+ and works really well on the medium and low pile carpet. It climbs room transitions with ease, eg from the carpeted rooms to the tiled bathrooms. The Roomba neatly works around chair legs and kitty water dishes without bumping anything. No spilled water. Regular maintenance is simple and fast. After a few vacuum runs I had to remove the side brush to untangle a cat toy with a long yarn tail. I also checked for trapped carpet fibers in the spinning brushes and found almost none. I really love the app. I have been able to create daily cleaning schedules with times set to avoid our activity (upstairs gets vacuumed while we're making breakfast). I have it set to vacuum rooms in an order that is least likely to interfere with us even if we return upstairs sooner than usual. I added Clean Zones and a couple of Stay Away zones and now I can just let it do its thing. No regrets on this purchase.