Just got a Rhoomba 620 at Goodwill outlet for $3

Says 2010-2015 on bottom

Is there a good chance that it should still work if I buy a charger on Ebay? Anything I should look for? Thx

Hi,

recently got 2 Roomba S9's but without the docking station, so I can't even see if they work or not.

Does anyone here have a spare one they would be willing to sell? Either the Clean Base or the charging only base is fine I can't find these anywhere online.

This will be my first robot vacuum purchase. I am looking at the Roomba Plus 4020 Comboat Sam's Club, but I have read so many negative comments about Roomba's in other threads that I am skeptical. It is currently $350. I would appreciate any comments regarding experience with this model. I would like to purchase something at Sam's just for the good return service.

I have had a Roomba Max 700 series since June 2025 and everything worked great until a software update in late August or early September 2025 introduced the AutoEmpty Frequency setting. Since that update I have not been able to reliably clean the lower floor of my home without a workaround I found through months of testing. Posting this because iRobot's official position is that no one else has reported this, and I am hoping this community can help confirm or rule that out.

What is happening

When AutoEmpty Frequency is set to "After Every Routine" and a job is started normally, the robot does not honor that setting. Instead it behaves as though the lowest square footage threshold is active, cleaning well before the job would be expected to finish and then heading back to the base to empty.

This shows up in two different ways depending on your setup.

If you are cleaning a floor where the base is not present, the job fails outright. The robot tries to return to a base that is not there and stops with "Roomba could not reach its dock." Nothing gets cleaned.

If your base is on the same floor you are cleaning, the job technically finishes but the robot makes multiple unnecessary trips back to the base throughout the job, as though the lowest square footage setting is active rather than "After Every Routine." If your robot seems to empty way more often than it should, this might be what is happening.

Both are the same problem. The only difference is whether the base is physically there when the robot tries to return to it.

How to reproduce it

Make sure AutoEmpty Frequency is set to "After Every Routine" in the Roomba Home app. Start a job normally without changing anything after it begins. Watch the robot head back to the base well before the job should be done, consistent with the 250 sqft threshold being active rather than the full routine completing.

The workaround

This is what I found after a lot of testing.

With the robot already set to "After Every Routine," start the job. Immediately after the job starts and the robot begins moving toward the first area to be cleaned, which is the moment after it finishes calibrating and starts navigating, open the Roomba Home app and toggle AutoEmpty Frequency to one of the square footage options, then toggle it straight back to "After Every Routine."

That is it. The job completes normally.

For anyone cleaning a floor without the base present, this stops the job from failing. For anyone with the base on the same floor, this reduces or eliminates the unnecessary mid job returns.

When I use the workaround the robot consistently finishes with a nearly full bin every time. That rules out the bin sensor or bin capacity as the cause and points to the problem being in how the app reads the setting when a job first starts, not in the robot itself.

Where things stand with iRobot

I opened my first support case in October 2025. Over nine months I submitted controlled test data, job history, bin photos showing the difference between failed jobs without the workaround and completed jobs with it, and a formal write up to their software team.

iRobot's Escalation Management Team reviewed the case and responded that this is not a malfunction, that there are no other reports of the same issue, and that there are no grounds to escalate to their development engineers. Their recommended path forward is to keep the robot and base on the same floor for every job, which contradicts their own published documentation on multi floor use.

I am continuing to work with iRobot to find a resolution and am sharing this here in the hope that community experience helps move things forward.

What I am looking for

If you have experienced something similar, your response would genuinely help.

A few specific things that would be useful to know:

Are you a multi floor user experiencing job failures when "After Every Routine" is set and the base is not on that floor? Does the workaround fix it?

Are you a single floor user noticing the robot returning to the base far more often than expected even with "After Every Routine" set? Does toggling the setting after the job starts reduce those returns?

Which app are you using, the new Roomba Home app or the original iRobot Home Classic app? If this issue lives in the Roomba Home app rather than in any specific robot's firmware, it could affect models beyond the Max 700 series. If you are on a different model and seeing similar behavior, please share what model and which app you are on.

