Roomba is bringing the combo mop and vacuum characteristic to its cheaper robotic vacuums with the brand new Roomba Combo j5+  and Combo i5+. Roomba’s final combo bot was the Roomba Combo j7+, which might routinely swap between mopping and vacuuming with a swing-arm setup. These cheaper bots can each mop and vacuum, however you will must manually configure them for both job.

The thought right here is form of intelligent: the robotic comes with two bins, one which sucks in mud and one which acts as a water tank with a mop pad on the underside. You may want to modify out the bin relying on which cleansing mode you need (the iRobot advertising staff has give you the phrase “swap and mop”). Different combo bots must stability water tank measurement and dirt bin measurement, however right here, you get water and dirt bins which can be free to take up as a lot room as doable. Roombas have small bin areas to start with, although, in order that works out to a 210 mL water tank and 360 mL mud bin.

The vacuum half appears to be a bog-standard Roomba, full with a charging base that may empty the mud bin. The mop half does not have a water sprayer or seemingly any connection to the remainder of the robotic in any respect. There’s additionally no fancy water change system or scrubbing characteristic. It is only a self-contained water tank that retains a rag moist and drags it alongside the ground. It virtually appears like you might retrofit the water tank onto a standard Roomba, however on this unit, after all, all of the vacuum capabilities flip off once you’re mopping.

One concern is that the robotic must chorus from mopping your rugs. Neither mannequin might be notably “good” about that, however the costlier J5+ can map your property, and you may lay out “no mopping” zones within the app, due to a front-facing digital camera. The cheaper i5 does not have as many sensors, and the press launch says it is “preferrred for smaller houses with principally onerous ground surfaces.”

For all this speak of a “funds” bot, do not forget that that is iRobot, so all the pieces continues to be fairly costly. The J5+ with a base is $799, whereas the i5+ is $549. Each robots are up for preorder now.