iRobot Roomba i3+ (3550) Robot Vacuum with Automatic Dirt Disposal – Empties Itself for up to 60 Days, Wi-Fi Connected Mapping, Works with Alexa,…

I’ve had various models of Roomba off and on since the second iteration came out way back when. The robots are great when they work, and this one is no different. The big caveat is how much effort and frustration you’re willing to put up with to have your space vacuumed for you. These are absolutely not perfect machines, and each comes with its own frustrations. But they’ve been “good enough” that I keep buying them.

Their customer service and warranty periods have always been lousy, but I kept buying a new model every couple of years when the memories of those pains wore off (I must be a glutton for punishment). Now I own a 9-month-old s9+ that needed warranty repair (that’s par for the course), so I was really curious to try this model, since it’s half the price of the s9+. If I end up needing to replace the s9+, would it really be worth the money or should I go with the cheaper machine?

I’ll write this review to answer that question, then: Is this robot worth half the price of the s9+, or would one of the other robots be a better choice?

– Functions are almost exactly like the much cheaper 980 and therefore not nearly as smart as the s9+. If you’ve used any of the older Roombas, this one will feel just the same. It’s notable that this one cleans in “neat rows” instead of adaptive (random) patterns, but I don’t notice that it really changes much about the cleaning time or performance once it’s learned the rooms.

– Still requires virtual wall units, which you’ll have to pay for – and they still don’t solve “keep out” issues. At $80/pair (as of this writing), you’ll eat up your cost savings pretty darn fast if you want to keep the robot out of any spaces. But there are other reasons to want to keep the robot from an area, and virtual walls are terrible in some cases. For example, our virtual walls for our old robots kept getting knocked out of place, so we’d have to go around every day to reposition them if we had the robot running on a schedule. Or maybe you want to keep the robot from trying to go under a table where it always, always, always gets stuck, or you want to keep it from knocking into the pet’s water dish and sloshing water everywhere. Or it keeps getting stuck on the bathroom rug (every single time). Or it locks itself in the bathroom every day because it bounces off the door and makes it shut. The virtual walls are lousy at solving problems like these. So you may pay for them and find the robot is still a really frustrating device. (Or you might have perfect performance. We sure never have.)

– Suction is very, very light. I’m not really sure why it’s billed as “perfect for pet hair and carpets,” but I can’t agree. The cleaning power on this robot is maybe 25% of the s9+. That’s evident from the filter, which is roughly 33% the size of the more expensive robot. It also just doesn’t pick up as much, especially on area rugs. Another reviewer noted that it doesn’t work on cat litter – I agree. While none of the robots are “technically” rated to pick up litter, the s9+ does a reasonably good job at this, except the large crystal-type litter. This robot doesn’t do well with any type of litter, even on hard wood.

– This robot is much quieter in operation, but not when emptying. I like that it’s far quieter, except that this is probably because it’s got such a weak motor. When it goes to empty, though, the clean base is unbelievably loud – much louder than its big brother. If you live in a house, I highly recommend putting the clean base in a room you never plan to use. If you live in an apartment, be prepared for your neighbors to give you side eye for how loud the clean base is.

– Voice control is the same, that is, “not very good.” With this feature, you’re at the mercy of the Alexa or Google Assistant limitations AND iRobot’s app updates. After a recent update, for example, Google Assistant suddenly stopped recognizing our robots’ nicknames and refused to perform any functions by voice (“I’m sorry, I don’t know how to do that”). It worked if I just said “Roomba” instead of the nicknames, but since we have multiple robots, this was a really lousy workaround that failed in our case. It started working again after I had to factory reset my robots due to malfunctions (and had to endure re-mapping the house).

– Mapping is sloooooow, but on par with the s9+. It took a combined 11+ hours over several days for the robot to map our 1500 sq ft of space. You’ll need to babysit it a lot during the initial mapping periods, since it’ll get stuck and generally show you all the ways it can go wrong.

There are a few other minor differences between the two. For example, you can’t customize the cleaning behavior to “quiet clean” versus “detailed clean”. You can’t tell it to clean specific rooms or zones. It gets stuck a lot more easily.

Basically, you’re getting a fairly basic level Roomba with the added self-emptying feature. You may still have to babysit it, it may miss the cat litter, and it won’t do that great a job on rugs. Is that worth $150 more than the e5? Depends how much you hate emptying the bin. Is it half as good as the s9+? No, it’s less than half as good, by my unscientific analysis.

