The $1,000 Roomba Cleans Well and Still Needs Babysitting
A robot vacuum that costs $999.99 should not have to be pulled out from under a child’s bed. This one did.
Gizmodo’s Wes Davis used the Roomba Max 775 for weeks in a 750-square-foot apartment. It vacuumed well. It mopped better than most machines he has tested. It also got stuck under furniture and dragged two cables across the floor. He gave it 3 out of 5. That score is the most useful thing you can read right now. It shows you exactly where the extra money stops helping.
What a thousand dollars actually buys
iRobot’s own spec sheet lists the details. The Max 775 is a black disc, 14.7 inches across and 4.1 inches tall. It weighs 12.8 pounds and holds a 6000 mAh battery. The dock is big enough to count as furniture. It stands 17 inches tall, weighs almost 19 pounds, and holds clean and dirty water tanks, a dust bag and a heater.
The mop is a roller. That means a spinning cloth cylinder, not a flat pad. It slides sideways so it can reach the boards along the wall. A cover rolls over the mop when the robot thinks it is on carpet. iRobot told Gizmodo that a sound-based distance sensor (ultrasonic sensor) under the front of the robot makes that call.
For finding its way, the robot uses a spinning laser scanner. The laser measures distances and builds a floor plan. A camera also watches for cords and shoes. The dock washes the mop with 167°F water and empties the bin. iRobot says you can go up to three months without touching it. A spare bag in the dock could stretch that to roughly half a year.
Here are the test numbers. The robot mapped the apartment in 11 minutes. Its first vacuum pass took 39 minutes. A full run of vacuuming and then mopping took two and a half hours, and it finished with 36% battery left. A Roborock Qrevo 2 Pro cleaned the same apartment in about two hours and had 40% left.
The same problems show up at every price
Shoppers tend to miss this part. The Max 775 avoided a cable on a rug twice, then drove right over it. It also mopped part of a thin bedroom rug that sat next to a clear plastic chair mat. iRobot’s reply was that “some very low-pile carpets can be more difficult for the dedicated sensor to detect,” and that the clear mat may have read as hard floor.
The robot whines while it works. The dock is loud enough to cut into a conversation. So set it to run when you are out of the house.
The phone app is the weak spot. On long cleans, the map stopped loading. App control dropped out until the robot went back to its dock. iRobot says it is sending out updates for connection and syncing across its models. The robot costs $999.99 and comes with a 60-day home trial. Use that trial hard.
The price steps, and where the extra money goes
iRobot put five self-emptying models on sale in the United States on July 7, 2026. That came after the company went bankrupt and was sold to the Chinese manufacturer Picea Robotics. The five are the $600 Plus 415, the $700 Plus 515, the $700 vacuum-only Max 715, the $800 Plus 575 and the $1,000 Max 775. All of them map with a laser scanner and use a camera. Paying $700 instead of $600 buys you hot-water mop washing. Paying $1,000 buys the roller mop, the mop cover and two side brushes.
Here is the honest read. Above roughly $400, you are mostly paying for better mopping and an easier dock. You are not paying for fewer rescues. Davis says only one robot has earned an unqualified yes from him: the Matic. Its price has climbed to just under $1,500. No robot at any price copes with a cluttered floor.
Buy for the one job you hate
Choose based on what goes wrong in your home. Sticky kitchen floors and pets? The roller-mop model is worth the money. Carpet everywhere? Buy the vacuum-only model and keep the $300. A cluttered home with cables and kids’ toys? Spend less. You will be tidying up before every run anyway, and a cheap disc needs the same tidying as a pricey one.
What to buy
- Roomba Max 775 Combo Robot + AutoWash Dock ($999.99) – Best pick if mopping hard floors is the chore you hate, thanks to the sliding roller mop and the 167°F dock wash. But the app misbehaved on long runs during testing.
- Roomba Plus 415 Combo ($600) – The cheapest of the new models that empty and wash themselves. It uses spinning mop pads instead of a roller, and it has no hot-water mop wash.
- Roomba Max 715 Vac + AutoEvac Dock ($700) – Vacuum only, with the same two rubber rollers that resist tangles. A sensible buy if your home is mostly carpet and you never wanted a mop.
- Matic robot vacuum (around $1,500) – The one machine Gizmodo’s reviewer calls an unqualified yes for reliability. It is expensive, and too tall to fit under most beds.
- Roborock Qrevo 2 Pro – It cleaned the same 750-square-foot apartment faster than the Roomba and had more battery left. Worth a look before you spend $1,000.
