All products recommended by Engadget are selected by our editorial team, independent of our parent company. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. All prices are correct at the time of publishing.
If you need a little help keeping your home clean in the new year, a robot vacuum can help. It may not be an essential piece of tech, especially if you already have a decent vacuum, but it can make consistent cleaning much easier by letting you automate a portion of the process. Wellbots has a number of Roomba robot vacuums on sale right now, including the new Combo j7+, which is iRobot’s first vac-and-mop device. You can pick that up for $200 less than usual with the code ENG200 at checkout, while the standard Roomba j7+ and the s9+ are $200 off as well with the same code.
The Combo j7+ may be iRobot’s first dip into the two-in-one robo-vac space, but it joins a slew of other dual-use devices that have been on the market for a while. With this Roomba, you’ll have to fill its reservoir with water and cleaning solution whenever you want the machine to mop your floors during a job.
Thanks to iRobot’s latest technology, the Roomba will intelligently switch from vacuuming to mopping when it senses the appropriate type of flooring. In our brief time with the Combo j7+ thus far, we found it to be a solid cleaning machine made better by the controls you have in the iRobot mobile app. The most frustrating aspect is how frequently you may have to refill the reservoir, since it only takes 210 ml of liquid at a time.
If you don’t need mopping capabilities, the standard Roomba j7+ or the s9+ are good alternatives, especially when you can get them while on sale like this. Both come with clean bases, which allow the robo-vacs to automatically empty their dustbins after every job. You’ll only have to change the bag in the clean base every couple of months. Combine that with cleaning schedules that you can set in the mobile app and you may be able to leave your Roomba unattended as it sucks up dirt in your house, day in and day out, for weeks on end. The j7+ has obstacle avoidance technology that helps it detect things like pet poop and navigate around them as it cleans. The s9+, on the other hand, has the strongest suction power of any iRobot machine and it has a more corner-friendly design, too.
Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.
