Customer Ratings & Reviews

This is a good product. Its clean and good Best part is it did not have a triangle with hair

Good roboto vacuum for this price point, would definitely suggest getting the + for the self-cleaning bin, but does an overall good job.

The iRobot Roomba i3 is a great robot vacuum, no question about it. It does a great job on carpet and even does good on hard surfaces, but carpet is where it really shines over other vacuums. PROS: - Google assistant and Alexa integration - straight neat rows vs random cleaning - great sensing of floors, stairs, and objects to work around - small design fits under a lot of furniture and beds to get where you can’t - app is simple but effective - ability to start and stop with schedule or app from anywhere - can be added to the disposal charging and empty it’s own bin - if it runs low on battery the robot will return home and recharge before finishing the job - great on carpet just ok on hard surfaces - specially designed rollers don’t get hair tangles. A pet owners dream! - dust bin is washable (filter is not) - ability to suggest cleaning times based on your habits and even the pollen report for your area CONS: - no smart mapping like i7 - pretty loud, especially on hard surfaces - can’t handle shaggy rugs or carpet - no ability to make “no zones” on the map; you’ll need virtual walls to keep the vacuum out of an area - does not include any spare parts other than one spare filter UNBOXING/FIRST REACTIONS: What’s inside the box is pretty basic; the robot, standard charging dock with power cord, and a spare filter. Note there is NO spare sweeping brush or virtual wall barrier. That being said, the i3 is only $400 and the i7 starts at $600 so it’s going to have some budget cuts. Unfortunately that includes no smart mapping or ability to define rooms or “no zones”. Setup was relatively easy, but if you are like me and never had a robot vacuum before, it may be a small learning curve before you understand exactly how it all works. Once I took the robot out of the box and got him on the charger I realized there’s really no documentation. As is the way these days, they put very little information in the manual and included a “quick start” page that basically just says, “charge it, push clean, and wait.” As someone who likes to customize and tweak things, I was a little bummed that the i3 is a more basic model and doesn’t include more custom features but I understand this was a design choice to make a more affordable option. Once my robot was fully charged, I decided to push clean and see what happens. Right away the robot set out and started cleaning and mapping the room, looking for edges and walls. I have a pretty large main floor with laminate wood floors, tile, and a shag rug. CLEANING: So during the first cleaning, I noticed right away that on hard surfaces, the i3 is pretty loud. I’m going to assume that’s all robot vacuums and also, it is a vacuum after all, but to anyone thinking they can run this at night while they sleep, you may find it is too loud for that. Now, on carpet, it was much quieter and potentially would be ok overnight for those who sleep a little heavier. However, when the robot was on my tile floor with deep grout lines, it was bouncing off the grout lines and making all sorts of noise. For me that’s not a deal breaker, it’s a vacuum and I assume when I am vacuuming it will be a little noisy, but it’s worth noting for anyone who wants to know if it’s “whisper quiet” or not. As far as how good a cleaning job it actually did, this is where I was most impressed with the i3 roomba. Setting aside personal dislikes about missing features, this vacuum was designed to clean floors and it does that very well. It maps out your room with special floor sensors and creates a map for the robot to follow, I assume over time it will learn the rooms and be able to clean more efficiently but I can’t confirm that after just a few days of testing. I’m hoping that a firmware update will come shortly and allow you to save maps or edit areas of the map but I have not heard anything about that so as of now (sept 2020) that is not an option. But as my roomba got to work cleaning my laminate floors, I noticed it was getting all the little dog hair tumbleweeds and looking for edges before making neat, straight rows back and forth throughout the room. This has to be one of the best parts of the newer Roomba vacuums, no more random movements. The i3 will make clean straight rows and, on carpet, you’ll get those nice carpet rows everyone likes. (see photos) One negative point to mention though, during the cleaning of my main floor I noticed the roomba was struggling on my shag rug. It is a pretty heavy shag and my shark stick vacuum actually struggles with it as well, but the roomba was trying to clean the rug and would eventually give me a red circle warning and stop until I cleaned the “dirty” brush rolls. Reality was that it was just too thick of a rug for the rollers to move. This was unfortunate because roomba said that it can handle deep carpets and rugs but apparently mine was too much for him. I’ll attach a photo to show the rug and the robot stuck. Unfortunately, when the vacuum stalls out like that there is no way to remotely restart it and I have to physically move the vacuum and press the clean button again. This happened on average 3 times before it would finish that area and move on. Now, I can easily block off this rug but again, that makes regularly scheduled cleanings more difficult unless I remember to block the area off first. And since this unit does not include a virtual wall device, I would have to purchase that separately to attempt to keep the vacuum off the rug. If you think you have areas in your home that would be trouble like my rug, I would suggest saving a little more and buying the i7 so you can simply tell the vacuum to avoid that area with the advanced mapping that comes with that unit. (unless they update the i3 to include a similar option down the road). For 200 bucks more you can get the i7 or for 100 bucks you can get 2 virtual wall devices. So to me it’s worth it to go for the i7 if you’re in that situation. Other than getting stuck on my deep rug, the i3 did a really good job cleaning all the areas of my floor and avoiding things like stairs and window curtains hanging low. It did fine on my more standard style rugs and would generally go over the rug and back without an issue. I did notice some soft mats in the kitchen were moved a bit because the vacuum drug them along some, but overall there were no other red warnings or stops. The i3 was able to do my entire lower level (337sqft with no carpet) over 53 minutes in one charge but is capable of returning to home to charge up and then will continue to finish the cleaning after it gets some juice. One other noteworthy point, I have a 3 story home, so I wanted to see what would happen if I moved the robot upstairs without the home charging dock and simply made it clean my carpeted bedroom. I set the robot down in the doorway and pressed the clean button and right away it took off and started mapping the room and cleaning in straight rows. Bonus, it went UNDER my bed too! That is really nice to have since we can not clean under the bed normally and I know a lot of dog hair and dirt gets trapped under there. Actually, it was so bad that the bin was full before the room was finished! The app alerted me that the bin was full so I emptied it and pressed the clean button again and off he went to finish the job. After the room was done, I was curious where the robot would go given there was no charging dock home but it simply drove to the same spot I set it down in the doorway to start and then parked there and the app sent me a notification that the job was finished. This was a HUGE feature for me, the ability to simply take the vacuum to any room in the house and send him off to work is a real time saver. Simply clean up the clutter around the room beforehand and then let the robot do the work. OTHER FEATURES: The basics of being able to schedule cleaning times and control the start and stop via the app is obviously included on the i3 but some other notable features are the ability to connect to alexa or google assistant, set up favorites (not sure exactly what that is because the app just says “coming soon”), control cleaning passes (one pass, two pass or auto), dirt detection (which will make the vacuum do a few extra passes over a very dirty area, and the ability to add the roomba clean base which will automatically empty the bin (this is included in the i3+ version). OVERALL/TL;DR: Overall I really enjoy this vacuum and am happy with it’s cleaning ability. It lacks some features the higher end models have but comes with a lower price tag because of it. It’s a great robot vacuum for someone who wants a little help with the cleaning but doesn’t need a whole lot of control. The app allows you to start and stop from anywhere and the ability to add it to google or alexa allows you to start and stop simply with the sound of your voice. Personally, I have google in my house and on the first try all I said was “tell [vacuum name] to start cleaning” and right away he left the dock and got to work. There’s also a spot cleaning option which will clean about 3 foot area around the vacuum when you press the spot clean button. I found this pretty useful for little spills or quick cleaning around a doorway etc but overall figured I’ll just have it do the whole floor or use a classic broom

