Tech gadgets are always some of the best things to buy on Black Friday, and this amazing iRobot Roomba deal will get you $200 off the Roomba i3+ or the Roomba i7+. But which robot vacuum is the best choice for your smart home, and is the Roomba i7+ really worth the extra $400? Here's what you need to know.
Most robot vacuums still make you empty the dustbin between every single use, but the iRobot Roomba i3+ comes with a Clean Base that can do that for you. When the vacuum is done cleaning your entire home, it heads back to the base, empties, and charges up for the next time you need to clean. You can even ask Google or Alexa to clean your home for you!
The iRobot Roomba i7+ comes with the same amazing clean base and powerful motor as the i3+, but the extra smarts inside combined with the camera up top enable per-room cleaning, virtual keep-out zones, and specialized clean zones. Want to vacuum under the dining room table after meals? All you need to do is ask Google or Alexa to do it for you, and the Roomba i7+ gets it done.
Clean Zones make a huge difference in just how often you'll actually use your robot vacuum. While it's great that you can use your Roomba i3+ to vacuum the entire house, the Roomba i7+ creates a map in the iRobot app that can be used to clean individual rooms at any time. Furthermore, you'll be able to create Clean Zones, which are designed to divide that map into even more useful sections, like under the dining room table, beneath the kitchen counters, or even under the beds in the bedrooms.
You'll then be able to ask Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa to clean these specific spots in your home by just saying, "Hey Google, vacuum under the dining room table." It's pretty mind-blowing seeing your Roomba i7+ head over to the dining room table and clean underneath just because you asked it to, let me tell you. On top of that, the Roomba i7+ will head back to the dock when it's done and empty its dustbin into the Clean Base that comes with this amazing Black Friday deal.
The Roomba i7+ also supports keep-out zones, which can be denoted on the app's floorplan of your home. These are particularly great for pet owners, who might not want their robot vacuum bumping into the water bowl or cleaning up around the cat's litterbox. They're also great for easily blocking off rooms that might be otherwise occupied or too messy to vacuum.
If you don't need per-room cleaning or features like keep-out zones, the Roomba i3+ packs in the same incredibly powerful motor, dual multi-surface rubber brushes, and Clean Base functionality that the Roomba i7+ has — all for $300 less. Unlike some cheaper Roomba models, the Roomba i3+ features floor-detection sensors that map out your home in an intelligent way and clean in a grid-like pattern of rows throughout each room. That ensures the entire room gets cleaned in an orderly and timely fashion, unlike the random bump-and-go style that some other robot vacuums use.
But the best feature of all is probably the Clean Base, which raises robot vacuum automation to an entirely new level. There's really nothing quite like coming home to a freshly vacuumed home and not having to even think about how it got that way for several months, thanks to the Clean Base's ability to store at least 30 full dustbin's worth of stuff. On top of that, the AllergenLock bags inside of the Clean Base ensure that no debris or particles from the dustbin end back up in your home's air, helping further clean your home automatically.
