For a long time, the name iRobot and Roomba were synonymous with robot vacuums, but many competitive brands like Roborock are catching up with very advanced robots.
iRobot Roomba J7+ Combo and Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra are two high-end robotic vacuum cleaners with built-in mopping feature functionality. They will map your mop, intelligently avoid obstacles, empty their own bin, they have a bin indicator and more.
These robots are certainly worth it if you have a large home with hardwood or tile flooring and lots of carpets. But how do you decide which one is best for you?
Let’s find out with this iRobot Roomba J7 Plus Combo vs Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra review.
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At a glance
Last update on 2024-04-23 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
The quick answer
Unlike many high-end robot vacuum cleaners from iRobot, the Roomba J7+ Combo can vacuum and mop your floor in one cleaning session.
For me, the most impressive thing about the J7+ isn’t just the excellent vacuuming, but the fully retractable mop pad, thanks to a little robot arm. This design feature ensures that the wet mop pad is completely out of the way when the robot encounters carpet floors, therefore not even a drop of water will get on the carpets.
However, the Roborock S7 MaxV is still ahead of the Combo J7+ in many respects. First, it has a better navigation system, longer battery life, cleans carpets better, and even does a better job of scrubbing your floor when mopping, thanks to the sonic mopping. It’s also able to vacuum and mop in one go, using the VibraRise technology to lift the mop pads when it encounters a carpet.
Product overviews
Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra
The Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra is part of Roborock’s epic S-series of vacuum cleaners. The Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra is an advanced robot vacuum cleaner with a mop combo and a fully automatic docking station.
It brilliantly navigates through obstacle-filled floors using LiDAR sensor, an RGB camera, and a structured light sensor. The S7 Ultra MaxV has about 5100 Pa of suction power, enough to remove even the most challenging impurities.
The Empty Wash Fill dock will charge the robot and also automatic daily maintenance including self-emptying, refilling, and washing and drying mop pads.
Other impressive features include the AI Technologies that allow seamless mapping to avoid no go zones and tracking of an area and the ability to use voice commands via connecting to Alexa or Google Assistant.
- Complete Robot Vacuum and Mop
- Great cleaning performance
- Excellent Navigation and Mapping
- Less Maintenance
- Expensive robot
- Struggled with long hair and pet hair
Last update on 2024-04-23 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
Roomba Combo J7+
The Roomba Combo J7+ is built to simultaneously vacuum and mop large homes with both carpeted areas and bare floors. It effectively sweeps up hair from pets and dirt particles using dual multi-surface rubber brushes, an edge-sweeping brush and a powerful suction force.
For intelligent navigation, this robot is equipped with iRobot OS Technology and PrecisionVision Navigation to recognize and avoid common objects in its way. To improve cleaning efficiency, the Imprint Smart Mapping enables you to manage and schedule when and which rooms are cleaned, while also saving several maps for simpler cleaning on every level of your house.
It’s powered by a rechargeable lithium-ion battery that never runs out of juice with the ‘Recharge and Resume Feature.’ iRobot Roomba J7+ is also compatible with Alexa and Google Assistant voice controls and a user-friendly mobile app for extra-easy control.
- Vacuums and mops in one go
- Good obstacle avoidance
- Lifts mop pad with robot arm
- Free replacement if it goes over pet waste in the first year
- Battery life can be improved
- Mop pad is small
- Water tank is small (needs regular refills)
Last update on 2024-04-23 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
Side by side comparison
Size and look
These two robot vacuums have amazing build quality. They are made of high-quality plastic, with a shiny outer casing and top cover. They are also both glossy black and feature the basic circular design of most robot vacuum cleaners.
The Roborock S7 is about 3.8 inches tall and 13.8 inches in diameter, so it’s small enough to clean dust under most furniture which makes sense. While the iRobot Roomba J7+ measures 13.3 inches in diameter and 3.4 inches tall, a standard size for most robot vacuums.
Robotic vacuums often employ a navigation system that combines camera and laser technology to avoid obstacles and find their way around the house.
As top-of-line robot vacuums, both the S7 MaxV and the J7 Plus both have very good navigation systems. Roomba J7+ comes with iRobot’s Precision Vision Navigation system, while the Roborock S7 MaxV uses a combination of a LiDAR sensor system with an RGB camera and light for nighttime cleaning.