Cleans decent. Get this model over the lesser models for sure. Worth the extra.

Excellent product, if you’re lazy to vacuum just use the IRobot to clean up your room.

Pros Decent navigation AI for not having a camera Lack of camera is nice for those more privacy conscious Floor navigation sensor works in the dark Handles furniture much better than previous models Cleans hard floors better than previous models Anti-tangle brush operation very good Voice prompts very clear and easy to understand Upgradable to CleanBase Dirt sensor allows it to find extra dirty spots Full bin sensors prevent wasted vacuuming New design is much quieter Google and Alexa integration Smart integration can allow it to vacuum when you leave Charge and resume mean less manual intervention HEPA filter cuts down on dust being put back in air Shows map of where it vacuumed when completed Cons Poor vacuuming performance on low pile decorative carpets Randomly misses parts of rooms Vacuums in parallel but often diagonal lines Wanders between rooms instead of finishing one at a time Low profile means it often gets hung up on even low carpet edges Side brush often just throws debris further away Side brush rubs bottom of unit creating plastic burns on it Side brush easily gets tangled with hair and bogged down When it gets stuck it just keeps repeating the same operation Still bumps into furniture and appliances constantly Requires lighthouses to avoid areas Dust bin is cumbersome to empty Often drags larger objects around lifting it up where it doesn’t vacuum Small brushes mean much longer vacuuming time Shape doesn’t clean edges and corners well Rollers loud on hard floors Design Its easy to recognize this as a Roomba. It has the same shape and design they have had since nearly the very beginning. Of course, some sensors are different, rollers are different, and finishes are different but from the outside you could be forgiven for thinking this is an older model. That’s not necessary a bad thing if the design is right. In this case, the dual rollers are the same width but a bit smaller than the old combo style brushes used in the past. Gone are the bristles in favor of rubber rollers said to resist hair tangling. A design that used to be available on their top end model. The rollers also sit lower to the ground now. The side brush looks very similar only much larger than the older designs. This model comes with a fabric accent ring on top and three buttons. There is no camera on top and a floor navigation sensor, likely a camera of some sort, on bottom. The charging station also looks mostly unchanged. What is different in this generation is the option to add a CleanBase automated bin emptying system. The i3+ version includes the CleanBase in the package, but this version can save you some money up front while still allowing you to add the option later if you wish. Usage and Performance Essentially, the i3 is a more affordable version of the i7. It the exact same design, with the same parts, and the same AI. The big difference is the lack of a camera on top means no Imprint Smart Mapping System. What that boils down to is the i7 can map out rooms and be sent to clean specific rooms and avoid areas just by drawing them on the floor map. The i3 has a more basic floor map which only uses a floor navigation sensor. There is a new feature in the app saying coming soon for favorite routines, but it describes how you will be able to vacuum based on time. It makes no mention of room smarts. Without room mapping, vacuuming is an all or nothing affair. There is a spot clean feature where you can manually bring it to a spot, and it will vacuum in an outward spiral away from where you set it but that’s it. It also means that while it can vacuum in parallel lines it does not have the smarts to make sure those parallel lines match up with walls. From time to time you will find the i3 decides to vacuum a room diagonally, in zigzag shapes, or even U-shaped parallel lines. Sometimes it will also vacuum half a room one way, and the other half another way. It seems the more often it vacuums, the more erratic the patterns become. It also means that it might vacuum part of a room, leave the room to continue the line for a while, and then come back to the room and continue. If your primary goal is saving some extra money, then these oddities are not a big deal as they in no way affect performance. Although the manual makes no mention of this, the i3 can recover its basic location even if you have to pick it up to rescue it or fix it. How far away you can move it from its previous location without causing a problem is less clear. Since older generations without full room mapping would require you to start the entire vacuuming routine over if you even picked up the Roomba so this is a nice addition. The biggest change day to day is having the dual rubber rollers that resist tangling in hair. You do have to watch out for hidden hair buildup on the edges of the rollers underneath the retainer brackets. Overall, if you have dogs or family members with long hair this will come in handy. In nearly a week of usage with two dogs who shed heavily and two family members with long hair, not once did the roller on the i3 get tangled with hair. At one point a small bundle of hair was temporarily built up and cleared itself, but it has been otherwise maintenance free. If you fight with lots of hair around the house and grow tired of pulling it out of rollers, this feature alone is worth it. Unfortunately, the side brush isn’t so great in this department. It’s hard to imagine iRobot making this brush any larger as it is comically large now, but it is a hair magnet. It often ends up flinging debris away from the Roomba and sometimes under furniture. Over the years iRobot also hasn’t addressed how the side brush tends to rub the underside of the main body and rub plastic all over the place requiring periodic scrubbing to get it off. Thankfully it’s less important so you can ignore it but overall, the side brush is less useful. Vacuuming performance is good on hard floors except when the side brush catches a hold of objects. If it runs up onto an object, like a large nut, it will just ride up on it and carry it around while the rollers won’t vacuum anything. Carpets are less consistent. The body sits so low to the ground that often the i3 gets stuck trying to get onto low shag decorative throw rugs requiring several attempts. When it does get stuck, it doesn’t try different methods. It just tries the same back and forth motion and over until you rescue it. Hopefully iRobot will upgrade these smarts in a future update. Strangely, this low profile doesn’t translate to good performance on low shag carpets. Medium shag carpets it performs much better. Traversing built in carpets is much better and the low rollers gives you more distinct vacuum marks, even if those marks are often at odd angles. It still visibly pulls the carpet up. Although listed as 10X stronger than previous models using the same suction system as the higher end i7, it’s cleaning ability is still far less thorough than a manually operated vacuum. The round shape means corners are largely missed and edges depend heavily on the side brush. The main rollers are a good 2 inches inboard, so the wall edge of carpets never get more than a light brush. We still are not to the point that a Robotic vacuum can be as thorough as a manual vacuum, but the big advantage is you can run it every day. It might not pick everything up the first day but over time it can extract more and more, and you don’t have to lift a finger. With a built-in dust sensor, it can find the more heavily soiled spots and spend more time cleaning those as well. The weakest area of the i3 is the dust bin. If you don’t vacuum every day and don’t want to have to stop to empty the bin mid vacuum, you will need to invest in the CleanBase upgrade or get the + model. It does have bin full sensors that let you know when it is time to empty to the bin, but by default it is set to continue vacuuming even with a full bin. This can be adjusted on the app to pause an alert to empty it. Ideally you would let it run often enough to where the bin would not fill up before vacuuming is done. The design of the bin seems a bit awkward to the point where you feel iRobot really wanted you to buy the + model with the CleanBase. Debris often doesn’t like to fall out of the opening requiring some work sometimes to get things out and sometimes manual intervention. A nice feature though is the waste bin and pre filter can be cleaned in water. The built in HEPA filter, which is great for allergy sufferers, is the only part not washable. The i3 seems to have become even quieter than previous generations to the point where you can comfortably watch TV while it is running. You just might to turn it up slightly. The i3 can be paired with Google Assistant and Alexa to allow voice controls. It can also be controlled by some smart home products to allow automated cleaning. It would be nice if those assistants could be used to broadcast Roomba errors as well. The product information lists smart scheduling where it can suggest extra cleanings during high allergy times or based on your routines. Strangely, it is turned off by default and there is no initial question asking if you want it on. Most people would probably be left wondering why the allergy alerts never came up. Allergies have been low, so no suggestions have come up. Final thoughts The Roomba i3 is a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, it only makes small iterative changes from previous models without fully addressing old quirks. On the other, it brings advance features that previously were relegated to higher end models down to the more affordable models. If you are ok with the quirks and can’t spring the money for the higher end version, the i3 is still a good vacuum. If you can upgrade later to the CleanBase, it’s an even better vacuum. If you are in the market for a mid-range robot vacuum, the i3 is an imperfect but good option.

We are so disappointed in this purchase. We replaced the older version of this model, which served us amazingly well, with this disappointing model. Battery life appears to be half of the older version. The rubber rollers are a joke! This model rolled over 3 bed feathers several times and was unable to vacuum them up, as in photo! It repeatedly tells us to empty the bin, just to find a basically empty bin! DO NOT RECCOMEND!

We’re still learning about iRobot Roomba i3 EVO, So far; it’s working well, clean and pickup everything on the floor.

