iRobotRoomba Plus 505 Combo Robot Vacuum & Mop with AutoWash Dock - Extending Spinning Mop Pads, Self-Empties, Pad Wash & Heated Drying, Self-cleaning, Recognizes & Avoids Obstacles, LiDAR Navigation

We have a very large house, 60/40 tile and carpet. Needed something for routine cleaning. Didn’t think the Roomba 505 would even be able to map the house. To our surprise it did it very quickly. Be sure to open all doors and clear as much of the floor of obstacles as possible for the best mapping. The mopping system works really well (I know lots of Chinese models have had similar features for awhile), but I didn’t want to deal with those companies and waited for iRobot to create a model with these features. The 505 does a great job on tile; with first use it filled the out-water tank with blacken water after double pass mopping over what looked like a generally clean tile floor. Couldn’t have been happier. I have returned to update this review to express how happy we are with its tile mopping. Its impressive how much dirt it picks up on a routine basis. I also have deep cleaned the mop pads in my Samsung drawer washer with great results. The dirty tank gets some grime built up in it, but its easy to clean. The vacuum works pretty well, I understand the double brush vacuums do better, but for general use it picks up the stuff I see typically around the house. I use a Mikita duster to blow out the Roomba's dust bin and filter after a couple of weeks, quick and easy. Keep your station maintained and the whole product should perform well. Its easy to do.The iRobot Home app on my iPhone/iPad still needs improvements. It just got its first update today. My house layout is larger than the software developers probably anticipated. It hard to pick rooms by label, without having to zoom in, as the labels overlap on screen during the room selection process. Note: the map can be zoomed in when doing this once you touch some part of the floor plan first. Sadly, there is no simple list view. Setting up different zones, or correcting missed mapping areas is challenging and cumbersome. iRobot needs to continue focusing on UI and usability improvements to this app. It may frustrate some, and lessen the enthusiasm for Roomba and the dock. NOTE: A great feature would be to direct the Roomba to a mis-mapped area, or changed environment and just have it scan and update that part of the map. Especially so for large houses like mine. We have patterned tile floors and Roomba overcleans some areas "thinking" its some stain or mess. Would be nice to be able to mark these questionable areas as "normal". If you interrupt the cleaning with the app or the battery is low on the Roomba, sometimes the Roomba is left in an odd state. For instance, it won't clean the mop when you expect it should. You can manually force the cleaning routines, but only when a minimum level of battery power is available. Just a few things the app has overlooked and hopefully will eventually be addressed. The user experience and quality robotic system is what will make a "premium" product for iRobot.The mechanical units (Roomba and waste dock work well). The water tanks could be twice the size for my house… but most likely designed for a typically sized house. I am surely planning to keep the Roomba 505, as I expect improvements to the app as iRobot gets more feedback on this newly designed combo vac/mop. There are already articles describing and even better (yet more expensive) 705 combo model on the way. If its better than the 505... it most likely will be worth the extra money. Very happy with this purchase after a few weeks of serious use. Will update if that feeling changes. Summary, I recommend this product at its new price point.

So far, so good. I am in the middle of the first run, but the plus 505 model is already outshining the j9+. The mapping took minutes, where the unit made brief visits to each room to see the layout, and then moved on. . .rather than covering every inch of the floor space which (if I recall correctly), took hours with the j9+. The app is a little odd, in that I had trouble figuring out how to make it start cleaning, but eventually I got there. I did a vacuum/mop run combined. The unit first did a full circuit around the edges of the space, doing an outline of multiple rooms. Then it picked a room and went in straight lines, covering the full surface of that room. It does the vacuuming and washing together, so it turns itself around to back the wash pads into corners or small spaces that it may have missed. It runs right against the baseboards, and the wash pads get right in there too because of the extended, circulating pads. This was important to me, as I have a dog who sheds and his fur is always in piles against the wall and in corners and dust bunnies, where I used to have to take a broom around the baseboards, etc, to sweep the fur out into the middle of the floor before I started the vacuum. I don't think I will need to do that anymore. :) It returns to the base to wash the pads every so often, then comes back to where it left off. The mopping is not very thorough on this first run, which I kind of expected as my floors have some heavy spotting, like the kitchen floor and around the dog bowl. . .but now I see it is making additional passes around the dog bowl and it is getting clean. I have it set to wash the pads every 150 feet, but that seems to be too long, and the pads get dried out a bit. I will set it to 100 ft for the next cleaning. The noise level is GREATLY improved, as with the j9+ I had to blast the TV whenever it was running, and even worse when it emptied the bin. This one, while not silent, has a much lower noise level. Well worth the $600 I paid for it.