What testers say about the iRobot Roomba Plus 405 Combo
The iRobot Roomba Plus 405 Combo is the entry model of the refreshed Roomba line: lidar navigation instead of a camera, two spinning mop pads that lift on carpet and a station that empties the bin into a 75-day bag, washes and dries the pads and refills the water tank. Vacuum Wars bought one and tested it for weeks, with high hopes and a mixed verdict: the robot did not make the site's top 20, nor even its top 60.
The station is, in the testers' view, one of the better parts of the package and a big step up from iRobot's earlier washing docks, with a removable tray for a manual deep clean. The pads lift as soon as the robot detects carpet, so it can vacuum and mop in one run. The lidar mapped the home tidily and the robot set a Roomba record for navigation efficiency at 8.2 square feet per minute, though that is only 30th in the site's ranking.
The criticism: the robot has just one water level and soaks the floor. On dried stains it posted a record score, but it left five times as much water behind as average, which is why the testers do not call it a good mop. Obstacle recognition is absent entirely, even though it now exists in this price bracket, the station is louder than average when emptying and washes without warm water, and the redesigned app was consistently buggy during the test. Anyone set on a Roomba with a washing station gets a solid vacuum here; anyone after the best for the money will find more elsewhere.
