iRobot Roomba Vac Essential robot vacuum (Q0120) - Black

Loved how easy it was to set up, and get it running. Does a very good job on bare floors, and carpets, but you have to be wary of any loose wires, because it will get tangled in any wire, or any loose materials low on the floor. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants the carpets cleaned underneath their beds, or couches.

I was pleased to receive the iRobot Roomba Essential Vac as I've never owned one before. Upon opening there was a card to scan on my phone so that I could get the iRobot app. I did that right away and then found a great spot to place the charger. I had to set up an account and then proceeded to let it charge. The white CLEAN light blinks until fully charged then just stays solid white. After that was done I connected it to my WIFI which has to be on a 2.4ghz network as it won't operate on 5ghz. Got it after a couple attempts and I was ready to give her a whirl. This vac is a basic model without many features. One thing I really wish it did was self empty. The waste bin is very small and I found I had to dig in with my hands (I did wear a plastic glove) in order to clear out the debris. It's got a nice low height of just 3.15" so it found its way under furniture which was a nice touch. The battery life on regular suction was fine. It didn't drain fast at all. It has a 7" cleaning path and when it was operating correctly would go back and forth in a straight line. I liked the edge sweeping brush and it also works with Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant or Siri. Now here are the issues I have had and why I am not impressed. My vac has a mind of its own. I felt like I was chasing my 3 year old granddaughter all around the house to keep her out of trouble. It decided to attempt climbing up my antique floor lamp, up on the wood area of my footstool thereby scratching it before I could remove, pushed an antique high chair out of its way, would not stay away from my cat food dishes and attacked a little stroller. In all fairness I gave it time to adjust before having to remove it manually from these items thinking it was learning, but it just would back up and go right into attack mode again. It also attempted to eat my slipper when I put my foot out to try to stop it. To say I was aggravated is an understatement. This Roomba would start out cleaning in normal lines back and forth (getting my hopes up) but suddenly would go crazy. Just circle over and over the same area until I had to physically relocate. I was using it on a very thin area rug in the living room and the other rooms are laminate so it wasn't because I have thick carpeting or bad flooring. At any rate I found it to be much more frustrating than just getting my regular vacuum out. It also would never find its way back to the home base unless I carried it in the room and set it almost directly in front of the charger. Even then, being right in front of the station, this Roomba decided to do a few twirls, run away and I had to grab and push it even closer in order for it to set on right. It does not have floor mapping so if you have a bigger home or lots of rooms I don't suggest buying this model. I've searched the app and did whatever they suggested doing to have it properly work ~ all to no avail. I believe I have too many things in my house for it to learn how to clean this place. Being an antique dealer ~ well there are just lots of beautiful heirlooms and my little vac doesn't like them one bit. Therefore I personally cannot recommend the purchase of this iRobot Essential model unless you are a minimalist and/or have a small, uncluttered home. It might work fine then. For now mine can just sit on the charger and behave itself.

This iRobot Roomba Vac Essential does fine overall. It’s a standard robot vacuum. Good amount of battery, and can clean for over 2 hours depending on the setting. Not to big or heavy. Does a good job at vacuuming carpet. The dust bin is easy to remove and reinstall and comes with a brush to easily clean the filter and cut items tangled in the brush. The unit only has three buttons, everything you need to do can be done through the app, but basic functions can be done on the unit. You will have to make an account with iRobot.

Vacuuming can be a hassle, especially if you have a pet dog. I think that this particular iRobot vacuum is catering to those that just don't have the time to worry about periodic vacuuming and want to have their small space clean and tidy. As far as features, this vacuum lacks any real impressive features but it gets the job done at a lower price point than the competition. For our 250 square foot family room, we have carpet that sees a ton of foot traffic and our dog loves to roam in this area a ton. We had it run and it follows in neat rows and it impressively picked up more dog hair without running out of battery, comparted to our handheld push vacuum. It also got itself trapped around some plant pots that we have on the floor near a corner and it couldn't get itself out of, this would be less of an issue if the vacuum came with a built in camera. There is no ability to map the floor compared to some other higher end vacuums, again due to not having a camera. If you are looking to save time and effort, for a basic but effective robot vacuum that you only worry about emptying the canister on this is it.

