iRobot Roomba s9+ Self Emptying Robot Vacuum - Self-Empty for 60 Days, Detects & Cleans Around Objects in Your Home, Smart Mapping, Powerful Suction, Corner & Edge Cleaning

Updated: 12/30/2024: After 3 months of operation, I must say the unit performs flawlessly. I am a very happy customer. I bought this unit refurbished, not new. I had initial problems and support verified that the unit was under warranty and helped me as though the unit was new. Almost all of the problems I had with the unit were related to my misunderstanding important details. I have found during the first 3 months of ownership, that doing routine maintenance such as replacing filters and brushes is so easy, and it only takes a minute or two. The parts are available on Amazon, Walmart, and other places at a significant discount. Original post: Regardless of what product you buy, whether it is a cell phone, a car, a drone, a computer, or a robot vaccuum cleaner, the most important thing is the support you get after you make a purchase. Everything breaks at one point or another, especially when you are dealing with mechanical things. This is where the I Robot company shines. They stand behind their products, and offer excellent support. And I mean they are VERY supportive. I had inital difficulties with the unit, and the I-Robot technical support staff worked with me. We figured out all of the problems, and the unit now works perfectly. Most of the problems were typical vaccuum cleaner issues like a clogged hose, dirty brushes, dirty bin area, and other debries causing issues. Keeping the unit clean and looking after it makes a big difference. Don't expect it to take care of itself because it can't. You have to help it out sometimes. A great feature is that the app for the unit will tell you when to replace filters and brushes. It even takes you to the store to select the correct part for you. The initial problems I had with the unit are listed below: 1. It cleaned well at first but soon after It did not vacuum well and left a lot of obvious surface debris behind. The fix was to clear the pet fur that clogged the vaccuum hose that leads to the bin. 2. The mapping feature just didn't seem to work. Initially it just mapped one upstairs bedroom and on suite bathroom. It ignored the second bathroom, bedroom, and loft. I reran the mapping feature many times and it just didn't look like my upstairs. But after reading up on it from articles they sent me, I realized it had mapped the places it could get to, not necessarily the whole floor plan. From there I was able to figure out where the rooms were. Now I have scheduled jobs that clean specific areas and stay away from other areas. 3. The lid switch just didn't work. It started complaining that the lid was open the first day. Then the problem would become intermittent until it failed completely. Support people showed me a simple fix for that and now I no longer receive false errors. 4. I used the phone app to register the product, and it used the serial number to register it with IRobot. But when I used it to get product support it failed to get the serial number. I couldn't copy and paste the serial number from the app either and it is a very long number. After a couple e-mails back and forth with technical support, they determined my unit was under warranty and told me that if I had any more trouble that it would be covered completely free of charge. I am very happy with this unit and I recommend it to anyone who is interested in a robotic vaccuum cleaner. It is really cool, and very much like the droids in Star Wars. It takes a bit to get used to but having a robot clean the floors on a regular daily scheduled basis is a very nice service to have. Rest assured their product support is there to help you get through any difficulty.

