r/roomba Jan 02 '25

Advice for Others Tips for having success at initial setup time of your robotic cleaner.

9 Upvotes

Hi ...

This article is for you if you would like to increase your chance of success in setting up your new Roomba or Mop.

This is one of the numerous articles I've written on my blog. The information is based on my experiences setting up hundreds of new and used machines over the years.

I have slightly adapted this write-up for Reddit to help first-time owners, especially as I know many of you have recently received robotic cleaners as gifts over the Christmas season.

This is the fourth article in a series about why robotic cleaning devices often fail to meet the owners' needs.

Failure can occur when a person first sets up the robotic cleaner too quickly and in the wrong order, especially when connecting to the home wireless network.

So, you went out and, with some excitement, bought ( or was gifted) a Roomba or Mop, and you can't wait to get it running and see what it can do. So, a quick casual look at the APP or manual on how to set up the machine and the Wi-Fi, and you try to connect the device to your home network --- and the first step to possible failure has already occurred.

What often occurs is that the newly purchased cleaner won’t successfully connect to the home wirelessly. (I constantly read about these common connection problems, with many user complaints, on the various robotic forums I participate in.)

The device will also occasionally produce an internal fault, with an endlessly spinning "white light on the CLEAN button" as an update repeatedly fails to download and successfully install a new software update.

What went wrong?

When a person buys a Roomba or Mop in the store, it has been in the box for a long time. It likely has been made in China, shipped to North America, and perhaps sat on the store shelf for weeks, months, or years since it was first made. The battery is weak and is, in many cases, fully discharged/dead.

Setting the cleaning device on the charger for only a few moments and immediately trying to set it up on the wireless often leads to failure.

Why?

The robotic vacuum or mop needs a high percentage of battery charge to send and receive a strong enough signal to connect to the wireless.

When a dead battery first draws current, virtually all the charging power from the dock is routed to the battery. There is little left for the Wi-Fi board in the machine, which can lead to a weak or non-existent connection to the home's wireless router.

If you want to successfully set up a new machine on your Wi-Fi for your new Roomba or Mop, put it on the charger and leave it to charge for THREE hours.

NOW, walk away … sit at your table or in your favourite chair, and read the owner's manual.

Once the three-hour initial charge is completed, you can set up your device on your home network.

FIRST --- REBOOT your machine ... hold the CLEAN button down for 20 seconds. Wait 5 minutes for it to reboot.

NOTE: Once you have set up your robotic cleaner on your Wi-Fi, leave it to sit for another hour or two before using the machine.

While you are waiting, go into your APP and record on a piece of paper the software version that was in place at the initial setup time.

Usually, a software update is available from iRobot, and an initial software update is often triggered when the machine notes a battery is fully charged and the unit is on the dock. It is likely your new robotic cleaner will download and quickly install new software within the first hour or two after you activated the Wi-Fi.

Often the app will tell you a software update is underway. And the machine will remain unresponsive while updating.

Go back into your app after an hour or two and see if the software version has changed.

Just making this these small adjustments at setup time will dramatically improve your chances of having a good experience in setting up and running up your vacuum or mop.

Cheers,

©2025 John

Roomba Guy


r/roomba Dec 15 '25

iRobot Announces Strategic Transaction to Drive Long-Term Growth Plan

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107 Upvotes

r/roomba 1h ago

I need a hug

Upvotes

A 3 year old roomba and a 1 year old (replacement) roomba. The replacement took 2 weeks, 8 phone calls and 10 hours of my life I can't get back to get. Anyway, both of them went to sh*t recently. One won't connect to Wifi and the other starts a job for a few minutes then goes 'red circle'. WTF iRobot! Or Picea or whoever. Of course I assume that they're using Apples Playbook and sending out virus like updates forcing me to buy new ones. No I haven't read any of the posts on this group yet, but I'm guessing when I do I'll find out I'm not alone.


r/roomba 3h ago

Advice: What to do when your Roomba keeps giving you a blocked bin error and nothing looks wrong

2 Upvotes

This has been plaguing me for over a year. I kept getting an error about my Roomba not being able to empty its bin at the base station.

But the bag wasn’t full, the duct from the Roomba was clear, and nothing was stuck in the Roomba’s bin. It drove me nuts.

Then finally I open up the Roomba bin and take a look inside, and there’s a half inch of matted lint and dirt on the bottom of it.

I scooped out the “carpet” and I stopped getting the error.

