PRE-ORDER NOW: On July 23, iRobot announced a new flagship robot vacuum and mop that finally comes with a self-cleaning station: the Roomba Combo 10 Max robot and AutoWash dock. It is available to pre-order now for $1,399.99 and will start shipping in early August.
We hope the likes of Roborock, Ecovacs, and Narwal fully enjoyed the peace of having a leg up on iRobot for the past year. Because the new Roomba rectifies the one glaring blind spot that held it back against competitors, and "best robot vacuums" lists across the internet are in for a shake-up.
Announced on July 23, the 2024 Roomba Combo 10 Max Robot + AutoWash Dock finally fills the major gap in the Roomba lineup: self-washing and drying mopping pads.
iRobot skipped this feature with the Roomba Combo j9+ that came out last September — an odd choice since the Combo j9+ did upgrade to a dock that automatically refilled the bot's water tank, which I found to be a bit of a futile glow-up if you're still having to manually wash soggy mopping pads after each mopping run.
But after the full-fledged self-cleaning station emerged as the clear robot vacuum trend at CES 2024 in January, even the most advanced Roomba was left in the dust with a price tag that was just too high for the lack of all-encompassing mopping maintenance.
So of course, iRobot's official graduation to the self-washing and self-drying mopping pad system is the big headline of the day. But the underlying tea is the uncharacteristically reasonable price tag. In the past, I've found that Roombas tend to be more expensive than similar counterparts without necessarily offering more to back that cost up (until those Roombas start going on sale regularly, at least.) This was most recently exemplified with the two budget Roombas that came out in April 2024.
So while the $1,399.99 price tag on the Roomba Combo 10 Max Robot + AutoWash Dock still may seem steep, it's totally in line with the other robot vacuum and mop hybrids with the self-cleaning mopping pad stations. Potentially more noteworthy is that $1,399.99 is the exact same price that the Combo j9+ debuted at last year. iRobot literally redesigned its dock to match the self-sufficiency consumers were asking for and left the price as is.
Overall, the new AutoWash dock will hold debris for up to 60 days at a time and can supply up to a week of clean water. The dust bin and water tank can be accessed from the front of the dock, meaning the top can be used as a full-time end table.
Armed with the same suction power and scrubbing pressure that the Combo j9+ dishes out, the Roomba Combo 10 Max technically doesn't clean harder — but it does clean smarter. This is what iRobot means by "Max," which will become a completely new tier of Roombas.
The front-facing camera originally seen on Roombas to avoid running over small obstacles like pet waste and cords (creating what I think is the most reliable small obstacle avoidance on the market) is now also used to visually detect debris on the floor, triggering extra passes in that area. iRobot says that this visual pinpointing of dirty areas plus an enhanced version of the Dirt Detect sensors Roombas were already using will lead to dirty areas being tended to up to eight times more frequently.
This attention to detail also applies to SmartScrub (the mopping mechanism of iRobot's retractable mop when it's in use). Compared to the Combo j9+, the Combo 10 Max's SmartScrub wipes back and forth more vigorously when grime is sensed, more closely mimicking the back and forth elbow grease a human administers when manually mopping.
Both vacuuming and mopping can be completed in the same cleaning run, with the retractable mop automatically avoiding getting carpet or rugs wet. And FWIW, the cleaning performance on both Combo j9+ and Combo 10 Max is still iRobot's most powerful ever. We're talking suction that's 100 times more powerful than the i Series Roombas, and two times deeper scrubbing than the other mopping Roombas.
