iRobot Roomba i3+ EVO (3550) Self-Emptying Robot Vacuum – Now Clean By Room With Smart Mapping, Empties Itself For Up To 60 Days, Works With Alexa, Ideal For Pet Hair, Carpets​

We’ve had our roomba for about a year now; we hesitated to buy it thinking, is it really worth it? We can just keep vaccuuming? It’ll be fine? Wow, was this completely worth every penny. We have the i3 with the tall self empty can and we’re so pleased.
The roomba itself has been cruising right along; he (our roomba has he/him pronouns lol) does get stuck on things every now and again if we’ve left something out like a rogue sock or cord, but i’m actually surprised how often he knows how to avoid or move off of something. Every now and again he might bump a door, but that’s only because of the thoroughness of finding the corners of the rooms. I typically run the roomba when i’m at home (the noise is almost like a loud dishwasher? Very manageable!) so i try to pay attention if he’s wandered into a room and hasn’t been back in a while, and he’s often already switched off because of encountering an object.

The suction is great, and he does a great job on carpet but kind of rummaging up the carpet for a deeper clean; seems super effective, but also just kind of looks nice so you can see where he’s run through already where he hasn’t.

We have two cats and there were a big decision in getting this; love the handling of pet hair and that’s excellent (i wish i could run him over my couch!) we live in a 1200sqft apartment, and this little guy just runs for a couple hours and can do the whole place essentially. I’m not sure how much i’d recommend one for a place much bigger than ours; i’m sure it’d be convenient for areas of the house still, but there’s something especially great if you’re in a smaller place about just turning this little guy on before you head out and knowing basically the whole place will be done when you get back.

Here’s the biggest success for us: i have very long and thick hair. Anyone who has very long and thick hair or who lives with us knows that long strands of hair end up absolutely everywhere. You’d be surprised the places these strands can end up. However, because they’re so long and thick, they’re death for vacuums, and i’ve grown up constantly cutting hair out of the bottoms of my heavy vacuums while dust pours out, a gross process. Roomba solved this! Yes, we do have to take him apart every now and again and we do have to cut some hair loose from the rotators; but the parts are totally built for this! Everything comes apart in such a sensible way, including inside the rotator tubes where hair sometimes spirals; all of these pieces very easily come apart then come back together so you can regularly clear out that long hair with zero issue, maybe one scissor snip, not dusty mess, it’s so easy. This was my biggest hesitation with the roomba; would my fishing-line-hair break it immediately? Instead, i was pleasantly surprised how perfectly it knows how to handle it, and our guy is going strong after a year. I haven’t had to buy any replacement parts (though they’re cheap if we need them!)

overall, ridiculously happy with this purchase!

I always thought these were gimmicky. But i got one for christmas and liked it so much i bought 2 more. I have all hard flooring, no carpets, and 2 dogs, a cat, and two birds that all contribute to mess. So i had to sweep everyday or i’d get those pet-hair tubleweeds blowing around. Having to sweep all the time i get lazy and let it go; or when i do it i spend an hour or 2 sweeping or vacuuming. These robots save me hours of time and get the job done better because they are relentless. I set them on a schedule and they do it everyday completely. I have one robot that i manually have to empty the cup everyday. He’s in the bedroom, since i’m in that room every day that’s convenient enough and only takes 2 minutes. I bought an i3+ and an i4+, they self empty and i have to change the bag about once every 2-4 months. I don’t mind the cost of the vacuum bags because they give me so many hours of my time back.

The first one i got is the little guy. The little guy’s name is finigan. Finigan isn’t too smart. He vacuums in a random pattern. I started with him in the main part of the house. He did a great job but his battery usually ran out before he considered himself done. So the space is a bit more then he likes. He did a great job though. But i loved it so much i got more to cover the whole house and moved him to the smaller bedroom area. In the bedroom suite (bedroom + bathroom~350sq ft), he spends about 45 minutes zipping around to cover everything. When his battery is low he docks himself. I have to empty his cup everyday. At first his cup was usually about 3/4 full to full. The first day it filled and he stopped. I had to empty it and re-start him. After a few months of daily vacuuming, the cup is about 1/4 full each day. So i switched him to a mwf schedule. He’s still about 1/4 to 1/2 full each use. He even goes under the bed and keeps that clean. It’s really great.

