iRobot Roomba 960 Review
iRobot Roomba 960 has very similar features with Roomba 980 and have the much cheaper price. It was released a few months after Roomba 980 with a lower price. Both of them are the top line of irobot vacuum products and brings robotic servants to American homes. Roomba 960 is a new model with new technologies of mapping and navigation, human-robot interaction areas and bring ease of use and powerful cleaning performance to new heights. It is identical to the Roomba 880 BUT it has WiFi capability and price between the Roomba 880 and 980. You can plan to make it start working from a centralized anywhere at any time, so you always see a clean ground in the home.
Key Features & Technologies
The iRobot Roomba 960 brought professional care to home. And design to seamlessly navigates room to room to clean an entire level of your home, recharging and resuming until the job is done. It has great performance on carpets and rugs by new technologies. iRobot is at the forefront of developing technologies in the areas of mapping and navigation, human-robot interaction, and physical solutions. Let’s take a look at the features that new technologies brought.
Cleans an entire level of your home.
iAdapt 2.0 Navigation with Visual Localization technologies helps Roomba 960 to make home map and keep tracking clean and unclean area to achieve more efficient clean.
3-stage cleaning system
AeroForce Cleaning System technology helps Roomba 960 to suction dirt, pet hair, dust and even large debris and captures 99% of allergens, pollen, and particles. It creases power up to 10x when clean carpets and rugs and more powerful than other iRobot Roomba products.
Patented tangle-free brushes.
Tangle-free brushes technology help Roomba 960 to reduce maintenance and handle pet hair easily.
iRobot Home App, Control when not at home.
Automatically to switch models to vacuum all floor types
Roomba has various settings which allow you to customize how to clean your home and keeps carpets and hard floors clean. Roomba 960 also can automatically adjust to vacuum all floor types. Carpet, pet hair, hard surfaces, dust, suction dirt, and even some large debris from your floors, while automatically increasing power up to 10x on carpets but it not suitable for clothing, toys, and other big objects.
Dual-Mode Virtual Wall barrier and Low-profile design
The Dual-Mode Virtual Wall barrier (an optional accessory) keeps Roomba in the places you want to be cleaned or out of the ones you don’t.Low-profile design allows Roomba to clean under most furniture and kickboards, so dirt has no place to hide.
Enhanced iRobot HOME App to customize how to clean
Download the iRobot Home App and connect to your home WIFI, You can use a smartphone to have the best possible experience with it. Such as start, pause, reserve or cancel the cleaning job. It is a mapping that with the name “Clean Map” allows us to know which are the zones of the house have been cleaned more in depth and which have not been as neat as Roomba. Monitor the clean status and Set up time window for a clean job.Lets you connect to clean from anywhere, make presets to clean on a schedule, view maps of where your robot cleaned, and more.
Clean information one-click control, intelligent interconnection push, clean the report, and check it out, historical sweep enquiry,different ground, one done at a time Easy to compete in furniture floor, floor tile, carpet, marble and so on.
Voice control capability
Ask your Amazon Alexa device or the Google Assistant to start, stop, or dock your robot.
Automatically recharges and resumes
Runs for up to 120 minutes, then automatically returns to its Home Base to recharge and resume cleaning as needed. Need to place the Home Base in An Open area and flat against a wall can help to clean more efficiently. Always keep the Home Base Plugged in and always connect wifi coverage.
Roomba 960 Design
The Roomba 960 size and appearance design are very similar with Roomba 880. It’s at the top of the fuselage there are three buttons, among the largest is the clean button, next to two smaller, respectively is the Home button and key Spot patterns.When pressing the clean button, the Roomba will be awakened, and prompt after pressing it will begin to clean again. Click the Home button, after the Roomba will return charging base; The Spot mode button allows the Roomba clean again and again in a fixed position
back to menu ↑Performance On Cleaning
Roomba 960 in clean when using multiple built-in sensors to your home for surveying and mapping. As clean, it will be able to better understand the room area and objects, until the entire plane surveying and mapping. Roomba 960 will systematically through the parallel route is to open areas clean, it can identify the different base material, and to select the most suitable for the suction.
In the test, the author put it in the dining room and kitchen area of the apartment. Click the button it will begin to work. Roomba 960 can clean hardwood floors, under furniture and the corner of the home and use a rotating brush to clean the hard-to-reach corners.At first, its action is more bold, clean the more open area.After the impact to the cabinet legs, it awareness of the layout of the apartment, and then began a second clean.This time, it is much more careful to clean, will touch every table at the bottom of the foot, sofa and carpet surface, don’t pass any dirt, including a lot of cat hair.
The Roomba 960 has the ability to absorb any debris on the ground, including the cat hair of the bathroom and the leaves of the porch.But in dealing with large objects (such as cat food), it will appear a little overwhelmed, this is mainly because of its rotating brush head will always blow them fly.But in general, the Roomba 960 well completed the cleaning of the apartment.
In Roomba 960 during cleaning, you should ensure that no larger mobile object on the ground, because it may be down.In addition, it also could be inhaled wires and stuck, these are the robot cleaner is hard to avoid problems at work, and need your manual intervention.
- Recommend for multi-room cleaning
- Will not scratch any furniture
- Gentle touch comes at the expense of superior cleaning.
- 75-minute runtime
- The Roomba 960 and no physical remote control
- Price is high
- slightly larger noise
- side brush will sweep some big solid fly
Roomba 600 vs 800 vs 900
iRobot Roomba series vacuuming robots always famous for its easy to use. We compare thm from construction and performanceto find the suitable one.