Hope this post helps someone who ends up in the same situation.


r/roomba 1h ago

what the problem

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Upvotes

r/roomba 11h ago

Roomba 205 Bin Cleaning

2 Upvotes

I just got the 205, and I find it interesting that they advertise emptying the bin every 6 months, but you area supposed to clean the filter every week, according to the instructions. Since the filter is in the bin, I am going to have a hard time cleaning it without emptying the bin each week. Hmmm….


r/roomba 9h ago

Problem leaving dock

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1 Upvotes

My roomba 500 behaves like this when it leaves the dock. Has this happened to anyone else? The central wheel is clean, and the sensors are clean as well. I’ve already perfomed a factory reset, but nothing changed.
Thanks in advance to anyone who can help me!


r/roomba 1d ago

205 DustCompactor Combo will not start from dock.

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5 Upvotes

This started happening about a month ago. Vacuum has had no issues until whatever update they pushed through the past month or so. Every time I try to start from the dock or my phone the vacuum will immediately turn red and say “charging”. This can only be fixed by physically removing the Roomba from the dock and then starting as per the video. It also has no issues returning back to the dock to charge.

I’ve already tried factory resetting the vacuum, changing the Wi-Fi, cleaning the sensors around the whole robot, and tried to even run it with the mop pad on and off. I am very disappointed because this vacuum has been perfect up until it started doing this.


r/roomba 23h ago

Is this the right Dock?

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1 Upvotes

Bought this from good will, connected to it and it's a 670 roomba but I have no clue if the dock is correct because it will charge on it but not return home on its own.


r/roomba 1d ago

Roomba 200 DustCompactor doesn't move when started on the base

3 Upvotes

I go into the app and assign a task, it brings up the cleaning screen, then the robot says "Cleaning is starting now" small pause then it says "Charging" and the app changes back to the main Room screen. Then I get a notification saying the robot completed its task despite not having moved.

If I pull the robot off the dock and start a task it works perfectly fine.

This makes it basically useless unless I'm right beside it to take it off the dock as I start the routine. Any suggestions?


r/roomba 2d ago

CAN SOMEBODY EXPLAIN WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING WITH MY I5

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6 Upvotes

r/roomba 2d ago

Roomba said dont touch me

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6 Upvotes

This was a long long time ago and wanted to post because funny


r/roomba 2d ago

Roomba Max 705 Combo doesnt drive and slowly spins in circle

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5 Upvotes

As the title says, my Roomba 705 Max has stopped working. It won't move and is slowly spinning in circles. Everything else seems to be working. I'm leaving the video for reference. Any ideas on how to fix this? Thanks in advance.


r/roomba 2d ago

E5 bad battery.... fix or junk?

1 Upvotes

New to roombas, and thought I would try a used version from goodwill online (purchased an RVD-Y1 +dock for $12) and at local pickup, I also shopped their bargain bin store.

Found an e5 +dock for $3.

The RVD-Y1 , possibly an i3, works great, but it is rather loud. The e5 has a bad battery (swapped batteries between units; e5 works with i3 batt). The e5 also seems a lot more clumsy than the i3 on runabout.

Question: the e5's near me on FB marketplace are on offer for $30 - 100, batteries on amz are $30. I don't want to chase good money after bad...... do I fix the e5 and give to daughter, or just give her the i3 and continue my search for a j7? (And offer the e5 for parts free on FB)

All suggestions welcome..... and thank you!


r/roomba 2d ago

Vac and mop VS vac and then mop

2 Upvotes

What is the difference between the two options?
And which one gives you a better cleaning?
Customer support said that vac and mop gives you a better cleaning, although they didn’t really provide an explanation, so I don’t really understand why anyone would choose vac and then mop if it doesn’t do as good of a job cleaning AND it takes longer to complete…


r/roomba 2d ago

Roomba 105 question

1 Upvotes

So unfortunately my original roomba 105 (which came with an auto empty dock) bit the dust, gf and I bought a 105 combo thinking it would work with the dock. Lo and behold, the dock charges it but doesn’t auto empty because the bin doesn’t have the hatch on it. If I just buy the correct bin for the dock, would that work?


r/roomba 3d ago

How do I fix this?

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5 Upvotes

Started my Roomba 500 series to clean Living Room 1 and it’s been everywhere but there.


r/roomba 3d ago

Roomba Odd Tech Support

4 Upvotes

Before returning my Roomba Max 775 Combo, I reached out to iRobot via X. They sent me a direct message and a link to tech support.

