Irobot Roomba 690 Robot Vacuum With Wi-fi Connectivity Product Review

When you retrieve of robot vacuums , chances are y'all retrieve of iRobot'south Roomba line. And while the company's high-end models are impressive, the entry-level Roomba 690 ($374.99) offers a lot of value for almost half the price. Non just does it characteristic Wi-Fi connectivity and app control, it supports voice commands via Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant as well. The $220 Eufy RoboVac xi can't be vanquish on toll, and remains our Editors' Choice for affordable robot vacuums. Only if y'all're looking to take the next step up, the Roomba 690 is a peachy option.

Design

Circular in shape, the Roomba 690 has a blackness-and-silver trunk that measures 13.0 inches broad and three.7 inches alpine. That's just about the same size as the Bissell SmartClean 1974 , which is just a picayune shorter at iii.four inches. The RoboVac 11 is the shortest of the agglomeration, at 3.0 inches. The 690 should be able to clean nether nearly furniture, though it might have trouble with very depression-profile couches and cabinets. At vii.iv pounds, the vacuum is a bit hefty for its size—the SmartClean and RoboVac 11 are both lighter at 5.5 and 5.8 pounds, respectively—only you don't have to lift it much.

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On superlative of the vacuum, yous'll find a large silver Clean button that starts, pauses, and ends each session. Beneath that yous'll find a domicile icon that sends the robot back to its dock. Above it is a spot cleaning icon, and above that a backlit panel shows you errors, Wi-Fi connectivity, and battery condition.

A removable dustbin is located in the back of the bot, while the forepart houses the RCON sensor (room confinement) and bumper. Underneath, y'all'll find cliff sensors, charging contacts, a forepart roller, two main wheels, two roller brushes, and a side brush.

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The Roomba 690 comes with a charging dock and a dual-manner virtual wall buoy (pictured). The virtual wall runs on two AA batteries, included in the box. Compared with the big block you get with the Bobsweep Pet Hair Plus, the Roomba's virtual wall is smaller and much more intuitive to use. Information technology'southward a slim, squarish tower with a switch in the back that lets you toggle between two modes. If you slide it up, it emits a ten-foot digital barrier to keep the vacuum out of rooms and spaces you lot don't want information technology to enter. If you slide it down, it creates a circular "halo" barrier with a iv-foot diameter. This is handy for pet owners, equally you tin identify information technology near food and h2o bowls to go along the Roomba from knocking them over every bit it cleans.

Setup and App

Getting the Roomba 690 ready is a piece of a block. Once you've plugged in the dock, all you accept to do is flip over the vacuum and pull out the yellow plastic tab sticking out from the battery. Then simply stick the robot on the dock and permit information technology charge until the battery is full—virtually three hours.

When that's done, download the iRobot app from the Apple App Store or Google Play and follow the on-screen prompts to create an account and pair the robot over Wi-Fi (it only supports the 2.4GHz band).

App

The app itself is streamlined and intuitive. There'due south simply one button on the main screen: Clean. Pressing it will activate the Roomba, and you can practice it even if you're not on the same Wi-Fi network (so you lot tin turn it on when y'all're at work, for instance). In the acme correct corner, yous can keep an heart on battery life. At the bottom of the screen, there are 3 other menus: Lifetime Performance Log, Weekly Schedule, and More.

Lifetime Functioning Log is exactly what it sounds like—a record of all your Roomba's cleanings. Yous can see stats like the number of jobs, total duration, and how many times it turned on its Dirt Discover feature. You lot can besides look at the individual stats for each job. The Weekly Schedule tab is pretty self-explanatory and elementary. You merely select the days and time you want the Roomba to make clean. The More tab is where y'all can observe the Locate Roomba push button. When pressed, the Roomba will play a picayune ditty to help yous find information technology. It'due south also where you'll detect intendance instructions, FAQs, videos, manuals, and settings.

Alexa, Start My Roomba

All y'all have to do is select the Connected Home carte in the app and the device of your choice to find uncomplicated instructions to enable phonation command. I have an Amazon Echo Dot at habitation, and so I tested the 690 using Alexa vox commands.

