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Home / Hot Stuff / iRobot’s self-emptying Roomba Combo 2 Essential makes it easier to keep your floors clean

iRobot’s self-emptying Roomba Combo 2 Essential makes it easier to keep your floors clean

The affordable iRobot Roomba Combo 2 Essential robot vac gives you more time to sit on your backside

An iRobot Roomba Combo 2 Essential on its dock

There’s not much point in owning a robot vacuum cleaner if you have to spend half your time emptying it so it can carry on sucking up all your muck, but self-jettisoning ‘bots don’t normally come cheap. The iRobot Roomba Combo 2 Essential, however, is both affordable and capable of dumping its filthy cargo without making you lift a finger.

With a charging dock that can also hold up to 60 days’ worth of dirt, the iRobot Roomba Combo 2 Essential will happily trundle around using its four levels of suction power to inhale as much crud as it can, but when it can’t take any more or the 120-minute battery is running low, it’ll head back to base and get ready to go again. When the dock’s bin is full it’ll automatically seal the bag so you don’t have to worry about getting a faceful of dirt when you empty it.  

If you’ve got hard floors as well as carpets to clean there’s also a mop onboard with three different settings, and the microfibre pad can complete 30 tours of cleaning duty before it needs to be chucked in the washing machine. 

There’s also not much point in owning a robot vacuum cleaner if it spends all its time going over the same small spot, or gets flummoxed on encountering your slippers and retreats back to base where it feels safe, so iRobot has loaded the Roomba Combo 2 Essential with sensors that make sure it cleans methodically and allow it to avoid obstacles.

You can command your little robo-maid using your voice assistant of choice, plus there’s the iRobot Home App, which lets you tell it to clean when you’re not home, and provides you with a Clean Map report so you can see what it’s been doing while you were out. 

The cost of this domestic bliss? Just £399. If only doing all your chores was so easy.

Profile image of Tom Wiggins Tom Wiggins Contributor

About

Stuff's second Tom has been writing for the magazine and website since 2006, when smartphones were only for massive nerds and you could say “Alexa” out loud without a robot answering. Over the years he’s written about everything from MP3s to NFTs, played FIFA with Trent Alexander-Arnold, and amassed a really quite impressive collection of USB sticks.

Areas of expertise

A bit of everything but definitely not cameras.