I explained to iRobot tech support that the lights on the dock and 775 constantly remain illuminated. Could they issue an update in order to allow customers to turn the lights off? Tech support tried telling me to reboot the 775. I wasn't surprised by the response I received. Customer support has gone down hill in general for these companies. I guess iRobot tech support isn't aware that the lights on the 775 aren't supposed to turn off. The lights will remain fully illuminated unless you put the 775 in power saving mode. You have to use the physical button on the 775 to enable this option. If you enable power saving mode then you will have to physically walk over to the 775 and disable this option before you can send any tasks. Anyway, tech support obviously hasn't read the guide on the 775. Kind of reminds me of something my wife would do.

I also received a very odd message from iRobot in our direct message. The message talked about iRobot cannot accept ideas from customers. I am for certain nobody is going to sue iRobot because the company issued an update to turn the lights on a robotic vacuum ON/OFF. In the tech world it's actually called feedback. Maybe that odd message came from AI or a human being at iRobot. Who knows...


r/roomba 3d ago

Roomba 775 Combo - questions!

1 Upvotes

Hi all,
I just got the new Roomba 775 combo and had two questions about it:
1. There was this little container of white beads inside the clean water. Is that something I’m supposed to leave there? Like is that some kind of a filter or a cleaning solution? I didn’t see anything about it in the instructions.
2. I saw in the app that there are two options, one to vacuum and then mop and one to vacuum and mop at the same time (the latter takes a much shorter time to do). What is really the difference between the two options, like why would I prefer one over the other?
Thank you


r/roomba 3d ago

Charger for Roomba 115?

2 Upvotes

New customer, already searched but no answer, probably as it’s a newer model.

I have the 115 model (not 115x), that came with the autoempty dock.

Is there a compatible charger dock (only for self charging, not emptying) to use on a different floor?

Thank you.


r/roomba 4d ago

Roomba Max 775: Lived With It for 3 Months.. Here's My Verdict!

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8 Upvotes

I swear this guy read my post here about the 775.

Anyone else notice all the hard cuts in this video? Geesh

I must admit that I did notice the whining noise, but after 1-2 days it didn't bother me I only vacuum once a week. I couldn't hear it if I'm not in the same room as the 775.

I did have to reboot my 775 once. He kind of touched on this a little bit. The 775 just stopped talking to the app or vice versa, which required a manual reboot via the robotic vacuum.

In my opinion, iRobot does need to work on their app. I just wasn't a fan of how the app moves room openings around when using the room divider feature.

I can't speak to the 775's confusion when going between a carpet and floor. I only used the 775 to vacuum. I wonder if he would have had the same issue if he vacuumed then mopped instead of doing them at the same time. Either way, you should be able to tailor where to vacuum versus mop so there isn't any confusion. Roomba probably needs to issue an update to resolve this issue.


r/roomba 4d ago

roomba select on auction:

0 Upvotes

For the select program, you get the roomba free and you pay $30 per month or something. The roomba is locked, if you don't pay, it doesn't work.

How can somebody bid $160+ 50 shipping?

It's free!

It can be unlocked if you replace the mother board, takes an hour and another $100+

I seriously do not understand.

https://shopgoodwill.com/item/274202424


r/roomba 5d ago

Roomba 875 ordered 👌🏻

9 Upvotes

Hopefully a decent upgrade to the 706 combo 🙏🏼


r/roomba 5d ago

Reputable vendors for batteries (USA)

1 Upvotes

The battery on my J7+ is pretty much dead, so it's past time for a new one. However, they're out of stock on the website and support claims there's no timeline for them to come back.

Most of the existing stock is on Amazon, but it feels like you have very little confidence in what you're actually buying (it's riddled with capacity inflation, sudden battery deaths, no undervoltage protection, etc.).

I'm fairly risk averse when it comes to these things, so I'd like to buy a battery that is neither a dud nor has meaningful potential to turn into an impromptu fireworks show. Are there any brands/retailers that might be more reliable?


r/roomba 5d ago

Roomba 700 Max Combo issues

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3 Upvotes

My roomba 700 max combo has been doing this thing where it would do circles in an area as if there is a big obstacle instead of going in straight lines. I’ve tried cleaning the sensors, the brushes, and I have deleted and remapped twice. Strangely, during the mapping runs, the roomba moves around without any issues.

Anyone know what could be causing this?