First this thing is loud. The rubber scrapers/rollers squeak on our floors. It's pretty annoying, I even use it a my alarm clock now. While it is loud when cleaning your floors there is nothing that compares to when it empties into the base. High pitched vacuum noise as loud or louder than my shop vacuum. I am not exaggerating. I had a $180 Shark that was dumb as a rock, banged hard into everything, not as loud and cleaned as well. This is supposed to replace the Shark. ___________________ On the Seventh day... After it woke me up it vacuumed for a bit and did it's 'I stopped vacuuming for a reason' beep. I had some things to do so I checked the app. It showed it was still cleaning. But it wasn't. Eventually I remembered it exists and found it. I pressed clean and it would not resume. So I put it on the dock and it still showed it was cleaning as it was charging. Came back and the Roomba didnt respond to either the app nor the 'clean' button. It needed a reboot. Held the 'clean' button for 20 seconds and it rebooted. Still nothing. I waited again. Pressed the 'clean' button again and it finally started to reboot. It told me it had an error 15, some internal error it was able to clear on its own. But no clue what it was. Finally it starts working again and I set it to clean again. Seven days and this thing already had an internal error. $600 gamble if this will happen again. I'm going to exchange this one. I don't feel like dealing with a deteriorating unit which may fail outside of the 30 day azon return period and get a refurbished unit from a warranty return with iRobot. Update: Since I posted I still ran the vacuum to see if things that happened were a fluke. Maybe my expectations were too high? I've come to find out they really aren't. So, the vacuum tried to 'mount' the dock. No, not in the I'm going home to charge and empty my bag. Nope, it decided to hump the dock at an approach angle of 45°, then after a minute of rocking up and down it backed off, spun around 360° and started it again. This happened 4-5 times before I picked it up and placed it away from the dock. Something else I've learned is that everytime something gets stuck in the brushes I need to clear the brushes and then put it back on the dock to 'reset' it. Pressing the clean button will not get it to start cleaning again. It just toots its cheery little tune and sits there. I did not have this problem with the Shark that the Roomba replaced. The worst part of it is that after being on the dock it will not pick up the job where it left off. So half the floor is clean. If I set it to clean again it starts with cleaning the area it has already cleaned. I run this vacuum once a day. I can count on my hand the number of days that this vacuum has run trouble free for me and still have 3 fingers left over. Update, again (2 months): Do not buy this junk. It literally said it was stuck on a ledge... In the middle of our hardwood floor. Nothing around it. Now it has taken to trying to empty it's bin before it starts a job, repeatedly. Today it was 3 times in succession before I pulled it off it's dock. What programming says keep emptying your bin multiple times before you start a job. And the vacuum's bin is already empty. Who programs these things? ------------ Update 11/24/23 It is officially no longer working. It had a fault stating that the bumper was jammed and to tap it a few times to loosen it. I tapped it, and tapped it and tapped it some more. No change. Put it on the dock. No change. Rebooted it. No change. Tapped it again. No change. Rebooted it again. Yes, finally change. It moved a few feet from the dock and spun in a circle for about a minute and then the error of stuck bumper is back. I give up. I will continue to update all the new faults I discover until Amazon makes it unable for me to edit this review.

Works great for me. Just changed the bag and filter after nearly three months of use. I have hardwood floors with rugs. Does a good job on both. If you've ever had all hardwoods or other hard floors, you know what a pain it can be to to keep the dust bunnies at bay. The Roomba works great for this. Also does a good job keeping up with the litter box. Fortunately our cat actually keeps his waste in the box and the robot has no problem keeping up with the track out each day. Having the robot has really kept the overall dust down in the entire house. I see quite a few review with complaints from people that I don't think have realistic expectations... even for a robot at this price point. Simply keeping anything off the floor that can tangle like socks or charging cords or shoelaces helps the robot do its job. Even using a regular vacuum would require some simple prep. You can't just run a vacuum over everything. About once every week or two I check the rollers. They are simple to remove with no tools and remove any hair built up at the ends. The mapping feature is great and the robot obeys all of the keep out zones once mapped. It's also nice to have some named areas that you can tell Alexa to have Roomba spot clean when needed. I'm also amazed that the robot doesn't get stuck in the dining table chairs. We have 8 chairs at a 7ft table so it's pretty tight but the robot manages to clean it all. The bad or less than perfect--- Yes it is loud... it's a freaking vacuum. There is a low noise feature that I haven't even tested. I have the Roomba run routines that I have scheduled for while we are at work/school so noise is not a concern. It doesn't vacuum close to the sides of the base for some reason. It occasionally shuts itself in a room if it manages to get behind the door and push it closed. Sometimes when you ask Alexa to have Roomba vacuum an area, Alexa says that the Roomba is not responding but the robot actually does start vacuuming. Maybe this will be fixed with a skill update. It's not a big deal but a minor annoyance. I'm happy with the purchase and would recommend to anyone. I've only had it for three months so I can't speak to long term reliability.

