iRobot’s flagship Roomba Combo J7+ earned its place in my smart home

For most people, there’s no such thing as an essential Roomba if you can work your own vacuum cleaner. They’re nice to have, and do a job, but you’ll get better results if you can put the work in yourself. They also require more management than Rosie the Robot from The Jetsons or Red Dwarf’s Kryten. You’ll come to earth with a bump when you see this oversized hockey puck crashing itself into your baseboards, wondering where the future we were promised disappeared to. But, if you judge the new Combo J7+ on its own merits, it makes a far better case for itself than many of its rivals.