The i3+ is dixie. Dixie does the downstairs. Dixie is smart. She goes in straight line patterns and covers the entire space using a very planned straight line methodical routine. The first day she poked around learning. It was about 1.5 hours. After that, the entire job was planned out and she did the whole thing in about 45 minutes. She has no problem when certain doors are opened vs closed. When it’s open, she goes in and vacuums. If it’s closed, she skips it. Her cleaning time varies from about 45 minutes to 1hr 15minutes depending on whether the extra rooms are included (doors open vs closed). She drives back to her base when done and docks. And the base sucks out what she collected. I love the base, it means i do not have to tend to her everyday. I actually only need to change the bag about every 3-4 months. There’s not a lot going on downstairs. The litter box is there and so the cat pays visits. But we aren’t down there daily tracking things around. Thanks to dixie, there’s no fur balls, hair-tumbleweeds, dust, or dirt. Always a nice clean floor. It’s awesome. Her map in the app shows where she found ‘extra’ dirt. Usually right in front of the litter box. It’s so awesome not having to sweep up litter daily. I have her on a mwf schedule too and that is more than enough to keep the place clean.

I recently got nick, an i4+ for the upstairs. He’s quieter. He’s like dixie in is planning and map reporting, so he’s smart. It’s very cool. He also gets the job done quickly. First day was like 1.5 hours learning. Now he’s done in 50 minutes. The base sucks everything out so i don’t have to tend to him as much as finigan. He’s in the main part of the house and it gets the most dirty. The dogs spend all there time here. The cat is up here most of the time. And we have two birds who send seeds everywhere. It’s amazing how far from the cage those birds can flick seeds. And their feathers and drift everywhere too. Nick takes care of all that. I do need to manually get under the couch and behind and under furniture which i do once every month or so. But this robot is awesome. Saves me the day in and day out sweeping and vacuuming.

Having robots spend 3+ robot labor hours each day vacuuming is an awesome human labor saver. Once they’ve hit the whole house for a month or two i’m able to step them back to mwf schedules. Their brushes do a great job in the corners, better than me sweeping or vacuuming; mostly because they hit those corners every day and spend the time swirling that brush to work on it. That constant day in day out effort pays off over time. I really can’t imagine going back to manually doing this. I look back at the hours i spent doing it thinking that was neanderthal days. I look forward to telling my grand kids how i used to walk to school uphill in the snow everyday, dial rotary phones, select music off of cd’s i had to manually put into a machine, and now, that i spent hours sweeping the floors in the good old days.

We’ve enjoyed our roomba 891 for a few years now, and that thing could pick up a fat gerbil’s worth of crrraaaap after we vacuumed with the trusty, 20 year old, $2000 kirby! The i3 model does the same, and the charging base also removes that gerbil-sized wad of brown fluff for you! Sucks it up all nice and tidy in a small, disposable bag that is a cinch to remove when it gets full. No dusty mess like i was predicting, nay, dreading, when it came to emptying the big bin. It’s a bit loud when it does so, like wonder woman’s invisible jet is flying overhead or something, but that’s my only (tiny) complaint.

The scrubbing rollers are easier to pop in and out as well, and the software has obviously been updated significantly because the out-of-the-box cleaning pattern seems less random than the old models. I haven’t even begun to mess with the room-learning features yet, but i’m looking forward to it! Definitely worth the money if you ask me, especially when you can grab one of these on sale.

Years ago we named the old 891 model ‘dj roomba’, but we named this one ‘rosey.’ ‘boing boing. Some of you might get those references. 🙂

I’m in love with my roomba. That said–

it comes without any instructions, which i found frustrating, particularly as the the software was tricky to download. Within a week i had to service the item, and it was actually easy to do, but i had to do it without much in the way of instruction. It was very, very frustrating, and the software remains glitchy to this day.

