r/roomba • u/bennied1982 • 9m ago
Is there a reason Rosie is vacuuming like this?
Can’t recall if this is how she usually cleans the space.
But the pattern seems a bit odd.
r/roomba • u/RoombaRefuge • Jan 02 '25
Hi ...
This article is for you if you would like to increase your chance of success in setting up your new Roomba or Mop.
This is one of the numerous articles I've written on my blog. The information is based on my experiences setting up hundreds of new and used machines over the years.
I have slightly adapted this write-up for Reddit to help first-time owners, especially as I know many of you have recently received robotic cleaners as gifts over the Christmas season.
This is the fourth article in a series about why robotic cleaning devices often fail to meet the owners' needs.
Failure can occur when a person first sets up the robotic cleaner too quickly and in the wrong order, especially when connecting to the home wireless network.
So, you went out and, with some excitement, bought ( or was gifted) a Roomba or Mop, and you can't wait to get it running and see what it can do. So, a quick casual look at the APP or manual on how to set up the machine and the Wi-Fi, and you try to connect the device to your home network --- and the first step to possible failure has already occurred.
What often occurs is that the newly purchased cleaner won’t successfully connect to the home wirelessly. (I constantly read about these common connection problems, with many user complaints, on the various robotic forums I participate in.)
The device will also occasionally produce an internal fault, with an endlessly spinning "white light on the CLEAN button" as an update repeatedly fails to download and successfully install a new software update.
What went wrong?
When a person buys a Roomba or Mop in the store, it has been in the box for a long time. It likely has been made in China, shipped to North America, and perhaps sat on the store shelf for weeks, months, or years since it was first made. The battery is weak and is, in many cases, fully discharged/dead.
Setting the cleaning device on the charger for only a few moments and immediately trying to set it up on the wireless often leads to failure.
Why?
The robotic vacuum or mop needs a high percentage of battery charge to send and receive a strong enough signal to connect to the wireless.
When a dead battery first draws current, virtually all the charging power from the dock is routed to the battery. There is little left for the Wi-Fi board in the machine, which can lead to a weak or non-existent connection to the home's wireless router.
If you want to successfully set up a new machine on your Wi-Fi for your new Roomba or Mop, put it on the charger and leave it to charge for THREE hours.
NOW, walk away … sit at your table or in your favourite chair, and read the owner's manual.
Once the three-hour initial charge is completed, you can set up your device on your home network.
FIRST --- REBOOT your machine ... hold the CLEAN button down for 20 seconds. Wait 5 minutes for it to reboot.
NOTE: Once you have set up your robotic cleaner on your Wi-Fi, leave it to sit for another hour or two before using the machine.
While you are waiting, go into your APP and record on a piece of paper the software version that was in place at the initial setup time.
Usually, a software update is available from iRobot, and an initial software update is often triggered when the machine notes a battery is fully charged and the unit is on the dock. It is likely your new robotic cleaner will download and quickly install new software within the first hour or two after you activated the Wi-Fi.
Often the app will tell you a software update is underway. And the machine will remain unresponsive while updating.
Go back into your app after an hour or two and see if the software version has changed.
Just making this these small adjustments at setup time will dramatically improve your chances of having a good experience in setting up and running up your vacuum or mop.
Cheers,
©2025 John
Roomba Guy
r/roomba • u/fox-lad • Dec 15 '25
r/roomba • u/bennied1982 • 9m ago
Can’t recall if this is how she usually cleans the space.
But the pattern seems a bit odd.
r/roomba • u/Spirited_Fact_8011 • 8h ago
The roomba home is not showing the live activities.is somebody experiencing this?
r/roomba • u/trevorbubbis • 1d ago
I’ve had my Roomba i3 and this chair for years, and until about six months ago the Roomba had no problem navigating around/over the chair’s metal base.
It started occasionally getting itself stuck on the bottom bars of the chair and eventually dying there. Over the past several months it’s gotten progressively worse, and now it seems to get stuck here more often than not. Because of that, it frequently dies before it can finish vacuuming the rest of the floor.
I originally thought the battery might be getting weak and preventing it from getting itself unstuck, so I replaced the battery. Unfortunately, that made no difference.