Quick Overview ================================= iRobot has been making cleaning robots for a decades. Though they're pretty effective, they're also pretty expensive. This year, iRobot is introducing the Roomba Essential line that includes a mop/vacuum or one that's just a vacuum. These Essentials are more affordable but do lack advanced features like detailed controls and self-emptying features. Overall build ================================= The Roomba Essentials Vac is a solid black plastic circle that seems pretty sturdy with a slightly matte finish so it doesn't gather fingerprints. There are just three buttons on top including the main Clean button that glows while charging along with a home and spot cleaning button. Set up is easy, but I'm still not in love with no printed manual or quick start. Basically you'll attach the spinning brush on the bottom and set up the charger to make sure the Roomba is charged. The filter is already in place and you get a spare in the box. Make sure to remove the white pads that are preventing the front "bumper" from moving during shipping. While the Roomba is charging, you can download the app and login (yes, you must login to the app) to complete the setup including the Wi-Fi setup. Once that's done, just wait until the Roomba is charged. Performance ================================= Once it's ready to go, just push the large, central Clean button and let the Roomba go to work! I had one of the very first iRobot Roombas many years ago and this really reminds me of that. It's not a "smart" vacuum that you can control or "drive" based on the floor plan. It kinda roams around and bumps into things to learn the floor plan and cleaning area. As it works its way around, it's vacuuming and there's the spinning brush that's bringing dust into vacuum range. I do like the overall cleaning/suction of the Roomba Vac Essential since it seems to pick up the light dust, paper scraps, and hair/lint that is left during our normal vacuum sessions. If I need it to stay and clean a spot (more dust, missed some paper scraps), then I can just press the Spot clean button and it'll continue to clean in a circular spot until it's done. It worked well each time I tested it. There are sensors all over including one that should stop it from going down stairs, but I did have an near miss that I'll talk about at the end. It never ran out of batteries over the times that I used it to clean about half of the floors on our 2nd story, but it did miss some spots on its own. I did pick it up from time to time and have it clean what it missed, but if you do that, it won't be able to return home properly. Not a big deal, since I was home and that wouldn't happen if you leave the house and schedule it to clean. I added some pics of what it picked up (sorry!) and was happy that it got a lot of fine dust, some sandy-looking stuff, some small paper scraps, and hair. In the kit you'll get some cleaning tools and a hair cutter to prevent it from tangling up in the brushes. Near miss: Upstairs, we have a railing around the stairway that has horizontal metal rails and the Roomba can fit underneath the bottom one. I watched carefully to see if it would stop and I think it might have, but it was very near the center of gravity and I fear that it could have fallen over down the stairs. That being the case, I'm not going to use it unattended near the rails unless I invest in some virtual walls or something for it. Roomba is now moving downstairs! Lastly, since it does use a "bump and learn" technique, many light things will get pushed around as it tries to clean and learn the cleaning area. This can include light metal tables by your couch, part of a mat near an elliptical machine, house slippers, power strips, etc. We have hardwood floors and thin/flat carpets so it was able to navigate those surfaces easily, though the lifted corner of one rug did give it some difficulty. That's not the Roomba's fault! Conclusion ================================= As an "old fashioned" cleaner/vacuumer, I do love the idea of Roombas and this one is a great supplement to weekly vacuuming, but it'll never be a complete solution. I was glad to see it didn't get tripped up (tangled up?) by 3 people's long hair, so it should do well with pets as long as you keep it clean. Daily (or every other day?) use will help keep your place clean, dust-free, and hair-free and at this price, I think it's still a winner.