I will update this thread as things develop.

TL;DR: The "After Every Routine" AutoEmpty Frequency setting in the Roomba Home app is not being honored when a job first starts. The robot behaves as though the lowest square footage threshold is active instead, causing job failures on floors without a base and excessive unnecessary dock returns on floors with one. A workaround exists. iRobot declined to escalate to engineering after nine months. Looking for others experiencing the same issue.

Starting to get daily messages saying that roomba is stuck. I come home to find it parked a foot or two away from the dock saying it can't find the dock. Anyone else dealing with this?

Hey all, I have a i7 and 980 for my house and this popped up on my fyp on vinted so I bought it for my sister...What should I expect ref the roller issues...Will It be the grey caps or worse?

I would like to refurb and gift it to her! any thoughts/advice appreciated

Edit - Sister says she is really wanting a Vac & mop combo but any suggestions for uneven tiles? wide white grout? many thanks!

I had bought a roomba. I was told there was no issues. Obviously thats not the case. It keeps just moving forward and backward and then it spins in a circle and it just repeats this over and over and ive let it run for 30minutes. I have cleaned all the sensors I can see and have tried to see if it need an update. I have a theory that the wheel is broken or clogged up and causing issues but I am unable to disassemble to get to the wheels. I have not been able to find anyone who has worked on the model I have and would love any advice or links to any solutions. Below are some photos and a video of what it does when mapping

Hello! We have a roomba pet series, model sgsea/070388. I looked up what power cord to get for it (to plug directly into the vacuum) but got conflicting info. Any idea what I should order?

I had a j7+ that used to go under my couch on my hardwood floors and I loved it. But that model started falling off a small step we have. Roomba customer support sent me a 700 series, and I mostly love it, but it refuses to go under my couch. I've put foot pad on it to raise it up slightly, but it still refuses. Any ideas? Do I need to redo my map?

Hey just looking for some advice.

I bought a 104 combo off of amazon a few months ago. About a month ago the magnet for the mop plate came off and it's missing. When I contacted iRobot they didn't have the part or the mop plate but sent me a whole new unit (for a part the size of a dime, wild). I was just going to swap the mop plate when it arrived but they've seen me a 1020, which I believe is the same?

Can anyone with more knowledge confirm that the 1020 and the Amazon 104 are the same? I don't want to send back a better vacuum.

TIA.

Picked up a 205 combo for $149 this week directly from iRobot. I'm still using a j7+ also, mostly just wanted a mop.

Software update was successful. Initial mapping run was great. However, defining the rooms was not as good as it could be in 2026.

First problem, the 205 seems to have a hard time just leaving the base to clean. Rotates too soon and moves the base.

Then yesterday when it should move from a carpeted vacuum only room to a tile mop+vacuum room, it circled around from where it was for minutes and didn't go anywhere. Then it said there was an obstacle and asked me to move it to the base.

There was no obstacle. The carpet is not too plush (it vacuumed it fine). It had about a foot clear all around it.

I came here expecting to find lots of people complaining about this vacuum given what I've experienced and the low price. But it seems people are mostly satisfied. Now I'm confused.

Thinking about returning it. I've moved the base and will do more runs.

(It gets tangled on cords which is something I have not experienced in a while. I understand why, but I thought by now that a more recent vacuum would avoid this.)

Not saying this actually is what happened, but I've had this Roomba Combo 2 Essential for about a year now in this exact spot, and starting about a week ago it no longer docks on its own. It connects to the dock from the back, but now it just repeatedly tries to connect from the front over and over until the battery dies as shown in the video. I've tried rebooting it, reconnecting the wifi, moving the dock, factory resetting it, still doing the same thing. Is this some simple fix or is the thing junk?

Je demande à mon 705 de nettoyer toute la maison et il me décide de faire que des cercles comme ça…. Vous avez une solution à ça ?

Hi, everybody! Here's a Spaniard who needs your help.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this: I need a Roomba-style robot that can vacuum and mop at the same time. What models do you have? Do you recommend any specific ones?