I bought my own Christmas Present Christmas of 2022. I've been running my Roomba 9s for almost 2 years at this point. My home floors are 95% hard surface, either tile or hardwood. I've replaced only the wiper and pickup rollers, nothing else. Typical problems are what many users report; gets stuck on shoelaces, small mats, eats objects it cannot digest, etc. For my part, human modification, sort of like what I have to do with my dishwasher, pre-wash everything. Roomba is no different, one must go around the house making Roomba safe to operate correctly. My spouse has exceedingly long thick hair, combined with both a short haired dog with incredibly thick fur beneath, and a long haired Colley, this is the reason for most of my replaced parts. For 15 months Roomba was very consistent, and I learned what to do in order to look at my iPhone from wherever and get the "job successfully completed" message. However, strange behavior began to happen. Roomba would find unmapped territory that was not there, abort jobs, send itself to be emptied and not return to finishing the rest of the job, when asked to do a certain mapped area in the house, do another area, wonder around apparently unaware of where it should go or do next. Then the behavior got even more strange, it would turn itself on, without a directive at any time of the day, and finish a job it had started but not been able to finish (not a charging issue), have a spontaneous start, leave home only to return a minute later. And then, one day Roomba just stopped and shut itself off. The app said it was doing its job but clearly it was not. pressing the home button did not get it to return home. using the reboot option in the app yielded briefly blinking bin lid light. Removing the battery for half an hour followed by reboot seemed to get Roomba to wake up but the effect just did not last and eventually Roomba was found lifeless is some corner, unresponsive again. Perhaps some other Roomba owners have noticed small dust and dirt particles gathering beneath the glass/plastic lens cover on the forward facing camera just aft of the bin cover. I have since realized; this is a flaw in the design. cleaning behind this lens cover is not an easy thing to do. In fact, it is not a thing most people would attempt as it require disassembly of all major components save for the vacuum motor/blower, after which the two plastic body pieces which make up the bulk of the body cavity must be separated. There are screws which must be removed for this operation. However, most of the attachement of these two parts are one-way plastic clips, integral to the two parts. It is simply blind faith that in separating these parts you will not end up with an expensive bag full of parts which cannot be reassembled. Once these two main body plastic part have been separated, the lens cover can be cleaned or removed. I removed this lens cover and now use Roomba without it. Roomba has worked flawlessly for two months of cleanings (approximately 20 jobs.) All strange and weird behavior is now missing. Back is the Roomba I had initially purchased. I believe Roomba 9s uses this camera for a significant part of its sensor protocol in cleaning. My 9s became unresponsive is phases, as the lens became more obscured by small dust and hair particles with time. Having the camera/lens cover totally sealed would have solved this issue. Perhaps iRobot solved this problem in later issues of the same model, not on the one I bought.

UPDATE: After writing this review, I was contacted by a different customer service representative who advised that they would be replacing my Roomba. I received it, placed the old battery into it, set it up, (was able to save the mapping thank goodness), let it charge and ran it this morning. It operated as programed and seemed to do a good job. It returned to the base and emptied its bin only once (as opposed to a dozen times like the old one did). Fingers crossed that this replacement (not sure if it is new or refurbished) will work as advertised. I am pleased that the company finally did the right thing, which should have happened within the first several emails back and forth with a customer service rep. Regardless, here we are with a replacement that I am hoping will be worth the $600 I originally spent. After owning this robot vacuum for 18 months, it began starting itself in the middle of the night, repeatedly emptying its bin (at 3:00 AM), launching itself from the docking station, and making sounds (chimes and voice messages) at random times. All of this AFTER it was unplugged! After months of communication with customer service (and trying all the suggestions offered), the unit did not correct itself, and Roomba would only cover the warranty for 12 months. They offered a small trade in amount or a 15% discount on a new one. They were not concerned or helpful. I think when you pay $600 for a unit that was taken care of and reported immediately when it started operating like a crazy possessed vacuum, the company SHOULD stand behind it. But no, they don't. There are only two of us in the house, we have no pets, children or stairs, so there was no issue with how the unit was used. I would not recommend this unit unless you can buy an extended warranty and even with that, it was clear to me that the company did not want to take care of the problem. In short, do NOT purchase this very expensive possessed paperweight.

