Eric Ravenscraft
The biggest downside to most Roomba models is that you have to empty it every single time you use it. The newest Roomba lacks this disadvantage, with a charging dock that can empty the Roomba automatically.
The new Roomba i7+ comes with a charging dock that includes its own vacuum that can suck all the dirt from your robot vacuum into a bag inside the charging station. Of course, you’ll still have to empty the bag inside the dock, but it can store up to 30 cleaning jobs worth of dirt inside it, meaning you only have to empty it once every month or two, depending on how often your Roomba cleans.
This comes with a couple downsides, though. For starters, the new Roomba costs $949, which is a high price tag even for a robot vacuum. The bags also cost $15 for a three pack. While $5 every month or two isn’t the highest maintenance cost, it’s still more than the $0 you have to spend to empty a regular Roomba’s bin. But perhaps the convenience of being able to ignore your Roomba for weeks at a time will be worth the added cost.
The Roomba i7+ also comes with updated room mapping technology, allowing it to remember floor plans. Once it learns your home’s layout, you can even set it to clean only certain rooms. Naturally, it also connects to Alexa or Google Assistant, letting you start a vacuum job to clean entire floors or certain rooms with a voice command.
The Roomba i7+ is available for pre-order starting today for $949. and will ship on September 12th. You can also buy the Roomba i7 for $699 which comes with everything except the vacuum charging station. The Clean Base vacuum charging station sells independently for $299, though you’ll end up saving $50 if you buy them both together.
