The Roomba i3+ Robot Vacuum Cleaner Makes Cleaning Your Floors Fun
By Thomas Kenzaki
November 6, 2020Unless your name is Danny Tanner, you probably don’t love cleaning. Vacuuming is a chore, and robotic vacuum cleaners are designed to simplify your floor cleaning by doing most of the work for you. The Roomba i3+ is a mid-range robotic vacuum cleaner which offers some great features from a brand you can trust.
The first Roomba from iRobot came out in 2002, which means they’ve been in the business of keeping your floors clean for a very long time. Since then they’ve released a LOT of different models, and added many cool new features along the way.
Design and Features
The Roomba i3+ is one of their latest models and offers a lot of great features including a self emptying bin, smart home integration, and smart navigation.
One of the most annoying things about robotic vacuums is having to frequently empty the dust bin. With how small these things are, there’s only so much space for it to store what it vacuums up.
With the included clean base, the Roomba i3+ can automatically empty its dust bin. This comes in extremely handy because it makes it a LOT lower maintenance. If you’ve got a large area to vacuum and kids or pets who add a lot of dust, hair and dirt to the ground, you can just set it and forget it because it’ll automatically empty and continue to vacuum afterwards.
As someone who doesn’t empty their garbage bin bags until it’s overflowing, this is a great feature to have. Keep in mind that the Roomba empties into a non-reusable bag within the clean base and that you’ll need to change that when it gets full (up to 60 days). Two bags and one extra filter come included with the i3+.
Also, the emptying process is quite loud (possibly louder than a full size vacuum), but it finishes in about 15 seconds. Unless you’re a very deep sleeper, you probably won’t want it to empty while you’re sleeping.
The design of the vacuum is very sleek and modern. It’s got the classic circular shape and it’s low profile will allow it to go under most couches or beds. For the first time ever in a Roomba, it features a woven textured top which makes it less prone to fingerprints and collects less dust.
Performance
The performance of the i3+ matches its good looks. Featuring 10 times the power lifting suction of the Roomba 600 series and a 3-stage cleaning system with dual multi-surface rubber brushes, it has no problem pulling in dirt, debris and pet hair.
It has built-in sensors to recognize areas that need more attention and will spend more time cleaning those areas. Since it’s circular shape makes it more difficult to get into edges and corners, there’s an edge-sweeping brush which you’ll see spinning out from underneath the vacuum and it does a great job at pulling dirt in.
In testing, it consistently performed very well, covering the entire floor area with multiple passes and adjusting between hard flooring and rugs/carpeted areas. The odd crumb would still be left behind at times but overall the Roomba i3+ did a comparable job to manual vacuuming (only with far less user effort).
If you’re a pet owner, you’ll also appreciate its high-efficiency filter which captures 99% of pollen, mold, dust mites, and cat and dog allergens.
Smart Home
Another great feature of the Roomba i3+ is its integration with the iRobot Home App (available for both iOS and Android). The app works with the i3+ to give owners extra direct control over things like scheduling and even offers up suggestions.
You can easily start up the vacuum using the app, or create an advanced cleaning schedule. The app will even provide personalized suggestions based on past cleaning jobs and seasonal events (e.g. pet-shedding or allergy seasons).
Those who are into home automation and already have a bunch of smart speakers will be happy to know that you can pair the Roomba i3+ with Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant and can take advantage of voice control.
While the Roomba i3+ lacks smart mapping (which the more expensive i7 and S9 series have), you do still get an overview map in the app of what's been cleaned after each run. You just can’t send it out to clean a specific area or set up keep out zones like you can with the higher priced models.
The Roomba i3+ offers a great set of advanced features from their high end models, including the very useful self emptying featuring. It’s a great starting point for anyone wanting to get into the robotic vacuum game at a price point that doesn’t break the bank.
The Roomba i3+ is available for purchase from Amazon, Walmart and Best Buy.
Showing 35 Most Recent Comments
View allPM me if u want the rep that I dealt with. I basically just scroll thru the list of stores that sells the vacuum and PM each for the best quote and once I hear back from them, i then do some investigating on their profile to make sure they are somewhat reputable and hope for the best lol
I am looking to get a smart robovac myself since I got the dumb Deebot 601 for $150 or something like that. I have to say it has helped me a lot, specially in spots that I never vacuum before like under the bed and other furniture that are hard to move, but having to babysit the thing has become a pain.