I read all the negative reviews on this Zoomba S9+. I decided to give this robot a try as it would fulfill a need. I am certainly glad I did. I am an electrical engineer, so I’ll give you the straight scoop. You should know that I almost never give a 5-star review, but this robot couldn’t do any better in all categories. First of all, this robot cannot do anything which you cannot do. So, if you ran your vacuum cleaner on a small, light bathroom rug, you’d suck it up. So, you put it out of the way and vacuum your floors. We gave it a shot anyway and the rugs got rolled up under the Zoomba. It made a valiant effort, but failed. We decided to close the bathroom door, as we don’t really need our tile floors vacuumed. Having said that, this persistent little devil works diligently to get every nook and cranny. I have no idea how some people found it scraped the baseboards. My experience is that it moves in the most delicate fashion NOT to bump anything too hard. It would rather go forward and back many times than bump anything too hard. It has cleaned and mapped two floors of my house. It is a truly amazing artificial intelligence. It gets under the beds and close to all the stuff you have under there. If you have a wire there, it’s going to get stuck on it. Your vacuum would as well. It did make another mistake. It managed to get under a small chest of drawers and could not get out. The simple solution was to put something under there so it wouldn’t try again. We have a Persian rug on our first floor. It works hard, but it cleaned on and around the rug with tassels without any problem at all. We put a doorstop under the door to our bedroom so it wouldn’t push the door open to hide the opening to the closet. you would close the door when vacuuming the closet. This is no big deal. Two closed doors. One doorstop. We are off to the races. I just cannot get my wife to stop watching it. She has been replaced and couldn’t be happier. When it runs out of juice, it goes home and empties its bag. What more can you ask from a vacuum robot. The app on my iPhone works flawlessly and does exactly what you’d want it to do. I could eliminate a room on a floor, but I don’t have any to eliminate in my home. It’s expensive, but I am not sending it back. We love it. Buy it. Anyone writing a negative review is doing so because of operator error.

This is going to be a VERY long review (longest I've ever written, so if you don't have the time to read this and want to throw away your money, don't read this. :-)) I have VERY mixed feeling about this vacuum. For the PRICE and it so far has not impressed me. I watched videos and read a lot about this machine, and I was really excited when I got this. When it works, it's very cool... but when it does not do what you want it's a pain. I have had this thing in my home for almost a week now, and on several occasions I've been ready to pack it up and send it back. It is frustrating at the least. I would say the BIGGEST downfall of this product is the APP. It is not user friendly, it leaves a lot to be desired, and has major issues. Here's a short chain of events (well not really, but): Got it in the mail. Took it out of the box, put the base stand in an area suggested by the manual, CHARGED it for 3 hours as recommended, downloaded the APP, connected it to my Wi-fi... Oh wait that didn't happen... It would not connect to my wi-fi. Reason UNKNOWN. Called Roomba support, and the woman on the phone VERY promptly informed me that they have a know issue with the APP and it would be fixed NLT end of day, but I could still use my roomba by pressing the clean button. Ok. After pushing the clean button, the unit took off all over the house with no plan of action and direction. It would vacuum one area then stop mid stride and go to a completely different part of the house, then later return to the same area and redo it again, then take off to another area. No rhythm or reason to it's motion . NEVER did it actually finish the main floor of my house (1800 sqft), after emptying the bin multiple times, recharging 4 times (an hour and 40 mins), and over 8 hours later. Oh ya and that's not counting all the times I had to go find it, because the dust bin was full and it didn't go back to empty itself, the rollers got stuck FOR WHATEVER REASON, and it got stuck in a corner somewhere or under a piece of furniture. So that was the first experience and I should have packed it up right then. The next day the APP was fixed. (haha). Well it connected to my Wi-fi with no issues. After fumbling around with the APP for hours (it is NOT user friendly and NOT very well designed), I figured out that I had to map/train this stupid thing for it to work better. Hmmmm. I say fumble because the APP nor the manuals (which are worthless by the way except for maintenance and parts. For operation there is NOTHING) NEVER say how to program or train the unit or how to use it. Anyways... I figured out how to map my main floor. 