Great overall, it needs a while to choose a track to take, specially in carpet, it will take a few pases before it’s consistent

An intelligent robotic vacuum, the i3 Roomba’s technology is built on 30 years of product design and production and after 30 million robots have been sold. It should be perfected, and it has been. It is pretty good, and this is why. For starters, it could not be easier to set up. It is powered by an app that loaded and connected to my home Wi-Fi instantly with no trouble at all. It has a charging base station that it returns to upon completion of vacuuming or when the dirt bin becomes full and this is where it stays in between cleanings. I have had other robotic vacuums that did not find their way home after several attempts as easily as Roomba did on her first try. The Roomba i3 has great suction ability and is equipped with what iRobot calls a Premium 3-Stage Cleaning System that has been designed to have 10X the Power Lifting Suction. In the box is the charging cord, the base station, the Roomba, and an extra high-efficiency filter. The Robot is a little over 13” in diameter, 3.63 inches high and weighs 7.44 lbs. It operates on a lithium Ion battery. I particularly like how the robot mapped out my rooms to be cleaned. It first took each room and started in the center. It then proceeded to clean by mapping out uniform rows until the entire center had been vacuumed. Only then does it go to the perimeter of the room and vacuum around the room. It does not even attempt to go to the perimeter until it has mapped out and vacuumed the center of the room. It seemed to navigate well over flooring changes and onto area rugs back to hardwood and did not get stuck like other that I have used. This model is also equipped with a “Reactive Sensor Technology” and with “Dirt Detect” sensors that 1. Keep it from navigating where it might have an issue getting stuck, and 2. Only go where the dirt is. The i3 also works with your voice through Alexa or Google Assistants and can vacuum upon command. The app allows you to set up a schedule, historically records when it does vacuum and where in your home it vacuumed, etc. You can control the Roomba through the app, end cleanings and return it to the base station. The Roomba can learn your habits and even suggest additional cleanings depending on the time of year, dust, and pollen, etc. I would give it 5 stars except it seems to have the same drawback as all of the robotic vacuums that I have owned in that its dustbin is really not very large. This product and model does have an accessory item that allows the i3 to dock and dump itself for 60 days of cleanings. The iRobot Roomba i3 comes with a one-year warranty. I definitely would recommend it, because it is powerful, seems to have little issues like falling off the network or getting hung on floor changes or stuck while cleaning, and does a great job.

I am not a stranger to robotic vacuums; I still have an *original* Roomba Discovery series running and additionally have another brand that I reviewed here a while back. Why two robots for one floor? Well, the Discovery runs in my kitchen and as it is getting 'on in years' it tends to wander and must be kept in place with virtual wall accessories; to be it fair was never really that intelligent and got stuck very often until I got those walls and put it in the kitchen. (But still pretty impressive that an 8 year old robot is still running!) The other robot handles the living room and hallway. I had two robots because even as good as my newer robot was, it still got stuck in places and could not go over the high thresholds separating my rooms. Look at the pictures in my review to see what I am talking about; they are probably much higher than your house! I was really hopeful that the I3 Roomba would be able to be a little more trusted and could run in more rooms, though I was still concerned about it mounting those high thresholds. I have to say, I am hugely impressed with the i3. It is a like a little Abrams tank! It had little to no issues getting into every room on my first floor, including my bathroom, on its very first ‘mission’. And it did so in a much more logical manner than either of my other robots, covering more area in a short amount of time. Even more impressive, it found and cleaned more dirt. Even though I had run both of my previous robots the two days prior, there was still a good amount of debris in the dirt pan! Of course, some of this was because it went into more rooms, but still was a big surprise to me as visually those rooms looked clean. But not clean enough apparently to the i3. I am guessing that this was due to the Dirt Detect sensors finding areas where it needed to focus on cleaning the most. I’ve noticed that over time, my robot was spending less time in some rooms than it initially did proving the sensors work well since those are rooms I don’t spend as much time in. That the i3 finds its way back to its charger and then can resume cleaning where it left off (because it maps the entire area out) is an awesome feature. Doesn’t sound like it’s that important but when you see it happening you realize just how smart the AI is. It also keeps track of places it might have gotten stuck temporarily so that it can work around those areas in the future. After a few initial ‘full house’ runs, a complete map is built up; you can even see where your little guy goes in the iRobot app. I love that use Alexa or Google Assistant to go and clean simply via voice! This is especially helpful if you want to start a cleaning mission when you are not at home. The i3’s setup was incredibly well thought out by iRobot; besides being easy for a novice, it explained in perfect detail each step and feature as it went through the setup routine so you not only knew what was happening, but more importantly WHY. I would say that without a doubt, this was the best setup experience I have had with a smart device so far. (And I’ve setup hundreds of smart devices, so this is saying something. The documentation is well written but app is so thorough and well thought out, you may never look at it (but you should if you want to get all the features out of it)! Voice control via Alexa and Google Assistant is similarly well thought out and implemented; I was able to get both platforms setup and configured in minutes. A really top notch end user experience; if you are not a techie, you need not be afraid of this one. I tested an i3 Robot Vacuum without the Clean Base, because I thought that like my other robots, this would have to be confined to a specific area and therefore I would not need it. But now that I see how well the i3 works and how trustworthy it is, I regret that I did not get the base. Fortunately, I can confirm that the Clean Base Automatic Dirt Disposal can be purchased separately and added at any time. And I definitely plan on buying one. I really think that I will be moving the newer robot to my second floor and giving the old Discovery away to a friend because the i3 has proven to me that it can handle the first floor all by itself! On top of all that I mentioned, another great feature is that iRobot has a published API specification. While this may not be important to some, this programming interface means that it is generally more accessible to third party programming which allows the i3 and other iRobot devices to integrate with other smart home platforms. One of the open source programs that I use, HomeAssistant, has a great interface that allows me to see the i3’s current state, where it is, how much battery is left and even allows me to set up schedules or cleaning runs and shows maintenance updates! I can even see a map like the one in the app that shows me its travels! Features like the ones I have mentioned here used to only be available in the more expensive i7 model Roomba and were out of reach to many consumers. The i7 includes the ability to edit the map and assign rooms, which is great if you want the ability to clean only a specified area of your house as well as some other features, but if you don’t have a need for this I can’t see anything holding you back from going for the i3. The i3 is available at a competitive price and compared to other brands at this price level, it is superior in its abilities and build quality. I think the i3 is going to be a game changer and force a lot of competitors to rethink their pricing and feature sets. I am grateful to Best Buy that I was given a chance to test it out early and I highly recommend it. iRobot has done an incredible job bringing a robot of this quality to the market at such an affordable price! Capable, smart and by the way extremely good looking; I almost feel sorry for my old robots, but they will find new homes or new uses. The i3 is taking over the first floor.

