New Roomba i7+ vs Roomba 980: Features, specs, price

iRobot

• iRobot’s new Roomba i7+ comes with a self-cleaning base
  and dust bin that sucks out debris and prepares the vacuum for
  its next cleaning session.
• The bin can be used up to 30 times without being
  emptied, which means you shouldn’t have to worry about cleaning
  the Roomba or the bin more than once per month. 
• The house-cleaning robot can also automatically map out
  your home and section it off by rooms, which can be edited in
  Roomba’s mobile app. The device is also Alexa-enabled, allowing
  you to tell the Roomba to start cleaning or assign it to a
  certain room that might need extra attention. 

iRobot’s newest Roomba device is designed to clean your home
without requiring you to touch or look at the dirt it picks up
more than once a month. 

The
Roomba i7+, priced at $950, is the latest addition to
iRobot’s line of home-cleaning robots. It comes with a
self-cleaning dust bin base that automatically removes dirt and
debris from the Roomba, and can be used up to 30 times before it
needs to be emptied. That means you should only have to empty the
base about once per month. However, the self-cleaning base can
only be used with the Roomba i7, and isn’t compatible with
previous Roomba versions. 

In addition, the Roomba i7+ automatically maps out your house and
sections it off by rooms while it cleans. You can then use the
iRobot HOME app to tweak the room boundaries, which allows you to
use the app or voice assistants like Amazon’s Alexa to tell the
Roomba to only clean a particular room. Roomba learns the general
layout of your home after a few cleaning sessions, and it can
store up to 10 different floor plans. 

If you don’t want or need the base that automatically replaces
the Roomba’s dust bin, you can buy the standalone Roomba i7 for
$699. Pre-ordered Roomba i7s will ship on September 12, but they
won’t be available in retail stores until October. 

The key differences between the i7 and the previous 980 lineup of
Roombas is the inclusion of the base and the home-mapping
features. Otherwise, they’re pretty similar. The
Roomba 980 is priced at $699, but doesn’t have a
self-cleaning base. However both are able to avoid falling down
stairs or drops in a floorplan, both are compatible with the
iRobot HOME app and compatible voice assistants like Alexa, and
both can avoid objects and furniture that gets in the way.