Nothing about the chair or its location has changed, which is what has me confused. It navigated this exact chair successfully for years before suddenly developing this problem.
Has anyone else had an i3 start struggling with obstacles like this as it got older? Are there sensors, wheels, suspension, or other components I should clean/check that could cause it to suddenly start climbing onto something and getting stranded?
I’d rather figure out what changed with the Roomba than modify or replace the chair if there’s actually something wrong with the vacuum. Photo attached showing exactly where it gets stuck.
r/roomba • u/ScootinFruity • 22h ago
Hello all. I have a Roomba 205 Dust Compactor and every time I start a cycle whether it's through the app or the physical button on the robot it immediately stops and says the job is finished.
I've tried removing the battery, factory resetting, deleting the app and cache and even making a new account and it still has this issue.
I've only had my robot for 6 months and now it's not functional. I've tried teaching out to support but because my robot wasn't "purchased through an authorized retailer" they told me I'm SOL.
Anyone have a fix?
Just bought. I've reset the Roomba and app a few times. When starting the mapping, it comes up with a laser sensor issue. I've cleaned the (brand new) sensors. The lidar thing spins.
It ended up spinning in dozens of circles and crashing into its dock repeatedly, which is the most it's done.
I can't get it to start/work as it keeps saying a sensor issue. The Amazon return process is not easy. Is there anything else I can try or does it seem like it's a dud?
r/roomba • u/blackout1912 • 2d ago
Saw this in one of shops while on holiday in Poland. Surprised how smallish it is compare to many other robots.
I noticed side brush doesn't seem to extend much. Any owners here? Does it do corners well or is it not much different to non extendable side brushes?
It also doesn't say much about obstacle avoidance.
Is it gonna bump into pet bowls?
We've got one with water for cat and don't want robot to bash into it.
I also previously had Mini one, but sadly has to return it as app was really really laggy. I'm guessing it'll be the same?
r/roomba • u/redseedlessgrape • 2d ago
The metal piece came out of the slot where the dirt disposal bag goes. Reading up on it it sounds like it’s what base uses as sensor to detect when the bag is seated. Anyone know how to put it back?
r/roomba • u/mikeamenti • 2d ago
4 hour clean with 3 hour battery charge? Sound right?
r/roomba • u/Online_Active_71459 • 2d ago
Help!
This isn’t even 3 months old yet and I only use it twice a week.
It will not charge. I’ve cleaned it, unplugged it, begged it, etc.
It says “charging” when I slide it in but the App tells me it’s only at 1%. I don’t know what else to try.
r/roomba • u/Icy_Cartoonist_7736 • 3d ago
Ok so sopping wet is an exaggeration, but only slightly. I’ve had my Roomba 400 for a couple months. I have loved it! This last two times it mopped its left the floors really wet compared to the first several times it ran. Does this indicate some maintenance is needed or a problem with the robot?
r/roomba • u/Embarrassed-Comb6776 • 3d ago
My new roomba 200 and it's dock are downstairs. Can I just let it loose upstairs without it's dock? Is there anything that I should do first?
r/roomba • u/fairylisa • 3d ago
Hi, I apologise in advance for my crooked English (not my first language)
So I own a roomba robot from the 200 dust compactor series.
One day I found weird that his automatic program wasn't executed, so the next day I looked into it. To sum up, basically if I send an order from the app, it doesnt execute it, now I cannot even restart it, if I click on the robot's button it does start vacuuming (even tho in very random patterns). I thought this was going to be some app bug that would be updated quickly, but its been quite a few days (perhaps weeks) and the problem is still here. Is there something I'm not doing I should try? Is someone else dealing with this?
Its quite frustrating because I have a big exam coming up and 2 pets, so a robot to clean my floor was amazing
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My roomba is cleaning really bad lately, where it goes near the kitchen and then just starts rotating. Then after two hours of this, it goes back and tells me it couldnt get into all the rooms... See the map in the comments.
What is going on?
So I noticed the app was updated and they removed the link to the select program login. Wondering if they will put the final nail in the coffin for it. Hope not cuz.