Even so. I got the device because i have two dogs and three cats and i’ve begun to suffer from breathing problems. I needed help, right? I had to do quite a bit of pick up–the device doesn’t like electric cords and such–and in the first week or two roomba tended to kick out animal hair in wads and required manual emptying quite often. But now? I run it once a day and my floors, hardwood on a single floor of a small house, have never looked better. I can’t say how it works on carpet and rugs or in a large space, but i’m very pleased.

Gft, amazon reviewer

Companies want a review 12-14 minutes after you receive the product. I did that. 5 stars. Purchased on 1/19/22. How is it one full year later? I would do it all over again! It’s really pretty dang smart. It’ll clean the zone you ask it to (and easy to set that up). Keep in mind i have a dog. It’ll sweep hard floors. It’ll vacuum carpets. And maintenance? Please. This thing takes great care of itself. Sure. The rollers need some love now and then. Good idea to dust it occasionally. But as we speak, i just flipped this thing over for the first time in three months and six minutes later it’s good to go. The rubber rollers are a game changer. The bin was completely empty. Changed the filter and bag for the first time. I’m in a 1,200 sq ft duplex. Two bed. Two bath. Again, hard floors and carpet. Single story. The irobot roomba i3+ evo (3550) is all you will need.

I thought doing the floor mapping and using the app was kind of daunting, but my husband took that part over and is having a good time with it! We have a lot of dog hair and sand getting tracked in, but this little guy takes off, will do whichever room or rooms you designate, go back to the base and unload as much as it can into the bag, recharge and take off again. Sometimes the hair/small sticks/whatever will get stuck in it’s throat and you’ll have to clear them manually. We live in a semi rural area and do a lot of hiking w/the dog, so there is plenty for the roomba to do!

We had luxury vinyl installed in our whole house earlier this year, and i grew tired of constantly vacuuming it. It needs a lot of vacuuming, because you will feel particles on your feet. If not. This irobot has saved me tons of time by doing all of my vacuuming. I love this vacuum. It has learned very quickly the layout of my house and although it goes over some areas multiple times it covers every inch of open space in my downstairs every time it runs. It kicks off at 9 am and has to take a break in between to recharge, but is usually done by 12:30. I haven’t had it get stuck anywhere yet. I’d estimate that my downstairs is about 1000 square feet. I also own a dyson v15 detect. If i run the dyson a day after the roomba, i don’t see many particles, which means the roomba is doing a really nice job of picking everything up. Next, i’ll get one for my upstairs.

I have wanted one of these for the longest time but held off until we were pet free. Totally works as expected. I had to run the mapping twice , for some reason it missed an entire room , after the second time it was good to go. The auto empty is a bit loud and will actually startle you the first time it does it but you get used to it over time. We have set up cleaning favorites i.e. Clean bed and bath , high traffic and vacuum everywhere. Named him alfred , ya know , as in batman.

This was a gift for my mother in law. She is so obsessed with it and even gave her the name “betty boop” lol. It does a good job picking up loose dog hair from our blue heeler lab mix who sheds constantly. Trust me, it’s a lot of hair!! Lol. When the vacuum is running it is a bit louder than i expected but it’s tolerable. It does get very loud when self emptying though, but i guess that is to be expected. Overall we are all pleased with this big ticket item!

I love it ! It’s so nice to have something else clean my home ! It does occasionally get suck or stops because of hair , but i just cut it out and it gets back to work , two cats and me with long thick hair ! It works like a charm, not good for spot cleaning so keep a extra vacuum on hand but gets the job done for the most part ! Worth the money !