But how do they perform in real life? Well, they both do a pretty good job of detecting and avoiding common objects around the home. Roborock S7 MaxV is especially very efficient, it expertly drives around the floors, avoiding any objects in its path. It’s very consistent and will cover every inch of your floors.
Roomba J7+ also has an impressive navigation system, it’s smart enough to go around obstacles on the floors, but several cleaning tests show that it misses some spots, which is somewhat disappointing for a high-end Roomba. The Roborock S7 MaxV is very much ahead of the iRobot Roomba J7+ on navigation alone, it does a more complete and impressive job.
Smart mapping
Another feature that is very important and quite common in robotic vacuum cleaners is the ability to create virtual maps of your house. The majority of these devices scan and map a home’s floors using LiDAR navigation, and you can see and modify the maps via their apps.
Both the Roomba and Roborock will drive around your home to identify the general layout and create virtual maps of each room. They let you specify different rooms, and set no-go-zones or tell them exactly where you want them to clean. This is one of the conveniences that comes with high-end robot vacuum cleaners.
Cleaning performance
Now, the meat of the matter is how well these robots will clean. As high-end robot vacs from two very popular brands in the industry, you don’t expect performance to be anything less than excellent, right?
Yes, these robots have smart home integrations and will smartly clean your home, they are certainly top performers and will leave your floors dirt-free and shiny. These robots both perform very well on hardwood floors and low to mid-pile carpets. Both robots can detect carpets.
They have enough suction to pick up most of the debris they encounter (over 95% pick up rate). But, the iRobot Roomba Combo J7+ performs slightly better on hardwood floors and has a dirt sensor, while the Roborock S7 MaxV is better on carpets.
App and voice control
Both the Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra and the iRobot Roomba Combo J7 Plus feature smartphone controls for both iOS and Android devices.
The Roborock app and the Roomba offer comparable controls and use Wi-Fi to connect to your robot vacuum, and help with remote control. You can then instruct your robot to clean particular rooms, and edit the map to include new rooms and no-go areas. Both cleaners may be connected to Siri, Alexa, or the Google Assistant to provide voice-activated cleaning.
Roborock gives you the option to select between mopping only, vacuuming only, or the simultaneous vacuuming and mopping functionality. With the Roomba, you can instruct it to vacuum only or to vacuum and mop, but not to mop only.
Vacuuming noise
The Roborock S7 MaxV isn’t very noisy, but the noise can vary depending on the setting you’ve got it in. The quiet mode of the robot is as loud as 52–57 dB, this is comparable to conversations between people.
But it can get as loud as 66 dB, depending on what mode it’s set to clean. The noise rating for iRobot j7+ falls into a similar range, 46 dB to 55 dB. But of course, this can get much louder depending on the suction mode, and the loudest noise is during the self-emptying at the base station.
Key differences
Mopping performance
Similar to the vacuuming performance, these two robots are also good at mopping. Roborock S7 MaxV has 2 spinning mop pads rotating in opposite directions for better cleaning efficiency. And sonic mopping, which uses sound to agitate the mopping pad to vibrate more than 3000 times per minute. So it doesn’t just dray the damp cloth across the floors, but actually scrubs the floors with water and cleaning solution. And they are very efficient.
On the other hand, the J7+ robot vacuum cleaner uses a basic mop pad (with water and cleaning fluid) to clean floors. But it has an interesting feature; a robot arm lifts the mopping pad to the top of the robot to prevent water from getting on carpets. When the J7+ senses a carpet, the robot arm lifts the mopping pads and rests on top of the robot, this works very well and not even a drop of water will get on carpets.
Roborock also avoids carpets by raising the mop pads, but it doesn’t have a robot arm to completely lift the mop off the floors, so a few droplets of water may get on the carpets. I must say that iRobot definitely impressed with the robot arm design.
But I still think that Roborock vacuum cleaner is ahead in this category because the vibrating pads actually scrub the floors, and the docking station is more advanced with water reservoirs that automatically refill the tank in the robot and wash the mop pads.