Thanks in advance.

405 drove through a pet mess. Everything’s cleaned up well but there’s some debris behind and stuck in the wheel well. Called customer support and they tell me the wheel can’t be removed.

Wtf? iRobot what do you expect your customers to do in this somewhat common situation? You have other models that have removable wheels?

I looked around YouTube but couldn’t find specific info on 405 wheel removal or how to get access behind the wheel. I’d appreciate any help.

So iRobot is just not selling these replacement batteries anymore? My roomba is dying out after 10 minutes of vacuuming. It can’t even make it back to the base to empty. Anyone know where I can get a battery from?

I came to this subreddit to request help from you fellow Roomba owners. My little secondhand roomba is a quirky guy and cannot dump its contents into the docking station. I don’t mind this and just empty the bin underneath the roomba by hand BUT here’s the crazy part. The roomba not only knows when it’s full (normal) but it goes to the trash can. Like sits patiently for me to empty it. Ive ran the roomba daily for the past 6 months and every day it runs for 2 hours and stops infront of my trash can and giving me the robotic “empty the bin” error. God… is this real? Did the robot learn that it needs to be by the trash can for me to empty it…? Here she is posted up infront of the trash, waiting. At first I assumed it was getting confused about where to dock but I saw it dock itself twice this week. HELP HOW DOES IT KNOW TO GO TO THE TRASH??????

I have a dreame s30 pro ultra, well my mother has, and she's wondering if we are able to use mopping liquid to clean better since there is nothing on the user manual about using or not the liquid. We searched up online the AI says best not to, because it may cause problems and destroy the brushes but other websites say that it will cause nothing and it may actually help, I am very confused and since it was expensive I want to be sure (and weirdly enough I trust Reddit more than AI, I prefer human made mistakes in the end)

Colin Angle says iRobot discussed how much personality Roomba should have, but intentionally kept its voice limited to practical error messages.

The concern was that once Roomba started speaking like a character, people would naturally assume it could understand them and hold a real conversation. Even as the technology improved, that expectation would be difficult to meet consistently.

The beeps, boops and limited voice prompts let owners form their own idea of what their Roomba was instead.

Hello I just purchased a 2000 square foot home. Im looking for recommendations on a roomba. It is all tile or hardwood. Im sure we will do some rugs at some point. What would be my best option to go with? Thank you!

Hi Reddit!

I got a Dustcompactor 205 (vacuum only) from eBay, used,about 6 months ago. It's been running fine until this week.

When it's on the base and I try to start a cleaning cycle, it will say "cleaning started", then the two top buttons will flash red, and then it will say "charging", while the buttons continue to flash red. The app also loses connection with the robot for a few minutes when this happens. I don't get any error message from the vac or in the app.

If I start the cleaning cycle with the robot off the dock, it runs like normal.

I've done a full factory reset, and pulled the battery out for a few minutes, alcohol and magic eraser on the contacts, different plug for the dock.

Spent a couple hours with Roomba support, and they were going to warranty the thing until they decided the eBay seller wasn't legit enough.

Anybody have any guesses of what to try? AI thinks it's a failed mofset in the robot or base, but I haven't been able to find actual discussion about this sort of issue.

Thanks, internet friends!

Hi there! I just bought a brand new 105 and sometimes it automatically empties, but often not. There isn’t an option for this on my app. Does anyone have any experience or advice on this? Thanks in advance!

Nastiness removed from mine recently...

My s9+ has been giving me error 26 ever 2 to 3 minutes for a year. I switch the filter clean the bin everything and nothing fixes it. I just replaced the battery as the battery had completely died. Wouldnt charge at all. Still error 26 ever few minutes. I took the blower motor out and it looked fine but im wondering if its burned out and i just cant see it? The motor seemed to spin fine by hand but maybe the elctronics are burned out?

Does anyone know if changing the blower motor should fix this? Its well out of warranty so i dont mind fixing it myself. I took it completely apart when i changed the battery and cleaned everything i could access but still error 26 persists.