Well after a few weeks with robert the roomba, we’ve gotten to know him and his quirks. It really is like training a new pet – lots of work at first, and then you’ll still have accidents and ongoing training forever. Plus there are some bugs in the system to be worked on irobot’s side. I’ll summarize our findings:

-make sure to give him wide open clearance space in front. We started with him in a 4′ wide hallway that our eufy had no problem with, but robert couldn’t find his way around.
– for some reason, robert won’t save a map after he runs. This means that if you start a new job, it’s like he’s learning your house from scratch again. If you want him to be smart, you have to set him out on a ‘smart map’ run, which is just like a normal run except with no suctioning. There, he’ll go around your house like a blind idiot bumping into things and eventually come out with a cool map that you can divide up into rooms and he’ll follow from then on. But why this requires a separate run and can’t be saved after a regular run i don’t know.
– speaking of the smart map run, this may take you 3-4 (or 8) times before you get it. Because he wanders around like a more basic, unintelligent robovac during the smart run, it means he misses a lot, gets stuck a lot, and generally causes you frustration. Each smart run will return a map of what he covered, and if you’re like us, he’ll often miss entire rooms or sections of the house. We had to run it several times before he came back with an adequate coverage map. And i say adequate because it only loosely resembles our actual floor plan, but it’s close enough. Oh, and make sure to pick up everything off your floor – slippers and cat toys will screw him up.
– once you get a map you’re happy with though, the app is pretty neat in how it lets you draw rooms. He’ll suggest rooms for you too, but those didn’t make any sense. It’s a little quirky drawing lines in the app to section off your house (e.g. Sometimes lines go all the way across your house, sometimes they’ll stop at a room), but the experience is cool and rewarding.
– once you have your smart map drawn, then the cool part happens: you can create a bunch of different schedules to vacuum different parts of your house. For example, our entryway gets vacuumed every day because of foot traffic, but the bedrooms only need 3 times a week. This feature alone is a huge benefit and way cooler than our previous eufy 11s robovac. Almost worth the cost of the device itself.
– once you have your map, the vacuum experience is pretty good. He’ll follow your map but still bump into a lot of stuff (i assume the ‘edges’ of the objects he mapped are pretty fuzzy). It is cool to see him go down a straight line, bump into the wall, and turn around down another straight line. Gives you a feeling of pride that you trained him well. The suction power is good too – picks up all the litter my 4 cats leave scattered around – better than the eufy. And it’s neat to watch him stop in the middle of job, go to the bathroom (or go for a battery charge) and then come right back where he left off.
– keep in mind this is all relative. He still moves like a half-blind old dog. Bumps into things. Stops and stands still for 30 seconds at a time like he’s lost. Spins around in circles going nowhere. He gets stuck on weird things – will chirp at me that he’s stuck on a cliff when he can’t find his way off of a thick rug. Bumps into or rolls over everything you left on the floor. But like an old dog, he mostly knows his way around and can make it back to his bed and take a dump by himself.
– speaking of… You’ve heard other reviewers say he’s pretty loud when he goes to the toilet. But you don’t understand. When i say loud, i mean loud. Like a jet engine in your house going off for 20 seconds. And sometimes one flush isn’t enough. I’ll regularly hear 3 jet engines taking off in a row. During his normal vacuum run he’s not exactly quiet either – much louder than my eufy and too loud to hold a conversation near. Like a normal upright vacuum.
– the app is really nice to use. Friendly, designed well, drawing maps and scheduling jobs is easy. Get lots of notifications on robert’s status (successful job, stuck, problems with the toilet, etc) which is neat. Robert likes to talk. Probably the highlight of the product. I also really like that you can specify if you want him to cover a room twice instead of once, for when you’re extra dirty.

All that said, there are still bugs:
– since day 1, robert tells me that the dust bag is full nearly every day. Which is a lie. Robert is a liar. Not only is that impossible after one day, but it forces me to go check the bag and i can visually see it’s still mostly empty. Usually this just means taking the bag out and putting it right back in, which thankfully is easy, but required because he won’t clear that error until you do.
– i’ve also gotten a few complaints that the pipes are clogged. I know robert takes big dumps, but this is a lie too. Unclogging involves getting out a screw driver and taking the base apart. Three times i’ve done this and each time there was absolutely nothing in the pipes. I don’t know what that’s about.