I recently bought the Roomba i3 as I was having to vacuum my apartment multiple times a week because of my cat. So far I have been impressed with this product. After comparing with other Roomba models, I went with this one because it has pathing (vs random), the suction is better than slightly cheaper models, and it will pause and resume the job if it needs to recharge. Performance: Compared to my upright vacuum it is far quieter, the noisiest piece is the spinning brushes. The suction is very good, I have a full bin every time I use it (every other day) and it even picks up dirt my upright vacuum did not. As of right now it is quite slow, cleaning my ~850 sqft apartment minus my bedroom takes around 40-50 minutes, but I believe it will speed up as it learns the space over time. So far I have run it 4 times and it has not gotten stuck yet. Hair: One major plus for me is how it handles long hair. I have 20 inch long hair and I shed a ridiculous amount which is a nightmare for vacuums. My upright is constantly getting clogged and is not easy to clean. So far the Roomba has handled this well, I have only noticed hair stuck in the spinning brush but it was easy to remove. Maintenance-wise iRobot has made it very straight forward to clean the brushrolls etc. which is a huge difference from my upright vacuum. App: The app leaves a lot to be desired, it seems very basic in features. As someone who works with tech I'd love to see some advanced features. The biggest missing feature is being able to select certain spaces only, or blocking it from zones. You have the option of buying a virtual wall barrier but it doesn't seem worth it in my opinion. I just make sure to physically block off spaces I don't want it to go and I pick up my pet's food and water bowls. I do like that you can schedule jobs and connect it to Google assistant. Final thoughts: Overall I thought it is a good model for the price. There are a few features missing that are offered in the i7 model but it wasn't worth the added cost for me. PROS: Easy to set up, performs well, handles long hair, google/alexa connectivity, actual pathing, resumes job after charging, easy to clean unit. CONS: slow, no zone blocking feature, small dust bin.