Also I need something that has a fairly good integration with HomeAssistant.
My dilemma is:
Go for Roomba with self-empty and offers support and warranty in Canada, and in that case go with the most known brand and with the better brush system for long hair, but give up on the Lidar and mapping features.
Go for a highly praised not that can vacuum and mop like the Roborock series. I could easily set a guest network with all communication going through a VPN connection and maybe even completely cutoff internet access.
Go for Neato also highly known brand that offers support and warranty in Canada has the best suction and airflow, being the only other brand to perform as well as a Roomba in carpets according to Vaccum Wars, has mapping and virtual no go Lines across all the models even the entry level ones.
I have never owned one and looking to try it out.
Regular price is $999.
On sale for $899. Cheapest I have seen this unit.
https://www.amazon.ca/iRobot-Roomba-Con ... to&sr=8-52
May I ask which which site you got it from? I have been trying to find it on AliExpress, but most of them have either EU Plugs, not stated Plugs or don't even ship to Canada. I looked for a few minutes and I got frustrated trying to find one -- I am also currently hesitant to buy something from China right now too, since my last few Ebay purchases coming from China never came (they were at the beginning of Covid).
But I would bite the bullet at $575 for the Roborock S5 Max.
But yeah, you hit. Buy what you can afford, or what it's worth to you. For me, it's not a good purchase if i'm spending more time cleaning and fixing it rather then just doing the job manually.
This is my second week using it and I am so happy I decided to buy it. I run it everyday with the mopping option. And I do feel that my floors are cleaner. I only have laminate no rugs or carpet. I have very long hair and I usually have to manually vacuum everyday. But since I got this device, I have not touched my dyson.
By running this thing everyday, when I do my manual mopping once a week, I no longer need to vacuum, swifter, then mop. I do not notice the excess of dust being built up.
The point of my story. Get whatever vacuum u can offered. It’s life changing. Lol
almost the same unit, except it has an XL dust bin. claims 30 days worth of shite - empty less often. same price!
I see $25 off $600+ on the banner
Here is a bit of people talking about the Shark and others:
https://www.reddit.com/r/roomba/comment ... eo_on_the/
The other point with the roborock etc, there is a lot of people that aren't comfortable with china-based-smart-tech in their houses. I haven't wire sharked the roomba cloud connection. I suppose i could.
The price isn't great for a robot vacuum - there are better price points out there. But for me, I was looking for self-empty and roomba, with somewhat decent amount of features. I also didn't want to pay $1k. The i3 hit most of the points, and according to everything I have read, it has better vacuuming power compared to the i7. So the value for all the RFD folks out there - I can't find a better deal on the i3+, it's $165 bucks cheaper then every other place I've looked. Not bad!
FInally, as I mentioned, I have a dog and cat. I didn't want another model like the EUFY that I would have to pull out dog hair EVERYTIME I use the damn thing, it's not convenient, it's a pain in the ass.. I'd rather just vacuum.
At least try it out with Costco's 90 day policy!
Self clean, no dust in your face, no running it multiple times to catch the areas the dumb eufy misses. Roomba s9+ does a deeper clean on carpets. Oh - and no need to de-tangle brushes and clogs with the roomba, unlike the eufy.
It's louder, and you'll have a lighter wallet. But a cleaner home and healthier spaces.
I carry my Eufy to three different floors
Lowest I've seen for the Shark Self Clean XL is $509 at costco............like you I'm keeping an eye out for BF specials.
I'm using the shark, bought from amazon.ca at $530, trial until Jan 31st.
- so far once the mapping is done, its great! Took about 3 days and one map deletion to get it right.
- my floor is all hardwood, with very little carpet - so not looking for a deep clean ( I use a roomba s9+ self clean for 2nd floor with carpets and pet fur)
- coming from a max power eufy - which was loud, 'dumb', no self empty so pain in the ass to clean daily, and got stuck more often.
thoughts?
Whats the reason for the mapping option if it's missing the no-go zone? Just to ask the robot to start in an specific room?
Upvoted anyway for the price and review details.