4 hours later it was done. Great I thought. So I went into the map it created, edited it, and saved. Cool. The next day I took it down in the basement and mapped it. Easy, but again took 3 to 4 hours. Then later that day I sent it via the map to each area in my basement and had it clean it. Worked as advertised. (of course I had to empty the bin every so often because the base/bin unit is on my main floor, but OK no issue there I get it.) After every job, the roomba returned back to where I first started the map. Great. I got this figured out... I thought. Today... I decided I needed to let the roomba clean a few rooms on my main floor. I started a new job and selected my laundry room. It started up and started wondering around my hallway (which is where I have the base/home unit). After a few minutes it returned to it's home and sent me a message saying it could not clean the area I requested. Why? It NEVER TOLD ME WHY. (Tried to look up why, but could not find anything meaningful on the web or the stupid APP) I figured out finally that it was still on the map of the basement, even though I selected the main floor map and the laundry room. Why? Don't know. How to change to the main floor map? Hmmm the APP is not only confusing, it would not let me change to that main floor map. It would not let me edit the map, it would not let me change the map. Why? WHY SO DIFFICULT!!! Don't know. After fumbling for a while I finally got that APP to let me change to the main floor map. Oh wait... it says the map in incomplete. WHAT??? Every time I selected a room it would say learning and would not let me start the vacuum or do anything on that screen/page. WHAT??? Finally figured out that it wanted me to REMAP the ENTIRE main floor AGAIN. So that is what I am doing now. Already told the wife that when this REMAPPING is done, that if this thing does not do AS ADVERTISED, it's gone back to Amazon. I am SUPER DISAPPOINTED in this vacuum. However if it works THIS time I'll give it another chance. More to come I'm sure... UPDATE 21 DEC 2020: OK... iRobot sent me some new rollers (free of charge as they should have... Applauds there) and so far the Roomba has gotten better in operation. Still calls out the stupid roller error, but not as often. Also since I've been running it EVERYDAY, it is working better. NOT 100%, it still has issues once and a while with getting stuck (in places it never got stuck before), calling out roller errors (personally I think the back roller is of poor design), and it has issues staying out of "RED" zones. This I attribute to the poor APP that come with the unit. Anyways... looks like I'm keeping this after all. (Heck I fought with it enough) I'm lazy, LOL, and when this thing works like it should, it's good. If they could work out ALL the bugs, this would be a GREAT product. NOTE: To future buyers of this Product. This thing needs time to roam you house REPEATEDLY for about 2+ Weeks before you will feel it's doing it's job. Also... Map you house/main floor before you send it on it's way. Without an initial map (even though it supposed to not need it) this thing gets LOST all the time. And do yourself a favor and watch it for a few times. Not that it's hap-hazarded movement won't drive you crazy wondering "What the heck is it doing now", but because this way you'll know where it's having issues and setup your "Red Zones" - No go areas. Also I guess be patient. If you expect this thing to come out of the box and run like a dream, "Good Luck" with that. One last thing... if you have deep carpets, this thing will not impress you. It does not like deep shag or any rugs that are plush and small (like the ones it your bathroom in-front of the toilet). Hard floors or tile, NO ISSUES. I guess my final review point is this: The APP that comes with this and controls it, NEEDS MAJOR HELP. The unit itself, while it has bugs, works great when it does what it is supposed to do. (Needs Major help/improvements with deeper carpets.) Would I buy this again after knowing what I know now. NO! I would probably try one of iRobots competitors or wait till the technology gets better. Like maybe 5 years from now. 28 Feb 2021 UPDATED REVIEW: I wanted to update this review for whomever is thinking of buying one of these. DON'T! That simple. This thing has continually given me NOTHING but grief. Bottomline... It's movement is hap-hazard... cleaning an area that should take no more than 20 mins takes over an hour because it has a mind of it's own. Untrustworthy... It will stop working and give errors for a number of reasons 7 out of 10 times you use it. It constantly has issues either with the rollers, the bin being full (even though it's supposed to empty it's own bin), getting stuck in between chairs or tables, forgetting where it is and not being able to find it's home (I've watched it go hap-hazard through the house for 10 or 15 mins and still not find it's home. And no my wi-fi is GREAT.) It constantly has issues getting onto it's base unit even though I've cleaned and reset the thing numerous times. To this day (OVER 3 months now)... it has never cleaned my living room completely without errors, running out of battery, getting lost, and a number of other issues. (my living room is not that big) I will NEVER buy a ROOMBA again. I'm even thinking about getting rid of it and buying a Shark or another brand, Except the fact that I already SPENT WAY TOO MUCH ON THIS PIECE OF JUNK. Sorry Irobot... but that is how I feel about your product. For the money this thing cost I should have NO issues. Instead that is not the case... I HAVE ISSUES EVERYTIME I USE THIS THING!!!!! Enough said. To whomever is reading this. Do yourself a favor and buy something other than IRobot.