I was disappointed to find out that the i3 does not support many of iRobot's Advanced Smart Mapping features, which includes customized cleaning zones and “keep out” zones. Having the ability to customize the floorplan of the different rooms in your home helps considerably in targeted cleaning and preventing the robot from accessing certain areas (a.k.a “keep out” zones). In addition, with the advanced smart mapping features, you can label each room and tell the vacuum to go and clean that specific room. The robot intelligently leaves its base, heads straight for the selected room, cleans that room, then returns to it home base to charge. Another feature that is not included with the i3 model, but is included with the i7 model, is the ability to create zones within a room. For example, I own an iRobot Braava jet m6 mopping robot that has the advanced smart mapping features, and I created multiple zones in my living room. One zone is the high traffic walkway, and the other zone is the area under the couches. I can tell my Braava jet to mop only the walkway area, rather than mop the whole leaving room, which includes under the couches. This saves time, cleaning solution, and maintenance on the unit. So, many of these features are not available with the i3 model, and only available with the i7 model. iRobot’s website does list these differences in the i3 and i7 product comparison page. However, they are listed on the iRobot Home App webpage. There is a footnote on the bottom of the page that states that these features are only available with the s, i, and m series Roomba robot vacuums and Braava robot mops, but it doesn’t specify that it’s only available for the i7 model, and not the i3 version. I don’t think this is intentional on iRobot’s part, just an oversight they haven’t fixed yet. Some positive features about i3 is that its suction is truly exceptional for a robot vacuum. It can pick up cat litter effectively. And the new style rubber brushes do a very good job at not allowing pet and human hair to get tangled around them. Another positive is the motors the drive the wheels; they are very strong. The vacuum can easily move over thresholds and from hardwood to carpets. Unfortunately, this strength has its downside. In one particular room in my home, the floor transitions from hardwood to a heavy shag carpet. Most other robots I’ve owned, will hit the shag carpet and work around it. This model can make its way onto the thick carpet, but eventually gets bogged down, then stuck. I don’t think this model is designed for extra thick carpet. Which is fine, but I wish I had a way through the app to draw a “keep out” zone so I don’t continuously get a “Robot is Stuck” error. The first few times it got stuck, I would open the app and see the customized map it had drawn of my room’s floor. I was excited because I thought I could edit the map, like on my Braava jet m6 mop. I looked for the map edit icon (see pic) within the app, but it was missing. It appeared under the Braave jet mop, but it was not available for the i3 model. This was very perplexing to me because the customized map was already drawn in the app by the i3, but the feature to edit it is turned off for this model. I then tried one of iRobot’s virtual wall accessories, which is not included with this vacuum. It looks like a small pencil holder (see pic) that you place on the ground and depending on the direction you point it, it will create an invisible wall that the robot knows not to cross. The virtual wall kept the robot from going onto the carpet, but the wall only stretched about 4 feet. My carpet is at least 12 feet wide, so once it got past the 4 feet distance, it made its way onto the carpet, then eventually got itself stuck. I ended up standing on the carpet and placing my foot along the edge to prevent it from crossing onto the carpet. I did this for the length of the carpet. Hoping that after I taught it to stay away from that area of the floor, the next time it would vacuum, it would not try to cross onto the carpet. Unfortunately, that was not the case, and it would go onto the carpet each time and get stuck. This behavior is contradictory to the description for this unit, which states that it “Goes where it's needed, avoids where it's not.” And its “Reactive Sensor Technology tells the robot where it can and cannot reach, which means less getting stuck on furniture and more knowing where to go.” I guess these features may work in other settings, but it didn’t work in this situation. Also, it’s quite possible that these features will be improved overtime, and updates can be sent to both the vacuum and app. To get some clarification on its mapping and sensor ability, I called iRobot’s tech support. I was instantly connected with a live person who wanted to understand the issue. She was very helpful and communicated my information to the engineering team. Afterwards, she did confirm that many of the mapping features are not available with this model but thanked me for my feedback because it can help with improving this model. As a courtesy, they offered to send me an additional virtual wall, which I appreciated. I now understand that many of the smart map features are only available with the i7 model, but it would be nice to at least enable the “keep out” zone feature, so those with similar issues can prevent their robot from getting stuck in the same place. Still, I can’t say enough about iRobot’s customer service. They were extremely helpful and thorough with their support. Overall, I would recommend this vacuum if you’re looking for a strong vacuum that can cover the majority of your home without the need for mapping customization. You may need to invest in a virtual wall or two, or simply block the area with something heavy to keep the robot from entering specific areas, but otherwise it can vacuum hardwood floors and light to medium pile carpet extremely well. If you want all the additional smart map features, you’re better off looking at the i7 model.

