iRobot Roomba i3+

amazon iRobot Roomba i3+ reviews

The iRobot Roomba i3+ is the most affordable robot vacuum that can empty its trash for truly hands-free cleaning.

One of the best innovations in robot vacuums has been developing models that can empty trash cans in recent years. In addition to providing more convenience than traditional models, they significantly limit your exposure to dust, a big plus if you have allergies. However, vacuums with this feature typically cost around $1,000, a lot more than most people can or are willing to spend. That makes the Roomba i3+ especially appealing because, at $599.99, it’s iRobot’s most affordable model with a self-emptying trash can to date. It lacks the smart mapping capabilities of its more expensive counterparts, so you can’t send it to specific rooms for cleaning. But depending on your needs, the trade-off can be well worth it for the truly hands-free cleaning it offers.

Design and key features

The Roomba i3+ is iRobot’s third model with a self-emptying trash bin after the Roomba i7 + $799.99 and the Roomba s9 + $1,099.99. Like its predecessors, the i3+ comes with an Auto Clean Base, which charges the robot and holds about 60 days’ worth of debris in its AllergenLock bag, depending Depends on how often you vacuum and how dirty your home is. When the robot docks after cleaning, you can hear the Clean Base fan motor start as it sucks the contents of the trash into the bag.

Debris travels from the dustbin through a vacuum cleaner in the Clean Base before being put into the bag. The Clean Base comes with a pre-installed bag, and you get an extra bag in the box. When it runs out, you can get a pack of three for $19.99. iRobot says the bag is made of four layers of allergen-blocking materials, allowing it to retain 99% of pollen and mold.

The trade-off is that the Facility is clean, which is a bit annoying. At 19 x 12.2 x 15.1 inches (HWD), it’s much larger than a standard robotic vacuum cleaner station. The i3+ itself is 13.26 inches in diameter and 3.63 inches tall, on the high side compared to other models. If you’re looking for a short vacuum that can go through low furniture, Eufy makes several sturdy 3-inch mini models, including the $220 RoboVac 11s, $300 30C, and $350 G30. However, none of these models can empty their own recycle bin.

The i3+ has three buttons at the top: a large Clean/Power button in the middle, flanked by Home and Spot Clean buttons on either side. Around the Power/Clean button is a Light Ring Indicator; this light is always off but will glow white when the robot is charging, white when fully charged, glow red when a battery is low, glow blue when it is looking for its Clean Base and flashes blue when it is in Dirt Detect mode.

While some robot vacuums have a shiny mirror finish that shows dust, the i3+ has a matte finish/gray texture on top that looks almost like cloth and minimizes fingerprints. It also has a Containment Cell (RCON) sensor on the top that allows it to detect its Clean Base and a Light Touch sensor on the front to detect walls and other obstacles.

On the bottom, it has two long multi-surface brushes that work together and an edge brush. It has four Cliff sensors to prevent it from falling downstairs and a Floor Tracking sensor to help it clean in neat rows rather than in a car-style obstruction. The bin has a highly efficient filter, which iRobot says captures 99% of pollen, mold, dust mites, and allergens for dogs and cats. It comes with a pre-installed filter, and you get an extra filter in the box.

Before taking your robot out for cleaning, iRobot recommends picking up cables, wires, and toys so that the i3+ doesn’t get tangled or entangled in them. The company also recommends opening all the interior doors before the robot comes through first so that it can explore your house.

In the iRobot Home app for Android and iOS, you can start a new cleaning job, create a cleaning schedule, view the robot’s cleaning history, update the robot’s settings, and get help if you have a problem. When creating a schedule, you can choose which days of the week you want Roomba to clean and at what time. It also supports IFTTT event-based automation, so you can program it to automatically start cleaning when your August smart lock or MyQ-equipped garage door closes.

The i3+ cleans the middle of the rooms first, then treats the edges. When it finds a particularly dirty area, it automatically switches to Dirt Detect mode and moves over the offending location multiple times until it’s clean enough. When you press the Spot clean button, the robot will spiral out about three feet and then spiral inward to the end where it started.

When the battery is low, the i3+ will automatically return to a basic recharge state. If it doesn’t finish a job, it will return to where it left off on the next run.

Given its price, you can’t expect the i3+ to have all the same bells and whistles as the i7+ and s9+, and one of the biggest things it lacks is Smart Maps. Its more expensive counterparts create a customizable floor map while vacuuming and allow you to label each room so you can send the robot right where you want it to clean. They can even remember multiple floors if you have more than one floor in your home.

For an additional $59.99, you can get a virtual barrier wall accessory that lets you block out certain rooms or areas so that the i3+ won’t clean there. It can block openings up to 10 feet and has a Halo mode to create a four-foot no-go zone around fragile items. If you’re OK with cleaning i3+ everywhere or can block certain rooms by simply closing the door, you may not need to spend extra money on a virtual wall fence.

Establish

Once you open the box, the Getting Started guide at the top guides you through the setup process. To get started, place the charging station against a wall near an outlet with good Wi-Fi coverage and at least 1.5 feet away from other objects. Then you manually place the robot on the charging station, making sure to align the metal charging contacts. After about a minute, you will hear a sound to let you know the robot is awake and changing.

From there, you’ll need to download the iRobot Home app and create an account if you don’t already have one. When you first sign in to the iRobot Home app, it asks permission to find and connect to devices on your local network; press OK. It will then take you to the Add robot screen; here, select Roomba, and then you can name your robot or choose the default option.

The app will then bring up the Wi-Fi screen, where you have to select the network you want to connect to and enter your password. It then instructs you to press the robot’s Home and Spot buttons simultaneously for two seconds until you hear a sound. When you hear the sound, check the box next to it that says “I pressed the buttons,” then press Continue, and it will start activating the robot. For me, the activation process only took a minute or so. Once activated, the app will take you through a quick guide to what your Roomba can do.