Overall: i think this is a very nice upgrade over the eufy 11s. We genuinely feel like we don’t need to vacuum as much, which we didn’t always feel with the eufy. Works greats on litter and cat hair on bare floors – carpets are iffy. Robert can be a pain sometimes but at least he makes the experience fun, just like an old pet.

The promise of a hands-off experience though doesn’t get met – i have to help robert along almost daily. Definitely not worth $500-600, but if you can get it on a black friday-like sale, then go for it.

His name is sparky.

I like naming devices and i don’t know why it brings me so much joy. I like that it was basically the first question upon set up.

The good:

-sparky is actually pretty amazing vs a regular vacuum. It has picked up so much stuff that i missed with my old vacuum it’s kinda crazy. Plus i can chill while he does his thing.

-he is relatively smart, it is kinda fun to watch him and try to figure out why he made that choice. He doesn’t really need help much though.

The bad and why it’s 4 stars:

-bags? Why? It’s been industry standard for a while now to have plastic bins on vacuums. I’ve had him for two days now and already used the spare bag they send. Yeah he’s picking up a ton of stuff, and i’m glad the bags get full. But it’s a pain in the ass. I ordered another three bags but they don’t arrive until sunday. I already manually unloaded him twice.

-gets stuck on my sliding glass door, pretty much every time. It’s a weird transition from carpet to the door which is about an inch lower so i get it. Plus it has plastic blinds that have to be messing with its sensors. I wish there was someway to mark it as a no go in the app. But it looks like i have to buy an invisible wall which i’m not going to do.

-battery life isn’t great, i get that this is the base model but it only goes for about 2 hours before having to charge. Which takes 1 1/2 hours. Considering it really only does the living room in my house in that time it’s a little disappointing. Granted my living room/kitchen/dining room/hallway are all one room so it’s almost half my house square footage. But very rough math i’m looking at maybe 8 hours a full house sweep due to multiple recharges. It’ll get better once everything has been cleaned i’m sure, but it definitely takes a while.

-the base unit sounds like an f’in jet engine. Seriously it is so loud. I was planning to schedule it to do the living room while we slept, but this thing will definitely wake us up so that’s a no.

-the fullness sensor had to be cleaned but it mis-reported it as a blockage in the station. I took the base path off and verified it was clear, but it was still throwing up the error. I then emptied the collection unit and wiped the sensors and it was fine. Could’ve saved time if it reported correctly.

-again back to the bags, i’m glad it still works with me emptying it manually. But come on, getting the bag to sit right was a hassle, it looks like best buy is the only store that physically stocks them, there’s literally people on etsy converting them to reusable bags with like tuppware lids. Just throw in a tub with a filter, irobot.

Overall these are minor quibles and i can’t state enough how crazy the amount of stuff it picks up. I might have even looked at a higher teir knowing what i know now.

The battery is already poor, and it’s just going to degrade over the years so i’m sure i’m going to have to replace it in 2-4 years. Looks like it’s about 45 bucks to replace it so i’m not too worried. Would i buy it again? Yep.

Use: small house, family of 4 plus dogs and cats.

This generation, and this model is a fantastic value point because this is where things start to change for robot vacs such as mapping, zones/rooms, automatic emptying, those things that make this fully automated.

I tried a no brand robotic vac years ago that just bumped into things and sort of vacuumed, it was a novelty and i lost interest until recently when these improvements became enough that it was able to work on its own without me. This model is an assistant, you will still have to do a ‘real vacuum’ regularly for us it was once a week with the roomba running every day. It keeps things looking decent longer and it gets in to most spaces and under furniture well.

I bought mine in march of this year and as of mid november i’ve bumped it down to my office, doing a daily sweep of that space and doing it very well each morning before i get in there to work. The roborock s7 maxv ultra has taken over its duties, vacuuming and mopping to the point of replacing most regular interaction, except for a monthly manual deep clean, moving furniture, etc.

I do recommend this unit when its on a good sale ($399 as of this review) but it’s a gateway to a full floor cleaning machine.