Side note on customer service and warranty: I’ve tried to make warranty claims with iRobot 3 times over the years. The first time, the robot was on day 93 of a 90 day warranty, and I was out of luck, of course. The second time, the robot died after 6.5 months on a 6 month warranty. Same response from iRobot, of course (They stick to their policies, and they clearly know how long their machines will last).

This last time, the robot was only 9 months old, and it’s been a fight to get them to honor the 1 year warranty. I spoke to no fewer than 3 CS reps, all of whom were very friendly and professional. Unfortunately, they all said different things, made different promises, and were clearly not empowered to actually make decisions. I actually had one rep refuse to let me speak to his manager after a very frustrating 30-minutes on the phone, where he contradicted everything the other 2 reps had told me, tried to slow-roll the warranty replacement, and insisted that the noise I heard from my machine wasn’t there.

I’d been told by all the reps that I’d receive a “new” robot after convincing them the problem was real. The process to convince them was pretty frustrating, but I finally managed it after a couple of hours across 2 weeks. (btw they also tried to make me pay return shipping on the faulty unit)

When the “new” one came, it wouldn’t work. It connected, said it was charged and ready to clean, then refused to clean. I spent 2 HOURS trying to get it to work, before finally taking it apart with a screwdriver. It turns out they shipped a refurbished unit without a battery, and I had to remove the old battery from my old unit to get it working. None of the 4 reps mentioned the battery issue; the box it came in had zero instructions; the app never indicated there was no battery; the robot itself never asked for a battery. The iRobot help site doesn’t even include instructions on how to check the battery on the s9 models (at least in the link that the app sent me to). And so much for a “new” machine. This one is clearly just designed to get me over the 12-month mark when I can’t claim warranty repairs anymore.

In the past, I would forget how painful the CS experience is with iRobot, and I fall sucker to buying the new, shiny toy. I figured I agreed to their warranty periods when I bought the robots, so I couldn’t blame them for sticking to the rules. But this last experience was bad enough that I’ll think very long and very hard before investing in another iRobot machine.

So if you’re deciding on any iRobot model, check the warranty very, very carefully and be sure you’ll willing to abide by its terms. You can bet iRobot will, and then some.

I have 3 dogs and only hardwood. I LOVE this product when it comes to all my hardwood. I never had to vacuum or sweep as I run this everyday.
However, my dog had surgery and I needed to buy a bunch of rugs to prevent her from slipping. The roomba goes over the carpets no problem, but I find it leaves behind clumps of dog hair and some debris. I end up needing to vacuum up after the roomba.
Also, This may be a me thing but the app makes no sense. Your supposed to be able to choose rooms to vacuum but there’s no way of creating a room. So it just vacuums the whole place every time. The app is convenient for starting / stopping the roomba, you can see when it ends and where it cleaned.

If it weren’t for the carpet I would have given it a 10/10

Phenomenal vacuum. Well worth the investment if it’s still working for at least half a decade. However, as-is, the app is absolutely terrible. I’d normally be more descriptive in how and why it’s bad, but I don’t think I could write the whole list within the character limit. They really should have included a remote control instead of having us rely on an app that not only fails to work, it caused a bunch of software and network issues that I couldn’t solve without uninstalling the app. I think more companies should migrate to app usage and integration, but this iRobot app is NOT ready for market.

I love this little machine! When it docks and empties it does get Very loud, like a high powered vacuum. But thankfully it’s only for a minute and then it’s done. I would definitely still recommend it!

Amazing job roomba does. This is by far the best electronic you can buy for your home.
We have 2+1den condo with carpet floor. I ran the roomba while I work from my office for one hour and the condo is perfectly clean! I have long hair and my shedding has been tough as I used to vacuum all the time.