Automated maintenance
This is a new feature for robot vacuum cleaners. I know that robotic vacuums come with vacuum bags and have been emptying their own dustbin and recharging their batteries for quite some time now. But the ability of robot mops to wash and dry their mop pads, plus refill their own water tanks, is relatively new technology and actually very impressive.
We have seen this feature in quite a number of robot vacuums like the Narwal Freo and Dreamebot L10s, but Roborock S7 MaxV also has this feature with the specially engineered Empty wash fill dock.
Here’s a breakdown of how it works;
- Self-emptying: the auto-dustbin base automatically empties the bin when it’s full, up to seven weeks of not worrying about emptying the bin.
- Self washing: a unique washing system washes the mop during and after cleaning
- Self-refilling: it automatically refills the water tank during cleanup for a mopping range of up to 300 sqm (3230 sq ft).
- Self-cleaning: self-cleaning design cleans itself too for an even easier maintenance
The iRobot’s Roomba J7+ Combo doesn’t have this feature. Instead, it has the normal Clean Base Station for recharging the battery and emptying the bin, and nothing more. This means that the Romba J7+ will require a lot more input and assistance from users.
For instance, the integrated water tank is small (210 ml) and will need to be refilled before every mopping session. You will also need to wash and dry the mop pads every time it mops. But with the Roborock S7 MaxV, these functions are automated.
The Empty wash fill dock has a 3 L clean water tank and a 2.5 L dirty water tank. These tanks hold enough water to last you for 3–4 days of mopping.
Battery life
The iRobot j7+ Combo’s battery performance is great overall. On a single charge, it can operate for about 85 to 100 minutes. But the Roborock has an even longer battery life of up to 180 minutes on a single charge, which equates to a capacity of about 5200 mAh. In its energy-efficient “Quiet” mode, it can operate for more than 3 hours. But it will last less than 3 hours if you select the highest power.
When the battery runs low, the robots return to their charging station to recharge before proceeding with the cleaning.
Brush rolls
The Roborock S7 MaxV and iRobot Roomba J7+ both have a primary sweeping brush and a side brush for edge sweeping. But the major difference between the two is that the Roomba has a dual brush roll design, which obviously contributes to the excellent sweeping ability of the robot. The twin rubber brushrolls are found in only iRobot vacuums and are very effective.
Suction power
Roborock S7 MaxV certainly has a very powerful suction rating; 5100 Pa. And since more suction equals more dirt pick-up and better cleaning power, especially on carpets. Roomba doesn’t declare the suction rating of their robots, so we can’t say for sure whether it’s up to or more than that of Roborock. FAQ section
What did you have to find out to help you? On the Amazon product page of each item, they have a great section to ask questions. Take a look and see which ones get asked if you need further information.
FAQs
Does Roomba j7+ have mapping?
Yes, it has the iRobot Imprint® Smart Mapping. It stores several maps for quicker cleaning on different levels of your home. And allows you to clean specific rooms, and schedule when they should be cleaned.
Are these robot vacuums good with carpets?
Yes, these robot vacs can handle low pile carpet or mid-pile carpets. The S7 MaxV has a very powerful suction force and picks up over 95% of debris on carpets. The J7+ Combo also performs very well on carpets, thanks to twin roller brushes and a strong suction.
What is the difference between iRobot Roomba Combo j7+ and Roomba Combo i7+?
The only difference is the j7+ Combo model has an integrated mopping function, while the j7+ model does not. The mopping function of the J7+ Combo features a built-in water tank and a mop pad.
How noisy are iRobot Roomba j7+ and Roborock S7+ robot vacuum cleaner?
These robots are just as noisy as your average robot vacuum. The vacuuming noise of these robots fall within the same range of 52–57 dB, but it can get as loud as 66 dB, depending on what mode it’s set to clean.
Is Roborock S7+ good for pet hair?
Yes, it can pick up pet hair, but the Roomba is better at picking up pet hair and pet waste.
Final thoughts
So, here’s the verdict. Both of these high-end robotic cleaners will do the job if you truly want to go all-in with automated floor cleaning, but neither is flawless.
First, the Roomba needs its water tank to be refilled before every mopping cycle, plus its navigation system is somewhat disappointing. And the Roborock doesn’t clean hardwood floors as effectively as it should., plus it doesn’t lift the mopping pad high enough to completely avoid getting a few drops of water on mid-pile carpets.