12/10/22 update – so far it has been great. Johnson does occasionally succumb to dementia… Seems to get lost. Twice johnson just stopped in the middle of the floor for no reason. App said it was ‘paused’. I attempted to restart which did not work and then selected to send him ‘home’. He did react to being sent home.. Unfortunately he got lost and could not find home. All in all i am really enjoying this. I have cats… While you cannot see pet hair or dust on the floor it is definitely there… Just look at the bottom of your feet. I have always worn slippers as i hate dust or hair on the bottom of my feet. With the irobot… That is in the past. I can actually walk barefoot and have dust and pet free feet!. I run johnson every morning while i am getting started for the day. Not yet comfortable enough to let him run un supervised. Hope this continues as i am really enjoying the dust free floors!

12/1/2022 – after struggling for some time to connect to wifi..i was at the point of returning it. No owners manual came with it..just quick setup card. One of the options when following the return process is to get a call from support technician. I opted for that. While the connection was very poor they did send me a link to troubleshoot tge issue. After following that i was finally able to connect with wifi.

After that it was a breeze. It took some time for ‘johnson ‘ to map the house afterwards i ran the vacuum. Other than terrified cats..it worked great!

We have three large, long-haired dogs, so i was getting tired on the daily vacuuming. Decided to try this when it went on sale for black friday. What a game changer! I actually with i’d gone ahead and purchased the better model that has ‘no-go’ zones. The downside is the noise. It is pretty loud. I’ve had to reset it a couple of times, and the map doesn’t really seem to work either. But, i just set it to vacuum everywhere when we aren’t home. I have to clean the underside of the roomba after every job – but it’s not a big deal. You have to get the hair out of the wheels, but it’s not difficult. This definitely does help with all the dog hair – saves me hours, so it is worth it to me!

My i3 is terrible! It never goes through a cycle without me having to intervene! I’ve spoken at length with support and still doesn’t work; emails take forever to get replies to. I purchased this last march and it just keeps getting worse and worse. I child proof the house so it doesn’t pick up anything that it shouldn’t, it constantly says it’s blocked and it’s not; it says brand new bags need to be replaced when they don’t, the bag is empty; doesn’t pick anything up but instead drags dirt and hair around with it. I literally have to follow it around with an upright vacuum cleaner! The list just goes on with problems i’m having with this vacuum. Save your money!!

Does an excellent job! The bag was registering as full (but it wasn’t)after the first week or so and i manually emptied it thinking there was no way i could keep up with replacing bags weekly. After doing this twice, the sensor seems to have adjusted itself and doesn’t do this any longer. A month in and i have not replaced the bag. (i have a dog who sheds)

have gotten a few laced tangled up in the side brush and it was super easy to fix.

4 stars instead of 5 bc it’s louder than i would have liked.

The roomba i3 + evo is easy to use, and it does a nice job. It is very helpful to pick up the sand our dogs bring indoors and the hair they leave behind. It is not totally autonomous which is okay with me. Occasionally i have to rescue the roomba to untangle its wheels and spindles or empty its dust bin.

I can’t find any manual or instructions for the i3+ anywhere at irobot or the internet, so most of the touted ‘features’ are unavailable. These included installing and connecting the app, controlling the unit remotely via wifi, and scheduling cleaning times and rooms. Overall very frustrating experience especially when the unit looks to be quite effective.

On a side note, ‘richard’ tends to grab hold of loose rugs and floor mats, and relocate them. Loose cords and shoe laces should also be set out of the way.

I have some seriously mixed opinions on this product. When it works it actually works pretty good and cleans our luxury vinyl plank flooring and our carpets pretty well. However many times it doesn’t work. There’s times where when it parks itself on the charger it’s not actually charging so when you go to use it it won’t respond. Also the self mapping feature which is one of the main reasons i bought it is incredibly difficult to use. When you’re trying to set up a map sometimes it will work sometimes it won’t. It’s a good product and it vacuums really well when it works