Roomba® 980 | Roomba® 960 | Roomba® 890 | Roomba® 690 | |
---|---|---|---|---|
iRobot Product | ![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
Scenario Planning Navigation | Y | Y | Y | Y |
Patented 3-Stage Cleaning | 10X | 5X | 5X | Y |
Run Time (minutes) | Up to 120 | Up to 75 | Up to 60 | Up to 60 |
Tangle-Free Rollers | Y | Y | Y | |
iAdapt 2.0 Navigation with Visual Localization | Y | Y | ||
High-Efficiency Filter | Y | Y | Y | |
Lithium BatterySpecial Side BrushSelf-ChargingWi-Fi® Connected | Y | Y | Y | Y |
Roomba® 980 | Roomba® 960 | Roomba® 890 | Roomba® 690 | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Multi-Room Cleaning | Y | Y | ||
Deeper Cleaning on Carpets | Y | |||
Custom Cleaning Preferences | Y | Y | ||
Recharge and Resume | Y | Y |
How does Roomba 960 work?
Roomba is designed to intelligently navigate and clean an entire level of your home but needs to remove excess clutter from floors before cleaning, After each use, empty the bin and clean the filter. Here’s a look at how it does its job:
- At the start of a cleaning cycle, Roomba uses iAdaptR 2.0 Navigation with Visual Localization to map out a series of small areas, cleaning them efficiently, one at a time. Using this map, Roomba tracks where it has and has not been to ensure complete coverage.
- Roomba continues this process until it has cleaned an entire level of your home. Once Roomba finishes its cleaning cycle, Roomba returns to the Home Base to recharge.
- If the cleaning cycle hasn’t finished and the battery is low, Roomba will recharge itself by the return to the Home Base. After its battery has been recharged, Roomba automatically resumes, completes the cleaning cycle, and returns to the Home Base.
User Guidance & Robot Regular Care
Roomba 960 is very easy to use. Just press the CLEAN button to wake up it and press CLEAN again to start a cleaning cycle. It will clean an entire level of you home during one cleaning cycle. When the battery gets low before finishing the job, Roomba 960 will return to HOME BASE to recharge and automatically return to where it left off and continue to work until it finishes. Before using for the first time, we need to initial set up for Roomba 960 and then we can start our clean job.
Follow these simple steps to get started with your Roomba 960.
- Step 1: Activate Roomba.Once the CLEAN button illuminates, Roomba is ready for use
- Step 2: Start Cleaning Cycle.Press CLEAN once to wake up Roomba.Press CLEAN again to start a cleaning cycle.
- Step 3: Download the iRobot HOME App.The iRobot HOME App allows you to use your iOS or Android smart device to help you have the best possible experience with Roomba and lets you connect Roomba with home Wi-Fi.
Roomba 980 Part | Care Frequency | Replacement |
---|---|---|
Bin | After each use | - |
Filter | Once per week (twice per week in homes with pets) | Every 2 months |
Full Bin Sensors | Once every 2 weeks | - |
Front Caster Wheel/ Side Brush/ Cliff Sensors/ Charging Contacts/ iAdapt Camera/ Floor Tracking Sensor/ | Once per month | - |
Extractors | Once every 4 months (once every 3 months in homes with pets) | Every 6-12 months |
Packages & Accessories & Warranty
What’s in box ?
Roomba 960 Robot Vacuum, Home Base Charging Station, Line Cord, 1 Dual ModeLinDual-ModeVirtual Wall Barrier (2 AA Batteries Included),1 Extra Filter,1 Extra Side Brush, Manufacturer’s Warranty and Owner’s Guide and Documentation Package in the box.
Choose authorized accessories
Choose Authentic iRobot products from Authorized Resellers is the only way to protect your warranty. And unauthorized parts such as batteries, filter and brushes may have negative impact on product performance even damage your robot. These accessories suitable for Roomba 800 and 900 series.
iRobot limited warranty Note
1-Year Manufacturer’s Limited Warranty On Robot, 12-Month Manufacturer’s Limited Warranty On Battery.The iRobot limited warranty shall not apply to failures or problems which are caused by products or equipment not authorized by iRobot Corporation. Robot products purchased in North America are intended for use in North America only. Both the 30-day, money back guarantee and the limited warranty is void if products are used outside North America.
back to menu ↑Warm Prompt
Roomba 960 is an electronic product and brings great help to home. In order to reduce the risk of injury and keep the Roomba 890 running good, we need to keep following tips in mind.
- Product may not be used with any type of power converter. Use of other power converters will immediately void the warranty.
- Use only accessories and replacement parts are Authentic iRobot parts. used 3rd parties may have a negative impact on product performance and can cause damage to your robot and also void your robot’s warranty.
- Don’t sit or stand on this device.
- Clean iDapt Camera with a cloth dampened with water only.
- Don’t pick up any burning or smoking objects
Conclusion
With the help of wi-fi and application control, iRobot Roomba 960 has very similar features with Roomba 980 and have the much cheaper price. So it can be considered to be one of the cost robot iRobot Roomba vacuum cleaner. You can plan to make it start working from a centralized anywhere at any time, so you always see a clean ground in the home.
But the Roomba 960 is not perfect, for a price close to $700 in equipment. Occasionally it would miss the debris on the ground, you may need to take on the ground before it starts to work may be in the way. In contrast, Neato Botvac Connected not only provides a similar ability (such as the application of control), but the price is nearly same. If you don’t need the wi-fi control, there are still a lot of affordable models on the market to choose from, such as Neato VX Signature, it provides the performance and the Roomba 960 similar. If you want the latest and greatest, you can choose roomba 980.