Introduction

This is the last of the iRobot vacuum cleaners to use camera-based navigation rather than LiDAR, with new models on the horizon. However, the iRobot Roomba Combo 10 Max will be one of the company’s flagship cleaners, which is why I have it on review.

A mixture of the somewhat brilliant and the downright frustrating, the iRobot Roomba Combo 10 Max feels like a product that’s out of its time. It’s expensive and doesn’t live up to the quality of its main rivals.

Design and Features

• Auto-wash dock
• Slightly frustrating app
• Mop lifts completely out of the way

Sitting at the top of the current range, the iRobot Roomba Combo 10 Max is the top-end model. This particular version comes with a self-empty, self-cleaning docking station.

It looks nice, with a big door cover that swings open to access the water tanks and the replaceable bin bags. iRobot doesn’t quote the size of any of these accessories, but the bin bags should last between one and two months.

Judging by the size of them, the clean and dirty water tanks are around 2 litres each. These tanks pull out from the front, rather than lifting up as is normal for other robot vacuum cleaners.

This design ensures the water tanks are hidden, but it means that they’re not very easy to move. I found that a full dirty water tank swung down as soon as it was free, and both tanks needed a push to get them locked into place.

With the Dreame X50 Ultra Complete, the tanks drop into place, and lift out easily, which is a much better design.

There’s no option for detergent with this robot vacuum cleaner, and it cleans using water alone.

As with the iRobot Roomba Combo J7+, the iRobot Roomba Combo 10 Max uses a static mopping bracket, which can lift up and tuck itself out of the way on top of the robot.

This allows the iRobot Roomba Combo 10 Max to move over carpet without danger of soaking it. This system is still incredible to watch, and it looks very clever, with the robot automatically tucking its mopping pad out of the way when it detects carpet.

However, the mopping system has several major disadvantages. First, there’s no agitation option with it, so it works like a wet cloth being dragged over stains.

Given that even budget robot vacuum cleaners, such as the Xiaomi Robot Vacuum X20 Pro, can have a more powerful mopping system, the one iRobot has used is disappointing for a flagship model.

The second, more pressing issue, is about how this mopping cloth is cleaned. Once the iRobot Roomba Combo 10 Max returns from a clean, the robot backs in and out of the docking station, using fresh water to clean the mopping pad.

The pad is then lifted and stored on top of the robot, wetting the top of the robot and staying wet itself. Again, there are far better robot vacuum cleaners that can dry their mopping pads after a clean.

Otherwise, the iRobot Roomba Combo 10 Max looks much like its predecessors. Underneath, two brushes contra-rotate to avoid picking up hair, and a side brush for teasing out dirt from the edges of rooms. This brush isn’t on an arm and can’t swing out to better clean corners and the like.

There’s no LiDAR dome on top, because this robot uses a combination of floor sensors and a camera for navigation.

It’s an old-fashioned style of navigation that lags behind LiDAR or the StarSight Autonomous System that’s in the Roborock Saros 10R. This is particularly telling when setting the robot up in the iRobot app and starting a mapping run.

I’m used to robot vacuum cleaners being able to complete an initial mapping run in a matter of minutes, but the iRobot Roomba Combo 10 Max takes a lot longer.

Once completed, the suggested map had many more rooms on it than I have, so I had to use the controls to split the map in the way that I wanted.

With that done, I could then add zones to the map. These include no-go and no-mop zones, although the fact that the robot can fully remove its mop bracket from the floor means that you’ll only need the latter if you have delicate floors that you don’t want to get wet.

There’s also the option to create Clean Zones. These are small areas that you can name, so that you can clean just them. For example, you could make a zone around your dining table or in front of your kitchen counter where you prepare food.

It’s nice to have this option, but Clean Zones are at the expense of being able to draw a zone on the map for a one-off clean. If, for example, someone made a mess by the front door, you’d have to create a proper Clean Zone, and then send the robot to clean this, even if you’d only ever do this job once.

Overall, the iRobot app is starting to feel a bit clumsy and behind the times. Rather than presenting a map and letting you clean everywhere, just a room or a zone, the app works with Jobs.

A Job specifies where and what the vacuum should clean, with the option for vacuum-only, mop-only or vacuum and mop simultaneously.

There’s control over the vacuum mode with three options, and three options for the amount of liquid to use in mopping. There’s also the option to turn on SmartScrub, which makes the robot move around more to agitate dirt with its mop head.

There’s then a choice of one or two passes, and then the job can be saved and recalled at will. While it’s nice to have this option, making standard cleaning routines available at the tap of an icon, I would like to have the option to just start a one-off job in the way that I want using the map.

By default, the obstacle avoidance is turned on, which uses the camera on the front to spot and avoid common obstacles. Other options include setting the default power and liquid level to use.

Performance

• Surprisingly good navigation
• So-so suction on carpet
• Not very good at edges
• Mopping leaves floors very wet

I sent the iRobot Roomba Combo 10 Max out on a clean of the Trusted Reviews Home Technology Lab, putting the cleaner into vacuum-only mode and letting it have two passes on maximum suction power.

After passing over my test carpet, which had a teaspoon of flour added to it, I wasn’t particularly impressed with the quality of the pick-up. Given the high price of this robot, I would expect better dust collection, in-line with the Dreame X50 Ultra Compete or the Roborock Saros 10R.

On hard floors, dirt in the middle of the room was collected with ease, but this is a much easier test and most robots pass here.

Edge performance wasn’t up to scratch. With just one fixed side brush, the iRobot Roomba Combo 10 Max struggled to collect the flour and ended up smearing it along the plinth.

I then moved to the mop-only mode, adding a collection of stains to the floor. I found that the iRobot Roomba Combo 10 Max barely touched the stains, but left the floor extremely wet.

I tried again, and put the robot into vacuum and mop mode with two passes. This time around, things were better from the point of view of stain removal.

With my dried-on coffee stain, the mess was gone with and no trace of it was left behind.

This was the same with my dried-on red wine stain, which the iRobot Roomba Combo 10 Max managed to remove easily.

Moving to the tough ketchup stain, the robot managed to get most of the mess off, leaving some of the stickiest part of the mess behind.

The same was true of my mud stain: the larger particles were vacuumed, and the stain was wiped off.

However, when I turned the robot vacuum cleaner over, I noticed that there were traces of the ketchup stain on the floor brushes. Taking these entirely out, the cavity they sit in is full of wet mess.

Clearly, with vacuuming and mopping, the iRobot Roomba Combo 10 Max wets the mess a lot, and then the roller brushes scrape the wet mess up, which is not ideal. A cleaner that can manage tough stains with just its mopping pads, such as the Dreame X50 Ultra Complete, is better as wet messes don’t clog the main vacuum, even if cleaning takes a few more passes.

I then put down human hair on the ground, and let the iRobot Roomba Combo 10 Max move over it. The hair was removed completely, but on further inspection, it had migrated to the end of one of the brushes.

I measured sound at 62.5dB, which makes the robot relatively quiet.

Battery life is good. While iRobot doesn’t quote battery life, on high-powered suction and with mopping turned on, the robot managed to make multiple passes of the test Lab, which has a floor area similar to that of one floor in an average home.

Should you buy it?

FAQs