The process is simple. All you accept to do is open the Amazon Alexa app, become to the Skills card, select iRobot Home, and hit the Enable button. Once y'all've done that you can commencement or end a make clean, tell the Roomba to go dorsum to its dock, ask for condition updates, and ask the vacuum where it is, all through your Alexa device.

In practise, the voice commands are uncomplicated to use and for the most part work well. I only experienced snags if I tried to event commands out of gild. For example, if I kickoff asked the Roomba to dock and then asked it to stop, Alexa would tell me that the bot wasn't running—even as I watched it navigate around my furniture trying to find the dock. That's a normal and fairly common quirk of using Alexa to manage smart dwelling house gadgets, it just takes some getting used to.

Performance

I tested the 690 over a calendar week at my apartment. Suction is quite powerful. After a 70-minute cleaning session, I was pleased to detect the dustbin brimming to capacity. But while it sucked up a lot of dirt, grit, and hair, it had some trouble navigating around my living room carpeting. Sometimes it had difficulty getting on top of the rug, which was surprising since it's a relatively low pile. But to the vacuum'south credit, if information technology was having trouble it sometimes turned around and reversed onto the rug instead.

Trouble with cliff sensors

However, I frequently received push notifications saying the Roomba was stuck past a cliff, when it was sitting safely on or near my flat rug. That might be because of my rug's Georgia O'Keefe-inspired geometric patterns and black border. Robotic vacuums with infrared sensors normally come up with warnings that they might non work too on dark floor. According to iRobot, the 690's cliff sensors can sometimes misfile dark colors as an border or stair. In that location's unfortunately not much you tin can do, other than move information technology to another location. I experienced the same issue while testing the Bissell SmartClean 1974 and the Bobsweep PetHair Plus.

While vacuums like the Eufy RoboVac eleven tin safely trawl near or over cables without eating them upwards, that's not the case with the Roomba. When I wasn't looking, it sucked up ii of the charging cords under my desk. This was the first time a robot vacuum managed to get into that surface area, so I hadn't thought to clear it beforehand. Thankfully, removing the cables was piece of cake—though I didn't get a button notification from the robot telling me what happened.

In improver to eating up some of my cords (none of which were damaged), the vacuum has a tendency to push objects around. Some stray shoes and the occasional shopping bag ended up in different rooms because the Roomba brought them along for a ride. Y'all tin use the virtual wall to cordon off any trouble areas, but you'll however desire to brand sure the floor is relatively clear.

Bombardment life is decent. On a full charge, the Roomba 690 lasted about 70 minutes. That was enough to clean my living room, kitchen, hallway, and part of my sleeping room. Information technology's much better than the 45 minutes you get with the Dyson 360 Eye on maximum power.

Equally for docking, the 690 isn't the greatest at finding its manner back. I tried telling information technology to dock 3 ways: with Alexa, with the button on the robot itself, and with the app. Each time, it wandered off in the exact opposite management of the docking station. If I picked it up and placed it near the station, it managed to reorient itself and docked successfully. Only without my guiding hand, the bot concluded up going around in circles and bumping into walls looking for dwelling house.

iRobot Roomba 690

That brings me to another small thwarting: the lack of app-based steering controls. I would've appreciated the ability to tell the Roomba where to go from my phone, as picking information technology up and placing information technology where it needs to go is a tad cumbersome.

Lastly, the Roomba 690 is noisy, though that'due south pretty much the case with just about every robot vacuum on the market. You won't desire to take whatever phone calls while the bot is cleaning, but it'south no louder than a traditional standing vacuum.

Conclusions

If y'all want a Wi-Fi-connected vacuum yous can command with your telephone, the iRobot Roomba 690 is the best deal at less than $400. It has good suction power, an easy-to-use app, and voice control via Amazon or Google. Pricier models like the Roomba 890, 960, and 980 offer the aforementioned voice command and app options, merely stronger navigation skills and carpeting cleaning, among other features. If app and voice control isn't loftier on your listing of priorities, it's difficult to vanquish the Eufy RoboVac 11. It's $155 less than the Roomba 690, handles dark flooring well, and is the quietest vacuum we've tested.