An Amazon Alexa message automatically popped up on my phone during activation, saying it found a new robot. My Echo speaker said I could control it by saying, “Turn on Roomba. ”

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Performance

Most firms in this field advertise their robot’s suction power in pascals (Pa), a unit of pressure. iRobot doesn’t make this information easy to find but says the i3+ offers ten times more suction than the Roomba 600 series, like the i7+. The expensive S9+ offers the deepest cleaning of any iRobot vacuum, with 40 times the suction power of the 600 series.

The i3+ is quick and efficient, but like other iRobot models, it can get a bit noisy. When working on the carpet in my office, it makes an annoying, almost shrill sound. If you’re sensitive to loud noises, like I am, you might want to schedule the i3+ to clean when you’re out of the house.

In testing, it cleaned for almost 90 minutes before the battery ran low, and it navigated back to Clean Base. Better than the i7+ and s9+, both of which lasted just 60 minutes in the test, it’s shorter than the Roomba 675, which ran for up to 104 minutes on a single charge, as well as several other models we’ve seen tested passed the 100-minute mark.

While the i3+ doesn’t have the best battery life, the ability to go back to where it left off is a great feature. In one test run, it only cleaned for about an hour before returning to its base, and the app says it will resume where it left off after about 77 minutes. Indeed, after recharging, the robot starts backing up and cleaning for another 24 minutes until the job is complete.

About 17 minutes after running, the i3+ got stuck under the chairs, which proved challenging for other robot vacuums. If you have this problem, consider turning the chairs on the table upside down like in a restaurant, if possible, when running the vacuum. That will help prevent jams and allow for easier collection of debris under your desk. In my case, the iRobot Home app warned me that the Roomba was stuck, so I set it free manually, and it got the job done with no problem.

I have laminate, carpet in my house, and the i3+ has no problem crossing the threshold from one floor type to another. When its battery was almost empty, it successfully navigated back to Clean Base.

After the first test run, my floors looked a lot cleaner. It left neat vacuuming lines on my carpet, but there was still a little debris left. After a second full test run, all visible Dirt was gone.

The auto-removal feature works perfectly, successfully sucking the contents of the robot’s trash into the AllergenLock bag. The robot will automatically empty the bin once it’s attached, but there’s also a button in the app that lets you do it at any time. When empty, the blower blows loudly for 30 seconds or so — about the volume of an old-fashioned upright vacuum. After many full tests run, I check the bucket, and it is empty.

The scheduling feature also worked well during testing, and I had no problems controlling the robot with Alexa voice commands. When I said, “Alexa, ask Roomba to start vacuuming,” it started working. You can also say, “Alexa, ask Roomba to stop vacuuming” and “Alexa, ask Roomba to come home.”

In the History section of the app, you can see a list of the robot’s cleaning jobs and click on each record to see how long it has cleaned, how many square feet it has covered, how many times Dirt Detect mode is implemented, and a basic map of the cleaning area.

Several times during the two-week test period, the robot lost connection with the app, with the message “Cloud could not connect to Roomba. Please try again later.” Each time, I was able to fix the problem fairly easily by restarting the robot and the iRobot Home app, as suggested in the app’s Help. When this happened, I ran a beta version of iOS that an iRobot spokesperson said may have caused the problem.

Maintenance

All floor mopping robots require a bit of maintenance, but the i3+ isn’t as necessary as most robots, thanks to its ability to empty its trash can. When the AllergenLock bag needs to be replaced, the LED indicator on the Clean Base will turn solid red.

iRobot also recommends cleaning the robot’s filter once a week (or twice a week if you have a pet) and replacing it completely every month. To keep your robot operating at peak performance, you’ll also want to clean the Full Bucket sensor and the front wheel every two weeks. About once a month, you’ll need to remove the bristles wrapped around the brush and wipe down all other sensors.

The app will let you know when the robot needs maintenance and even show you how to remove the brushes and clean them, making the process simple.

Compare and conclude

At $600, the iRobot Roomba i3+ isn’t a budget-friendly robot vacuum. Most other models in this price range have customizable cleaning maps, which the i3+ lacks. But the i3+ makes up for it with its ability to empty its trash, which dramatically cuts down on maintenance.

If you don’t need smart mapping, the i3+ is a great alternative to the more expensive Roomba i7+, offering the same suction power and automatic bin emptying for significantly less money. It’s a particularly appealing option if you have allergies, as it combines a self-cleaning dustbin with a highly efficient filter that captures airborne allergens as it cleans. It’s also a top choice for anyone looking to upgrade from a traditional robotic vacuum that requires manual dumping to an automated bin.

In this price range, you should also try the $500 Proscenic M7 Pro, which can be purchased with an auto vacuum attachment for the same price as the i3+, supports customizable cleaning maps, and tasks doubles as a mop for small spaces. That said, iRobot is one of the most trusted players in the robot vacuum market for good reason — it consistently delivers high-quality products and adds value through updates feature-rich software. In the end, both are great options.

For more clarity, check out the Roomba S9+, which costs $500 more than the i3+ but has a D-shaped design that allows it to go deeper into corners and align itself to the wall while providing power. Strongest suction of any iRobot model.

Finally, if you don’t have allergies and or you’re new to the world of robot vacuums, the $300 Roomba 675, iRobot’s most affordable model with Wi-Fi connectivity, could serve you well. It has no emptying bin but rarely jams automatically adjusts to different floors, and supports scheduling and voice commands.

Advantages

Self-emptying trash cans

Works with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant

Support IFTTT and scheduling

Detect and focus on areas with lots of gaps

Defect

Lack of smart maps

Average battery life

It can be a bit noisy