So Smart and Capable.   This iRobot i3 is so smart and that makes all the difference!!   This is my second robotic vacuum and first iRobot. My first bot vacuum (not an iRobot)  I bought was another well known,  well rated bot but it was not a smart bot to be sure.  It’s only ability to clean a floor relied on bumping randomly into everything forever ….dumb and prone to getting stuck….and ultimately useless and as such returned.  So, I was skeptical about robot vacuums in general but before abandoning robotic vacuums for a few more years to let them evolve, I thought I’d give the last shot to the big dog in the area…iRobot Roomba. I know Roomba’s brand and its reputation so I was excited to try it out.   This iRobot i3 is just amazing!  Set up could not be any easier.  iRobot has a quick 5 step startup guide that had me ready to go in about 5- 7 minutes.  I pulled out the charging station and plugged it in.  That’s 3 of the 5 steps…easy enough!  I placed the Roomba on the charging station and waited a few seconds then followed the steps on the app.  EASY.  The app is great as well.   Once the Roomba was ready, I selected “vacuum Everywhere” on the app and off it went. I watched intently as it begin its task like I was watching a new puppy explore the house.  As I said before it’s smart…It uses an intelligent pattern to clean and after it was all done it showed me a map of my house that it cleaned. I mean at the end I could see an actual map of my floor plan!  I can’t stress how important that feature is in a smart vacuum.  It makes all the difference.  Roomba i3 started in the living room and began to explore.  It bumps into things but learns from it and gets smarter. It never got stuck once… Not once!  Now keep in mind I prepped the house as they advised.  I made sure dog toys were put up and chords weren’t laying around shoes put away ect.  Whichever iRobot programmer or team that wrote the algorithm for it’s vacuum path selection did an amazing job!  You can see it learning and figuring it out.  It’s not just a bumper car hoping to grab some dirt as it haphazardly bumps into everything. The cleaning pattern seemed to be back and forth and then a perimeter sweep to find the walls and ensure it covered all the space.  It would make a 90 degree turn as it navigated around furniture without touching it as it got smarter and as it learned my house layout! Super cool. It has a purpose and intelligence to getting the job done and the brains to recognize and avoid getting stuck  which all equals a great clean house with no effort from me (except for emptying the Roomba’s trash bin twice)!  Now that I have seen just how hands off and capable the Roomba is, I will probably invest in the cleaning station that makes it hands free for up to 60 days!   As the Roomba diligently toiled away, I monitored the battery level through the app to make sure I didn’t miss it when it was time for it to find the docking station.  When the battery was getting pretty low,  45 minutes to an hour of run time I’d estimate. The Roomba stopped and spun around in the living room and I watched closely as it flawlessly navigated back to the charging area and precisely closed in and docked with the station.   Really cool!  At this point, it dawned on me that I should check the Roomba’s trash bin to see how the cleaning was coming.  My wife and I don’t have kids and have a small dog.  Our house is really pretty clean overall….or so I thought.  There is a release on the side of the Roomba you can easily access as it charges so you can empty the trash bin and not disturb the charging.  It was full of disgusting carpet fiber, hair and dust bunnies galore!!  I was honestly shocked.  One of the reason there was so much debris is because the nimble Roomba has a very low profile compared to my upright stick vacuum.  The Roomba got places that have not seen a vacuum in many years!!!    After about 45-60 minutes of charging, I heard a beep and the Roomba got back on the job.  It picked up where it had left off!  As it cleaned away, I was impressed with the precise strait lines it left in the carpet (see pictures) leaving an impressive history of its precise cleaning it had accomplished! It continued on tirelessly and then recharged one more time.  I emptied the trash bin on the Roomba again and was shocked just how much more stuff it collected!  The Roomba finished by  leaving the furthest part of our house and effortlessly navigated back to the docking station navigating turns and furniture without toughing them once!  The app told me it had completed the job and showed me a floor map of my whole house!! Again, It was my floor plan and was detailed and easily recognizable. Really amazing for this price point.  I started the job at about 4pm and it finished the whole house at about 8:30pm.  The app told me the actual run time was 2 hours and 1 minute with 2 hours and 28 minutes of charge time. It told me the square footage it had vacuumed and it was very close to my houses actual square footage! SMART!!!   The vacuum performed outstanding on our hard wood floors, and medium pile carpet and did a pretty good job on a high pile floor rug in our living room. The high pile living room floor rug was a little bit of a struggle for the Roomba but it was impossible for our first robot vacuum and is difficult to vacuum with my upright as well.  Honestly, I did not expect the Roomba to be able to vacuum the living room high pile floor rug but it did.  It is really powerful both in its ability to vacuum and its drive train to move from carpet to hard wood flooring and even ½” lips from wood to tile ect.   Overall I highly recommend this Vacuum!  Super smart! These vacuums are investments in allowing you to spend your precious time doing something other than vacuuming!  Make sure you invest in one that can do it all and do it better than a human could do with its ability to go under couches and dressers ect.!  iRobot Roomba i3 does this in spades!!!  This brand with this tech in this price point… You can’t go wrong! I love it!    

