Welcome to Home Appliance Review, Today, We’re going to be checking out the iRobot Roomba Combo J9 Plus. If you’re interested in this product or want to find out more about it, the link to it will be in this iRobot Roomba Combo J9+ review article.
Overview of Roomba Combo j9+
Open it up and see what’s inside. Here are all the contents. First up, you’ll see our product literature consisting of our safety information, one-year warranty card, and we have our setup guide with multiple steps. Continuing from the product packaging on getting everything set up. Next, you’ll see we have a spare M pad, power cord and cable with a 90° end on it, extra side cleaning brush, and an extra air filter. Last but not least, we have the vacuum to look at and its clean base. Look at these in more detail.
Looking at the top of the Combo J9 Plus, you’ll see our Roomba logo branding front and center, one control button, two-tone, or if you want to call it a three-tone finish. , this is our M pad and module that lifts up and out of the way when it encounters carpets, you’ll see that little flap and hinge there. Take a look, this is just velcroed on, we can easily remove, replace, and clean as needed.
Look at the very front of the vacuum. You’ll see our camera and sensors, navigational bumper sensors on the side, iRobot Roomba Combo branding, another sensor there. The back has our dustbin and water tank with our release button there. This little flap on the side is what opens up to allow this to go up and down as needed, depending on our floors and what environment it’s encountering.
Let’s flip it over. You’ll see the very bottom here, spring-loaded drive wheels, omnidirectional wheel, charging contacts, side cleaning brush, cliff sensors. We have our floor dirt and dust sensors right there, AER Force cleaning system, dual rubber brushes. This can go left, right, up, and down to help with any uneven floors, giving us the best contact possible. You’ll see our dustbin , automatic dirt disposal. That’s where that’s going to self-empty, and we can open this up. We can pop it right out if we need to refill the water here. We can do that manually. We can manually empty and clean the dustbin right there for our contents, swap out the air filter as needed. That just pops right off. Don’t get that wet, as you see there. There’s a quick look at the dustbin and water tank for our Combo J9 Plus.
Look at the base. Here’s a look at the top of our clean base. We’re really excited about this base because this is our robot’s first version with auto refilling. Not only will it self-empty, it will refill the water tank on our Combo J9 Plus unit. You’ll see up at the top one control button, two indicator lights for us, and we have just a fake wood finish, but we could use this as an accent piece in our room, little side table things like that. This does remove, but we would highly recommend just leaving it on. It can be a little tricky to pull and put that panel right back in place.
Here’s a look at the side profile. You’ll see our grooved finish up at the top, our smooth finish down at the bottom. We got the iRobot leather strap and handle to open up our dustbin and water tank storage. Here’s a look at the other side, same design and finish. You’ll see the iRobot logo and branding down here. Here’s a look at the backside, nice carry and grip handle, power cord hookup, and we have built-in cable management and storage with two channels going out the left and the right side of the unit on the back to help keep this flush up against our walls.
Here’s a look at the base of the unit. You’ll see multiple touchpoints here for grip. It’s nice and flat to help it stick and stay stationary on any surface. You’ll see our channel for the self-empty. If we ever have any clogs, it’s just six screws that we can easily remove to clean as needed.
We’re looking at the front of the unit. That same pattern continues on the front, self-empty channel right there, grip for the tires and wheels to drive up on, charging contacts, refilling. You’ll see a little coat in there too. That’s going to be for the vacuum for navigating with some sensors. Then we can open up this flap that reveals the inside with our water tank up top. Then you’ll see we have our vacuum bag already installed with additional storage built into the side.
Looking at it from the top, you’ll see we have two shelves on the side with an extra vacuum bag already there for us. Then we can pop out the water tank, nice grip handle, fairly large. we like seeing that, just a little cap to pop off to easily refill, and then you can just gently put it right back in place. It just snaps right in. Then we can look at that vacuum bag again that’s already installed for the self-empty, just slides out on that tray. So really a nice base covering all the basics for us, water refilling, and we have our self-empty and a nice touch of adding some additional storage.
iRobot Roomba Combo J9+Test
Cleaning Results
Mop pad
We finished our first clean. Look at the results. First up, let’s talk about the mop pad. We’re actually just going to pull it off, you’ll be able to see it. We have not cleaned it after the first use, there’s a look at the mop pad. Maybe some slight discoloration as we put it in the light. we feel like maybe right around there a little bit, but not bad. You’ll definitely want to clean it after every use.
