Update 7/12/25
So if you are debating whether you need a robot vacuum here are some thoughts after buying and using two of these for a year.
I'm not convinced it actually saves any work. These do have decent obstacle avoidance, but by avoiding obstacles they also avoid a significant part of your house, unless you prep the house for the vacuum cleaners to clean. This is not Roombas fault but it is the reality.
Second forget about running these with kids or dogs around it becomes a moving target… Literally like flies to …. it will be harassed until it stops or you stop it.
3rd after prepping the house for vacuuming it takes 30-45 minutes to do an area that might take ten minutes with a regular vacuum. It does a good job but it's noisy enough that you don't want it running if you are using the space for other stuff, so really just doing a quick regular vacuum after picking up everything is not a big deal.
4th there is a lot of stuff it doesn't get very well, ie. corners under or around stuff etc. so you have to vacuum those by hand anyway.
Summary after a year, good vacuum, Amazon renewed worked great, but I think if doing it again I would just "stick" to a normal vacuum, pun intended. I'm not sold that these really save much work.
Maybe without kids and dogs and clutter this could just run in the background, but that is not the world I live in.
Still five stars because it does everything it claimed and still functions perfectly.
Original Review
So I will post an update after some use. However I will address the renewed since that is most likely what people are interested in on this particular item.
I paid $300 for the Roomba j7 with clean base #7550. It was renewed excellent condition. It came in a box that clearly stated refurbished. With irobot tags on it. And model number. The robot, base, and cord were separated in plastic with cardboard strategically holding everything in place. With the exception of everything being clearly identified as refurbished, stickers and permanently typed text on box, it was obviously professionally packed and sealed. It had a card talking about irobots return policy as well.
The unit looked brand new upon removal and set up. No obvious scuffs or stains, bin was completely clean (which is amazing if anyone actually ran a cleaning cycle with it).
It connected immediately and executed a smart map on the app over the first hour of use.
I have vacuumed my downstairs twice since than and everything appears to work flawlessly.
This is my second experience with Amazon renewed and I will see initially I am impressed, this may as well be a new product. I also appreciate the extended return window and of course most of all the price being approx 50 percent of new.
The Roomba j7, is an addition/replacement of a 4 year old Roomba 675. It is night and day smarter than the 675, with mapping, obstacle avoidance and self emptying bin. I wanted a robot that got stuck less often and I definitely got it with the j7, it effortlessly deals with furniture, cords, baby toys etc. and the map is also fairly good.
I will definitely update once I have some use on this unit. But my initial thoughts are that Amazon renewed is awesome and so is this robot.
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