If you want to save time and energy, yet have clean floors, this baby is for you! I’ve had my Roomba 980 for two years and had recently bought a Roomba i7+ when the s9+ came out. I loved both my Roomba vacuums and a major selling point on the i7+ was the cleaning base and the fact that it would empty itself 30 times into a neatly disposable bag, rather than requiring me to empty the bag for every run. Loving the self-emptying feature, I jumped on the upgrade to the s9+ due to three major points: - smarter navigation, - more suction power, - and the ability to clean inside corners. The upgrade from the i7+ to the i9+ was totally worth every single penny for me. The s9 happily works through areas where my 980 and i7 got stuck, cleans corners where my old Roombas always left dirt, and climbs over a ¾-inch lip going from light tile to dark-brown painted concrete and vice versa that my other two robot vacuums always got stuck on, so I had to leave that room closed and clean it separately. I couldn’t believe the situations the s9 can work its way out of. The ¾-inch lip and two other troublesome ¾-inch slanted thresholds are no barrier to this baby. The first time up the ¾-inch step, Bertie, as we call him, got stuck. The next time, he worked his way about and finally made it over. From then on out, he has headed right for the middle of the lip and nailed it every time. He also cleans by a chair where there’s probably about an inch of clearance for him, and his training run had him turning bit by bit and retrying until he made it through the gap. And the way this guy learned all the corners in our house: amazing. Yeah, they did some major work on the Roomba AI and it shows. The s9 also quickly built a smart map (1 ½ training runs and one cleaning run) of our bottom floor, which is about 1,800 square feet. He always makes it back to his base, which doesn’t always happen with the older models. It also seems to clean longer on a charge, but I haven’t timed it. I’m posting a video of the s9 on a training run step where it’s learning how to navigate under a small piece of furniture with four legs. We are VERY happy with this new addition to the Roomba family. We run the s9+ downstairs every night and run another Roomba upstairs during the day a few times a week. It’s incredibly freeing to know that our Roomba is running every night cleaning all the West Texas sand and dirt that we and the dogs carry in, and I don’t have to worry about emptying the bin every run. I have a chronic illness and this Roomba truly adds to the quality of my life, saving me time and energy. Not to mention, the Roomba eliminates the stress of having a constantly dirty floor. (Even when we vacuumed every few days, our floor would be drifting with sand and dust.) Plus I can save my energy for other more enjoyable projects, things that I WANT to do – sorry, but vacuuming is not on that list. I listened to my friends rave about their robotic vacuums for quite a while before trying one, and once I had tried a Roomba, I was a believer. If you have a Roomba i7+, the s9+ is a major upgrade and worth every single penny. If you have anything less than an i7+, this vacuum is worth double every penny. I kid you not. This thing is so smart (watch a training run), has way more vacuum power, cleans corners, gets closer to the walls, and doesn’t get stuck under overlying edges (such as my dishwasher) the way the other models did. I’m just hoping the next model folds laundry. 😉 Let Amazon donate to your favorite charity! Use Amazon Smile (smile.amazon.com) when you order and Amazon will donate to the charity of your choice when you make a qualifying purchase. Check out how Amazon Smile works at https://smile.amazon.com/gp/chpf/about/ref=smi_se_rspo_laas_aas. My shopping is donating to my favorite charity, Canines for Independence at no cost to me. Awesome!