THIS… is the iRobot Vac essentials and my third iRobot vacuum to match my s9+ and m5 mopping duo that I have been looking to start phasing out of my house as they are starting to show their age and admittedly, the s9 took a trip down the stairs and never came back! My s9+ was awesome, but my m5 is still the best mop in the house - and even though it doesn’t vacuum the app lets me run my vacuum and then the mop in a 1-2 conjunction through in-app software which is always nice. Lets see how this stacks up to my growing parking lot of home vacuum and mops! This is at the entry-level of robot vacuums and with that, it only vacuums which is awesome because I wanted it for the upstairs section of my house as something that sweeps up the crumbs between manual Dyson sweeps on the weekends (or when I remember). Setup is and continues to be a strong suit for the Roomba, and I think anyone could out of the box set this up. The docking station was rather light so I was worried it would move around as the Roomba docs with it, but I never saw that issue come to fruition and it stayed in place. The app is super clean for iRobot, to the point it is almost hard to find things such as the ability to customize the suction power for the robot but with a few taps it is easily changed! This model does not come with map integration, so no go zones are not gonna be available to you, which for me is somewhat of a hassle as my furniture can be a robot death trap as are some of my rugs as well. This is a feature you will see on the higher models from iRobot so if it is something you think you will need, then stop now and move on up the lineup! I will say, I was completely underwhelmed with the performance and capabilities of the vacuum. From always seemingly needing manual intervention to the inability to pick up floor fuzz, this is truly an entry-level light-cleaning robot. I am also unable to do certain things that we see other competitors in the market have across their lineups such as edit the map, custom cleans and voiding out areas as the robot sometimes can go under furniture and get lost under it and…STAIRS! I took this to my first floor as it is hardwood, and I saw a better performance in cleaning ability. I am rather jaded by my s9+’s serious suction power, and I had assumed that the power would disseminate down the product profile by now… but I guess not just yet. It does, however, leave nice carpet lines…with fuzz left in them lol. Navigation is not a strong point for the robot, but once it gets it paths down it seems to really do a good job at optimizing the room over time, it just takes a significant amount of manual intervention the first several times. Something that was fun to watch was the force that it would bump into things with - even moving my subwoofer over a smidge. Not hard enough to hurt anything, but enough to make you look! I really wish this came with the option to upgrade to a tower to be able to vacuum out the debris that it picks up so that I do not have to empty out the container from time to time, that said it is super easy and not a hassle. I think that this is perfect for your smaller studios, hardwood floors or super simple layouts. It is super quiet, sleek, and easy to tuck away in a corner and after training it to do what it needs to do… isn't the worst. I think for a couple hundred more dollars you get a significantly better product, but that is true with everything ever! I think that while I would recommend this product, it is truly a your mileage may vary product - it is entry-level… so you should come in with the expectation that this technology also didn't exist 10 years ago. That's why shopping at BestBuy is super cool, you never have to worry about getting a bad product, Best Buy has an excellent return policy and even better customer service, so you never have to worry about buying a product that you don’t like… so why not test it out?! iRobot has a large product portfolio, and BestBuy has an even larger home robot profile…so they have something for every level of your home!

Much quieter and quicker than my original roomba. Love this purchase. Would recommend

