iRobot has put the Roomba name on a floor cleaner that does not drive itself. The company announced the $399 Roomba Electro Plus, its first manually operated floor cleaner, alongside five new Roomba robot vacuums for the US market.
The Electro Plus is a cordless hard-floor machine for people willing to push their own appliance, which is a mildly awkward sentence to write about a company best known for robots. iRobot says the device vacuums, mops, disinfects, self-cleans and self-dries. It is designed only for hard floors.
The main trick is chemical, not robotic. iRobot says the Electro Plus uses electrolysis technology from parent company Picea to convert tap water into a commercial-grade sanitizing solution. According to iRobot, that solution can kill 99.9 percent of bacteria, viruses, fungi and other germs, and does not require a separate cleaning fluid.
The cleaner has a self-cleaning roller mop and a motor that helps pull it along while the user steers. Its dock washes and dries the mop using hot water and hot air after cleaning. The catch, because appliances still obey plumbing, is that the user must drain, clean and refill the water tank.
Adam Pope, iRobot’s chief engineer and vice president, told The Verge that customers had asked for a product for quick, targeted messes. He said he uses it to sanitize bathrooms and kitchens while Roombas handle the rest of the home.
New Roombas, lower prices
iRobot also announced five new Roomba robot vacuums for the US. The models were first announced for Europe in May, according to The Verge, and largely replace the company’s 2025 lineup. The changes are mostly practical: more suction, smaller bodies and lower prices.
The top model is the Roomba Max 775 Combo Robot + Auto Wash Dock at $999.99. It updates the Roomba Max 705 Combo, which sold for $1,299.99, and adds 30,000Pa suction, hot-water mop washing and hot-water stain cleaning. It uses a roller mop and a dock that can empty debris, refill water, and wash and dry the mop.
The Roomba Max 715 Vacuum Robot + Auto Empty Dock costs $699.99. It replaces the $899.99 Roomba Max 705 vacuum-only model, raising suction from 13,000Pa to 30,000Pa. iRobot says both Max models keep dual rubber roller brushes with anti-tangle technology, lidar navigation and AI-powered obstacle detection.
The midrange Roomba Plus 575 Combo Robot + AutoWash Dock costs $799.99 and replaces the $999.99 Roomba 505. It is 46 percent more compact than the 505, according to iRobot. Pope told The Verge that a new dual-lidar sensor let the company fit more hardware into a smaller robot. The 575 has 9 centimeters of clearance, a narrower body, dual spinning mop pads, 20,000Pa suction, hot-water mop washing and drying, and an onboard water tank.
The 575 also uses a camera for AI-powered obstacle and dirt detection. That enables a Smart Scrub mode that moves back and forth over dirty spots. iRobot says it can climb thresholds up to 35mm.
The Roomba Plus 515 Combo Robot + AutoWash Dock costs $699.99 and has similar features, but with lower threshold clearance, slightly less suction and no camera, so it lacks AI-powered obstacle and stain detection.
The Roomba Plus 415 Combo Robot + AutoWash Dock costs $599.99 and replaces the $799.99 Roomba 405. It adds more suction and anti-tangle brush technology, but does not have the 515’s onboard water tank and does not wash its mops with hot water.
Several models sold elsewhere are not part of the US launch, including the Roomba Plus 615, Roomba 675 roller-mop models and the entry-level Roomba 115 Combo. iRobot says all the new models are available for preorder on irobot.com starting July 7.
This story draws on original reporting from The Verge.