Robot Vacuums have been on the market for many years now and improvements over those years have eliminated many of the problems that plagued early designs. The days of low battery power, low “suction” power, unreliable navigation, inability to find or return to the charge base and uselessly small dust carrying compartments are long behind us. This year’s crop of vacuum robots like the iRobot Vacuum i3 from Roomba are designed to eliminate even more difficult problems. The i3 is not the most feature laden vacuum in the large family of Roomba cleaning robots, but unlike many in its entry-point competitors, it has VERY strong bones. By that I mean that compared to the several other brands I’ve owned, instead of beginning as a blank design with “economy” in mind, the i3 is built from essentially the same underframe, motor, battery sensors and high-quality materials as Roomba’s highest i9 model. It’s minus some of the esoteric features, BUT BOY CAN IT CLEAN! It’s the best vacuum robot I’ve ever owned when it comes to handling the edges of small throw rugs and loose electrical cords it might encounter. Instead of ingesting and choking until it’s stuck, it pauses, reverses its rollers to “spit out” the rag or carpet, backs away from the “problem” and then moves in a different direction to continue cleaning. It’s fascinating to watch. Unlike all of the other robot vacuums I’ve owned, this is the only one that is able to finish cleaning the house without calling me with an App or just a plaintive chime to get it unstuck. To me this is its #1 feature. I’ve included a couple of pictures of the i3 encountering the throw rug and rather untidy computer, router and Wi-Fi cables under my desktop computer. I had to block this area off from my old vacuums that would get stuck there EVERY time. The i3 just does the job carefully and moves on. FEATURES: - The aforementioned ability to avoid entanglement in cords or rug edges. - Relatively high suction force. - Creates a map of your floor plan and uses it (if necessary) to return to the exact spot it left off at (to return to the charger for about an hour), before it resumes cleaning the whole floorplan. - Has improved infrared scanners and sensors so it can clean in (to our eyes) total darkness. - Uses its sensors and software to clean in straight logical paths instead of bouncing from wall to wall like older robot vacuums. - Easy to remove and clean the pick-up rollers if long pet hairs get wrapped around those rollers. - The extra large dust-bin/charging station that sucks the dirt out of the robot at the end of every cleaning session can be purchased separately. This unit is standard with the i3+, i7 and i9 Roombas. Depending on how dirty the floors are, this dirt extracting station can allow the Roomba to operate for days or weeks autonomously without needing to be emptied after every session. - 1-year limited warranty INCLUDES: - Charging station. - Downloadable Android or iPhone App for monitoring or control of the i3. PROS: - Great cleaning ability - Good Customer and Technical Support by phone to make up for poor User Manual. - The ability to set up/pair with Google Home or Apple Siri through Bluetooth allows hands free control. CONS: - The User Manual does not offer much information beyond FCC and safe operation rules. CONCLUSION: A very capable robot vacuum that does the basics very well. It’s also somewhat upgradable since it can use accessories used with higher end Roomba models in the same family. I found that a call to their Technical Support can explain this quite well.