Looking at the rest of the vacuum from the top, just your typical dust into debris that it’s going to activate while it’s cleaning. Look at it from the front; you’ll see a lot of dirt and dust on the bumper and the side right there. Just make sure to casually wipe it down every once in a while. And then we’ll flip it over; you’ll see the very bottom , tangle-free, which is great.
This is still one of the best systems out there if you have long-haired individuals, hairy humans, lots of pets. This is one of the best systems to avoid being tangled. Every once in a while, you might get something, but really compared to the competition, still light years ahead. Most of the time, if you get any tangle, it’s going to be on the side cleaning brush , like woman’s long hairs. That’s usually what’s going to tangle on that, and really nothing on this. That looks good.
Let’s open up our dustbin, and we’ll see some real-world results from our clean. And look at that; you’ll see some hair in there. we see a lot of crumbs. We’ve been having Roombas run every day recently here. We had the regular J9 run yesterday, and the I5 the day before, the Combo I5. We’re still picking up a lot of stuff every day in our house. We’ll get that emptied here, pull out some of the big hair, gross, a lot of crumbs again, a lot of really fine dirt and dust too.
We can look at that filter; you’ll see some pet hair in there. And then right in those cracks and crevices, we have a lot of trapped particles. And here’s a look at the actual contents, and it really packs it in there. And again, we intercepted this before it did the self-empty. Typically, you’ll see even more than this in one clean around your house. We’re vacuuming pretty frequently now, and We’re still blown away that we could get this much in less than a 24-hour period.
Specs
How does the Combo J9 Plus stack up against the competition? Well, let’s find out. We’ll be comparing it not only within our robot’s own product lineup but also with the 50 plus robovacs and mops that we have personally tested here in the studio.
Suction power
First up, we like to look at Max suction power. This is measured in Pas. Unfortunately, that information is not published or readily available for the J9 Plus or even for any Roomba, for that matter. It’s always a mystery to us. But we will point out if future measurements are any indicator, we’re going to guess it’s below the average of 4,000 Pas. But who really knows, again, just a mystery and just a hunch based off of the next metric, which is Max CFM.
We record this result ourselves, and usually, this is also below average. You want to see both of these metrics really high. That’s a good indicator for how good of a job it’s going to do deep cleaning in our actual real-world tests. But in this case, this actually got 4.8. This is the highest result we’ve ever gotten on any Roomba. That surpasses the S9 Plus. it’s great to see that, a point above iRobot’s average, still below the overall average. But you’ll see in our deep cleaning score, we got a score of 95.
The best possible score is 100. we have a little star there because we really believe this was a perfect score. There was a little bit of vacuumed-up debris still, um, like in the channel but not in the dust bin itself. And we had some water still left in the tank, and a little bit of it dripped out during the measurement process.
We put a little star there. This could be a perfect score, especially because the regular, um, non-combo J9 Plus that we tested did get a perfect score. We’re giving it a 95 officially, but there is a really good indicator that this was actually a perfect score. Brand average, 89, iRobot always does really well. you’ll see the CFM didn’t matter, the PA score being below average because we have above-average results where it actually counts, cleaning in the real world. You’ll see we got a score of 89 versus the, um, typical average of 86.
Decibels
We got a Max decibel readout of 70. That was actually pleasantly surprising to us. We thought it would be louder due to the increased performance that we noticed with the CFM, but that wasn’t the case. You wouldn’t be able to tell if it was like a 600 versus a J series or we series vacuum. the brand average is 68. The lower the score, the quieter your vacuum will be. You’ll see the overall average is 69. the good news is here, no distinguishable difference versus any other average robovac.
Battery life
This is measured in minutes. We do not know the official battery life on the J9 Plus. We could only speculate. Maybe that’ll be released in the future, who knows? From the battery life we were able to glean from certain models, the average is 103 minutes for Roombas. Typically, it’s going to be in that 75 to 90-minute mark.
The overall average, though, is 150 minutes. But that includes vacuums that don’t have the capabilities to go back home, recharge, and resume cleaning. with the J9 Plus, to me, the battery life doesn’t matter because if it happens to run out of juice before it’s finished cleaning, and in the house, it doesn’t hopefully, yours will be very similar it can just go back home, charge up, and finish cleaning.