The Roomba Vac Essential is iRobot’s no-frills, budget-friendly, entry-level robot vacuum. It’ll perform all the perfunctory duties you'd expect including running on a schedule, remote start and stop via the iRobot app, home automation integration, and returning to the base station automatically to charge. However, don’t expect more advanced capabilities like room mapping, obstacle avoidance, or self-emptying. The robot has a 12.5” diameter and is 3.25” tall with a matte black finish, front and side bumpers, side sweeping brush, and 3 cliff/fall sensors. There are two spring-loaded, large driving wheels on the bottom that allow it to traverse uneven surfaces with ease, a 360° front wheel for executing tight turns, and central roller brush for picking up dust and debris. Both the side brush and roller brush are removable for cleaning or replacement, and the battery can also be removed for replacement or disposal. This robot is designed primarily for cleaning hard floors, as the base station needs to be placed on a hard surface with 1.5 ft of clearance to the sides and 4ft of clearance in front and away from stairs. I appreciated the inclusion of a Velcro cable organizing strap on the back of the dock. The 0.1 gallon dust bin has a small capacity that generally needs to be emptied manually after each run. A cleaning brush and hair tangle razor is conveniently stored on top of the bin to help you clean and maintain the machine. The bin releases from the back of the robot with the press of a button and has a one-way dust flap over the intake to prevent accidental spilling of its contents. The hinged top opens easily for emptying, and it can be handwashed, if needed. There’s also a washable and replaceable HEPA filter in the lid that cleans the air as it exhausts from the machine and a spare filter is included. I find that the vacuum does a good job picking up fine dust and debris and captures a fair amount even after I’ve already cleaned with my upright vacuum. The robot runs back and forth in parallel rows, which I prefer over the “random” path method. There’s also a spot cleaning function to clean a 4 ft diameter circle wherever you place the robot down. The robot is supposed to be able to detect and avoid furniture, though that said, it will still bump your walls and furniture when it first encounters them; once it knows their locations, it will slow down as it approaches any area where it previously made contact with something. A rubber strip at the bottom of the bumper helps cushion the impact, but this can leave black marks on your walls and floor trim. I would have liked to have seen an additional bumper along the top to better protect the glossy plastic over the sensors, as I know from experience that if it picks up enough scratches over time from collisions, they may reduce the effectiveness of the sensors. The main drawback to the simplicity of its functionality is that you cannot control where it travels to clean. It also has no memory of where it has already been, so if the unit returns to the station to recharge before it finishes cleaning all the areas it has access to, on the next run it will not pickup where it left off; it will simply start over again from the beginning. For me, the robot ran for 1 hour and 15 minutes on high suction on our first floor before returning to the station. The robot successfully avoided falling down steps and crossed ¼” high floor transitions between rooms just fine. It was also able to navigate up onto a ½” thick mat, and the short height allowed it to go under and clean right up to the toe-kick of our cabinetry. However, the clearance under our dishwasher is a bit lower due to uneven floors, and it ended up rubbing the underside of the steel door and picking up some scratches on top of the unit. It also has a tendency to push around or knock over lightweight items that sit on the floor. Unfortunately, there is no way to prevent the robot from entering an area other than physically blocking its access or path, for example, to prevent it from going near a fireplace or pushing pet food and water bowls. I found that when it went over several power cords, it was able to cross them without getting stuck or tangled, though this may not always be the case. It did get stuck once under a rocking recliner and trapped under the kitchen table in between chair legs and had to be rescued; it sent a notification to the app when this happened. If you cannot locate the robot, you can activate an audible tone from the app that plays for a few seconds to help you find it, provided it has some battery life left and WiFi signal. In the app you have the option to change a couple settings, mainly suction power from low, medium, and high, which may save or consume more battery power respectively, and setting it to clean without a time limit or a timed session of 15, 30, or 45 minutes. You can also schedule regular cleanings to start at a specific time on recurring days of the week or automate it to do so when you leave and/or return home using triggers such as GPS location, smart lock activity, or events detected by other smart IoT devices. You'll have the option of setting up smart home AI control using Alexa or Google assistants, and those worked just fine for starting and stopping cleaning using voice commands. When cleaning is paused, the job will automatically be cancelled if it is not restarted within 1 hr and 30 mins. The app will keep track of data from the 30 most recent cleaning events within the last 90 days, and keeps a count of lifetime number of cleaning jobs, total runtime, and “dirt events” (when it senses an area/areas that may have a lot of debris). Overall, I found this robot vacuum to be a very basic but effective robot vacuum that can automate regular cleaning of the floors. It can be remotely controlled, integrated into a smart home ecosystem, and effectively picks up a good amount of dirt and debris. It’ll work best for folks that have hard flooring, a lot of open space that is free of obstacles like cords and delicate or lightweight décor, and a small enough area that it can be covered in a single cleaning session. Just remember you’ll need to regularly empty its bin manually and physically block it from going anywhere you don’t want it to.

My wife and I have been wanting to pickup a robo-vac. We have a large area between our living room, kitchen, office, and front foyer. We are constantly needing to vacuum or sweep up dust. With 3 sons and a pup running around it almost feels like a full-time job sweeping up after them.