This Roomba i3 looks more modern and is smarter than my Roomba 805. It navigates in neat rows and create a map in the app unlike the Roomba 805 navigates randomly and take longer to complete. This i3 can automatically recharges itself & resumes cleaning. It never stuck at stairs. It also works with the dual mode virtual wall barrier. The app has the favorites option but it is not active yet so the only favorite is to clean the whole house. The dust bin filter is smaller and is easy to empty the bin as you can open the door pretty wide. However, dust can still fall out when removing the bin and some dust still stay in the main body. I wish the app has navigation button to remote control the vacuum to go anywhere you want. Also this i3 does not have a carry handle.

Amazing! I've been skeptical of the robo-vacuums for years.. I have been researching them for a long time and finally decided to try the i3. I am amazed at its capabilities. I wanted a model that was intelligent but not too privacy invasive (I'm not a fan of freerange cameras in my home). The build quality was impressive right out of the box and the textured design makes it feel/look very modern but stand out too much as another "gadget" laying around. I have a Shih Tzu and deep carpeting, also lots of random cables and electronics around. The Roomba was not challenged by any of that. The dog was a bit leery of it at first, mostly because it was bumping into things to find its way. It is much quieter than my upright and canister vacs, but not silent by any means. I followed it around in amazement as it figured out the rooms, avoided obsticles and didn't miss an inch of open carpet. It has an interesting way of calculating its boundaries and then going back to fill in the space. Very smart! Also did great under beds and furniture. I will probably end up getting the add-on bin (included with the i3+) because I did have to empty it three times on a run through a 1000sqft apartment. That could just be because it was its first trip through though. I was amazed at the amount of dirt and hair it had pulled out of the carpet. Emptying its onboard bin is a little gross but was interesting to see how well it worked. The app isn't anything special... basically for setup and to show you a rough map of the area cleaned but no house map or options to select rooms. It says there are new features coming but I'm happy with what it does now. Great balance of smarts, capability and privacy for a VERY reasonable price.

I owned the first model Roomba as a gift about 18 years ago and haven't had one since. As one might expect, it has drastically improved over those many years in some frankly, surprising ways. First off, it's astonishingly quiet given that it's a vacuum. In fact, when it runs as scheduled, I hear it moving on the floor more than I hear the actual suction working. And that's not to say it's not doing a good job - it fills up the dust bin pretty quickly. I have a cat who sheds, so running it 3 times a week (as is the default schedule) is perfect. I just wish I purchased the model with the self-emptying bin. There are two reasons why I wouldn't give it five stars in a rating. First off, it has randomly left dust bunnies that it created on the carpet. This isn't a big deal, but it was unexpected. I could easily pick them up and throw them away myself. Secondly, the app and Roomba notifications are a bit confusing - for example, I get alerted about a "problem with the bin." So I go to investigate, and press the button on the top so it will tell me what's wrong. It says "please empty the bin." Well, if it was just a full bin, that should be a different message because that's something that will happen at times as opposed to a "problem." I'm reasonably certain that this will improve over time as the app and Roomba can both get updates, but it's a little annoying that it can give you the impression something is broken or requires more than than a simple solution.

This Roomba i3 replaces a Roomba 880 which has been going strong in our house for 7 years and that we have absolutely loved for vacuuming the living room. The 880 will be refurbished (just a new battery and edge brush) and used to vacuum our master bedroom now that the 3150 can tackle the downstairs. Roomba lasts. Having a robot vacuum is one chore off the list and more time for other things. Our old 880 had a limited range and usually required rescuing when the batteries in the invisible walls ran out. It was generally confined to our living room because it had a hard time getting lost going too far from its home. Getting the 3150, I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was able to map out and vacuum our entire downstairs, coming back to its base to recharge as needed. It navigated obstacles much more intelligently and does not need to be confined to the living room any longer. As far as accuracy goes, I can see on the map where the legs of our dining table and chairs are! I also find that it can pack a lot into the small dustbin, though I now wonder if we should have upgraded to the self-emptying model now that we can vacuum the entire downstairs. One tip if you have hard floors where you put the charger: we use adhesive tape to keep the charging base from wandering when the Roomba docks. Setup was incredibly easy (< 5 minutes) and adding the 3150 to the iRobot app was straightforward. Setting a schedule to clean the entire first floor every morning at 2am was also ridiculously simple. Now I can wake up to a notification that everything downstairs has been vacuumed and even see a map of the house, what was cleaned and how long the vacuum spent cleaning versus charging. According to the app, I will also soon be able to create favorite programs to send the new Roomba to specific rooms on more complex schedules. It hasn't gotten lost yet, but I was also happy to see that you can use the app to have it play a sound. If needed, it will save us some time on our occasional morning Roomba hunt. Cleaning ability is at least as good as our workhorse 880 and the dust bin is generally full every morning. Time will tell, but the dust bin also seems easier to clean and maintain and I also prefer the simpler roller latching mechanism on the underside of the vacuum. The 3150 also comes with a spare filter in the box. In short, we've loved out 880 for 7 years and the 3150 improves on our old Roomba in every way. I would heartily recommend one if you'd like to stop vacuuming and get on with your life.

A solid vacuum with extensive aftermarket and OEM parts support is available. It has decent battery life and good performance. We have three dogs and a cat, so we must clean out the brushes often. As long as that's done, the performance will be positive. We purchased it in April of 2022 and had to replace the roller and side brushes thrice. We purchased an aftermarket set on Amazon for $18 with three sets.