And if you run this like we do, when you’re out of the house or when you’re asleep, doesn’t matter how long it takes to clean because it’ll be able to run, let’s say, for an hour, hour and a half, come back home, charge up for an hour, hour and a half, finish the next hour, and be done before you’re awake.
Battery capacity also an unknown variable here. we could not find that information. It wasn’t published for us. The brand average is about 2200 milliampere-hours. This battery is probably at least that since we do have the mopping capabilities as well. But again, still a mystery. we would expect it to be closer to the average of 3600.
Height
The J9 Plus comes in at 3.4 inches. since it doesn’t use LIDAR navigation with any sort of sensor up at the top and just has the camera and sensor array on the front, we have a little bit of a slight decrease in height. we’re 0.1 inches below iRobot’s average and 0.2 inches below the overall average, which includes vacuums like this as well as vacuums that do have LIDAR that tend to be taller because of that module spinning the laser up at the top.
Next, bin capacity, measured in milliliters. This has a 400ml dust bin. The brand average is 380. The overall average is 420, but that includes a mix of vacuums with and without self-empty. kind of like battery life, it’s a moot point here because it can just go back home and empty the bin as needed. This metric matters more if you don’t have self-empty; you want that larger bin size because that means less frequent trips to the trash can for yourself.
Water tank capacity, also measured in milliliters. 210ml water tank capacity. That seems to be the standard across the J and we series vacuums. it’s below iRobot’s average of 300 because that includes the Braava jet M6, which is a dedicated mop, that skews it higher. The overall average, a good mix of vacuums and mops, comes in at 260. We’d say we’re well within range. You do want this to be higher, though, because that just means that you do not have to refill as much. But if you remember, our Combo J9 Plus does have a much larger tank that it can draw and refill that water from. So really, this is off the charts because it’s going to be refilling itself. That’s just how much it can store in it before it has to go back home and refill. love having that refill feature. It’s a must-have.
Mop lift height
We don’t have a brand average here because our Roomba robovacs either don’t lift the mop at all or, if you have certain combo units like the Combo J9 Plus, guess what? It lifts it up and out of the way. the mop lift height is measured in inches, right? it will not make contact with your carpets. Love to see that. it shatters the average here of 8.8 millimeters, which is not enough to avoid contact with most pieces of carpet and rug rugs out there. this gets it up and completely out of the way.
Cost of iRobot Roomba Combo J9+
Last but not least, let’s talk about the cost of the vacuum. This is the most expensive Roomba to date. You will be paying a pretty penny for these features. It’s about double the brand average and double the overall average and maybe even adding a couple of hundred bucks more to that. anyways, this is going to cost you a pretty penny to get the best of the best that iRobot has to offer.
Conclusion
After iRobot Roomba Combo J9+ test, where does that leave us? Let we share with you our experience. This is a really great robot vacuum cleaner, but it costs a lot of money. if you have a ton of disposable income, you probably won’t really care about our griping. But we’ve covered quite a few robovacs, and for this price, we shouldn’t be missing any features. But this vacuum is still missing features. If this was released two years ago, it would be a much better value.
But today, not only do vacuums self-empty and refill their mopping and water tanks, they also clean their mop pads and dry their mop pads, and they allow access to cameras on the front. you can use them as home security devices. Some mops also have scrubbing capabilities with basically rotary brushes on them. That’s more of a personal preference, what style you like best: vibrations, or multiple passes, or active scrubbing. But it’d be great to see other features with this product included at this price point. it feels like a little bit of a miss.
The suction and cleaning capabilities are top-notch. That’s definitely the best feature of this vacuum. we also think it has the coolest design, lifting the mop up and out of the way. if you are sensitive to that for whatever reason, you will love being at ease knowing you’re never dragging a dirty mop or spreading those dirt and germs over your carpets or your rug. those are the premiums that you’re paying for: some of the best cleaning available today and that really cool mop lift away.
But you’re sacrificing not having washing and drying capabilities of your mop pads, and you’re leaving out and missing the security camera access, which again, some of you don’t want for privacy reasons, which we totally understand. But for me personally, it’s really nice to have. If you’re laying in bed, you hear a noise, you can just dispatch your vacuum to go out and look for you. Or if you’re out at work, same thing. You want to check on the pets, whatever, see what’s going on at home, you could drive it around. We’d love to see some of those features added in the future to make this a better value.