 At the Roomba i3+’s price point, I suspect a lot of buyers won’t be first-time robot vac owners, but will be upgrading from earlier models like me, and know their way around them. So I won’t spend time on basics. My own well-used Roomba 551 has been in use for over 6 years, and while it’s still doing a good job, it’s time to move up. So I’ll be comparing the i3+ to it for illustration purposes:

– The systematic cleaning pattern is my favorite. I’ve included a photo showing the i3+’s parallel cleaning pattern on my carpet, and for me that’s far better than the random pattern of my 551 (and most other vacs). Nice!
– A close second favorite is the self-emptying feature. I have to manually empty the 551’s bin after each use, but this one takes care of itself. That’s big!
– The i3+ utilizes a pair of ribbed rubber rollers instead of the brush-and-roller system of my 551 (see photo). The 551’s brush is bad about getting tangled up with pet hair, carpet fibers and other debris, so the rubber rollers should be an improvement. They seem to do as good a job of picking up dirt and combing my carpet as the 551’s brush setup, so I’m happy with that. No more brush detangling!
– The i3+ is very slightly taller than my 551 – maybe 1/8” or so (slightly exaggerated in my photo). If your earlier iRobot vac (or most competing vacs) got stuck under certain things, the i3+ probably will, too.
– Sound level is important, and I can report the i3+ is slightly quieter than the 551. It measures 60 dB at 6” while running, while my 551 measures 65 dB. You will know when either one is running. And the empty process when the i3+ docks is really noisy, but fortunately it lasts only a few seconds. It peaks at a loud 79 dB (about the same as an average garbage disposal), and I’ve included a short video that shows the noise level difference between running and emptying.
– Battery runtime is comparable to the 551, at about 60-70 minutes, but if the i3+ hasn’t finished, and will recharge itself and go back to where it left off until the job is complete. The 551 merely quits and goes back to its dock when the battery runs low.

Are there any negatives? Sure:

– There is no separate remote, or controls on the vac, so you must use the app on your cell phone or tablet to program and control it.
– The app doesn’t currently allow for your choice of areas or rooms to clean, although that’s supposedly in the works.
– You can’t steer the vac in real-time from the app, or specify special jobs like spot cleaning or edge cleaning, like you can with some competing vacs. That needs some work.
– I wish the i3+ were a little slimmer (lower to the floor), again like some of the competition, so it could go under furniture more easily.
– There are no “don’t go” barriers included to make the vac avoid specific things or areas. The vac’s built-in algorithms supposedly learn to avoid them, but it can’t know all the things you don’t want bumped or stuck on.
– The docking station is large, due to its dirt collection/storage system, so it’s going to be an obvious part of your ‘decor’.
– It’s expensive.

I’m still learning about the i3+, and in spite of a few minor shortcomings, I really like it. But those shortcomings, at this price level, are enough to make me deduct a star. More features in the software and more physical control of the vac itself are needed to make this a real standout machine. No robot vac is perfect, and the i3+ will do a great job of cleaning your floors, which is what it’s designed to do. All things considered, it’s hard to go wrong with the i3+ and I know you’ll enjoy it.

60 DAYS Later …

I’m really impressed with this vac. It takes a few cycles for it to map your floors, but when it finally does, it does a very thorough job of cleaning. Just give it a while to learn where to go. If your house or apartment is like ours and has a fair amount of floorspace, you’ll find that the vac needs to do part of it, then recharge, then do some more. It knows where it left off and will resume at that spot. It can get annoying when it needs most of the day to vacuum, recharge, and vacuum some more, but it does do a good job. If you get tired of it, you can always tell it to end the job, or pause it and restart it later.

As I mentioned above, this model doesn’t allow you to restrict it to certain areas, or make it avoid areas. It will attempt to vacuum the entire space, even if it takes 3 or 4 recharges before it gets it done. After I wrote the original review I learned that the next model up does allow you to specify areas to clean, but this one doesn’t.

I wish I could give it another half star, because it’s that good. But the steep price and lack of ability to control where it cleans or avoids – or to even manually steer it from the app – is still worth deducting some points. But it’s still become a valued member of our household. 😉

90 days later …

I’ve changed my overall rating to a full 5 stars. I still wish this model would let me exclude certain areas, but the longer I use this vac the more I like it. It’s thorough (I sometimes think too much, but it does a really good job). I say too thorough because it takes 3 complete cycles to do my house, so with recharging and emptying in between, it runs off and on for hours before deciding it’s finished.

Oh, and the bag inside the dock still isn’t indicating it’s full, but I’m changing it anyway.

Overall, this is an fairly expensive device, but one that does an excellent job to justify its price. It’s not a toy; it’s a useful tool that will save you the hard work of vacuuming your floors every few days. Get one.

En general es algo ruidoso, pero mucho más al descargar los residuos. De preferencia usar cuando no se esta en casa, pero hace buena limpieza por el momento, y batalle un poco a que se conectara a la red. Me gusta los mapas que genera al finalizar la tarea para visualizar donde paso.