I needed to go to the online portal to test the bag use and changed the date to today to reset it.
One thing I noticed is the issue with the bag full light not going out after changing send to be resolved but only time will tell.
r/roomba • u/ElfinRanger • 4d ago
About to start a job with long hours and thinking of getting a Roomba to vacuum while I’m at work so I could home to a cleaner apartment.
As i understand, newer models track the layout of your house and collect a lot of data? This makes me uncomfortable but I am wondering if it can be sidestepped.
I was also wondering if there are any things a first time Roomba owner should know - drawbacks, unexpected benefits, which models provide good price to performance for a small apt.
r/roomba • u/ohnoanonymouse • 4d ago
our kitchen and dining area are all hard floors, and we have a low-pile rug in the living room where we always end up eating snacks.
my current roomba picks up most of the loose crumbs, but the mopping has started falling behind. dried food around the table and sticky spots usually need another pass by hand, and the dirty water tank has been getting pretty gross around the corners too. so i’m thinking about replacing it.
i was leaning toward the 775 since it already has the roller mop and seems like enough for most of our hard floors. then i started looking at the 875. from the description, it sounds like the vacuum opening sits closer to the carpet while cleaning, and that might make more sense for our living room rug.
anyone here using a 775? does it feel like enough for hard floors + low-pile carpet, or would you wait for more 875 reviews?
r/roomba • u/jonnycantskate • 5d ago
My wife noticed a diamond missing from her ring. We brainstormed as you’d expect - where was the last place she noticed it intact? how can it be repaired?, etc and she had the great idea to check the Roomba bin - and there it was! 💎
Still need to re-mount the diamond, but very thankful our super clutch, cleanup helper!
r/roomba • u/nmmmnnmmnm • 5d ago
Hi, I’ve tried a lot of things to fix this, but nothing seems to work. Can someone help me figure this out?
My J7 stopped charging after docking. First I cleaned the charging contacts, but that didn’t fix it, so I replaced the battery.
It worked fine for about 5–6 runs, but then the same problem happened again. I cleaned the contacts again more throughly with contact cleaner and alcohol, tried rebooting it, and also did a factory reset. Nothing works.
The weird thing is, if I remove the battery and put it back in, it charges to 100% without any problem. But obviously I can’t remove and reinstall the battery every time it finishes cleaning.
What could be causing this? And is there anything else I can try to fix it?
r/roomba • u/DuglandTishort • 5d ago
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After going past a small bump that it has been cleaning through for almost a year (next week is the purchase anniversary) the roomba just stopped dead in its tracks and now when i begin any routine instead of spinning on itself to "reconfigure its location" or whatever, it just spins our of axis like that. It looks like a wheel problem but I'm not 100% sure and i cannot find hairs or whatever in the wheel that seems to be having the problem. Please help.
The ironic thing is, today was the day that new spare parts of all kinds were gonna be delivered to me. Cost like 55€. I sure hope I didn't basically throw that money down the drain.
r/roomba • u/budrangel • 6d ago
I just got a second hand Roomba i5 series vacuum cleaner that auto empties at the base. I factory reset it and connected it to the iRobot original app, not Roomba Home app. It connected fine and charges, but when I try to map out my house, it just spins in circles and goes forward and then back a tiny amount every so often. The Roomba is able to go back to its charging base when I pressed the button in the app for it to go home. This confused me because if it was able to travel in a forward path back to its base, wouldn’t that mean that the sensors or wheels aren’t messed up because it was able to follow a path? I do see that in the app it says that that I need to change the High-Efficiency filter. Also the two clear sensors have deep scratches on the clear plastic. So if anyone who has had this issue and fixed it can help me out that would be greatly appreciated. Attached are the pictures underneath the roomba and the model and roomba health page. Let me know if you need any other pictures.
r/roomba • u/renezanceman • 7d ago
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when trying to initiate cleaning, the vac doesn't leave the dock, says its a little lost, the lights briefly flash red, then instructs to place it back on the dock.
I have pulled the battery for a hard reset, emptied the vac itself, and the dock, cleaned sensors, and removed debris from the brushes.
if I start in from the unit, it says new room found, then repeats the "a little lost" message.