Expert’s Rating
Pros
- Deep scrub mode
- Cleans more in dirty areas
- Mop stored on top
- Carpet boost
Cons
- Expensive
- Dock has large footprint
- Some app features not obvious
Our Verdict
Stacked up against many rivals, iRobot’s Roomba Combo 10 Max stands out as better at vacuuming carpet, more thorough at not leaving dirt behind – and it’s smarter in general. It won’t drag a wet mop pad over your rugs and its object avoidance is capable of learning. However, a slightly oversimplified app means it’s easy to miss features unless you dig through the menus.
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Mopping vacuums are great for everyday maintenance, but rarely a match for big messes. However, thanks to a host of clever features, the iRobot Roomba Combo 10 Max feels like it’s one step closer to the quality you’d get from a manual clean.
These include enhanced dirt detection, so it’ll go over grubbier areas more, a mop pad that’s stored on top when not in use, and ‘scrubbing’, where the robot moves back and forward like a person would while mopping. It’s all topped off with a dock that it empties into, and that’ll wash and dry the microfibre pad so it’s clean for next time.
To compare it with other models, see our top recommendations in round-ups of the best robot vacuums and best cheap robot vacuums, which have all been tested by one of the team.
Design & Build
- Mop only swings down when needed
- Less than 9cm high
- Dock has front access only, so it can be stored under a shelf
There are several differences in design between the iRobot Roomba Combo 10 Max and most other mopping robot vacuums. Most notable is the position of the mop, which rather than being fixed on the underside, spends most of its time stored above, only swinging down when required.
Rachel Ogden / Foundry
This avoids having to raise the mop up when on rugs and carpet, and often still dragging a wet mop pad over them. The water tank for the mop sits alongside the onboard bin in a single module that pulls out at the side, giving the option to empty the bin and refill in one, if you don’t want to wait for the dock to service the robot.
In terms of size, the robot is comparable to most at 5kg and H8.7 x W33.8 x D33.9cm – low enough to reach kitchen kickplates and squeeze below most furniture. It’s also loaded with sensors: you’ll find a camera at the front to help it navigate, a wall follow sensor at the side and underneath, cliff sensors, and floor tracking and floor type sensors.
Rachel Ogden / Foundry
Its cleaning tools are equally layered: twin rubber rollers that resist hair tangles plus a side brush, and suction that can be switched from low to high. The companion Autowash dock, while relatively stylish in grooved black plastic, is what you may struggle to make room for: while it’s lower than many at 44.6cm, and accessed only from the front, not the top (so you don’t have to find much headroom for it), it’s 51cm wide and projects into a room by 40.1cm.
Rachel Ogden / Foundry
Performance & Features
- Investigation needed to find the full suite of features
- No spot cleaning option
- Not strong on sticky spills
What’s surprising about the Roomba Combo 10 Max is that while it has multiple features, it’s not supplied with a full manual: the complete one has to be downloaded. Rely just on its quick start guide and you’ll miss out on a fair bit of functionality.
Setting it up is, fortunately, relatively simple: our robot connected first time, and the app is good at guiding you through the most important aspects. For those who like voice control, Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant-enabled devices are supported.
That said, connectivity can be spotty: our robot frequently lost connection with the Wi-Fi then reconnected while cleaning, so it was hard to track what it was doing in real time. We also found it frustrating that you can cancel a job, but can’t start another until it’s home.
Rachel Ogden / Foundry
The app is cleaner and simpler than many, but in making it straightforward with a basic main screen, some aspects have been minimised. For example, the battery level of the robot is a tiny icon, which doesn’t tell you a percentage of charge.
Similarly, choices such as cleaning preferences, and opting out of mop drying – something that wouldn’t be essential in the warmer months – is under the product settings, along with things you probably wouldn’t need to alter much. There doesn’t appear to be a spot clean option – although there is the option to mark out areas that need extra cleaning (clean zones) and send the robot there.
Its initial mapping wasn’t as slick an experience as expected: first, it avoided carpet even though it was set to vacuum only, then it fixed on a corner by a door and after several minutes, had to be moved away manually.
The Roomba Combo 10 Max delivered a good performance overall on a mid-pile carpet
Once successfully mapped, it cleverly guessed the names of rooms, presumably based on floor type and shape, but they still had to be confirmed individually. It was easy to add and remove room dividers, and layer on no-go areas, including those that could be vacuumed but not mopped ie hard floors that shouldn’t get wet. We also liked that the map shows floor types, and schedules were simple to set.
The robot was tested on both hard and soft floors, using oats to represent larger particles of debris and flour as dust. For mopping, sauces were smeared onto the hard floor, and left to dry.
The Roomba Combo 10 Max easily handled both types of dry mess: flour was sucked up easily but oats tended to flick around the space, which then required another clean.
Rachel Ogden / Foundry
It delivered a good performance overall on a mid-pile carpet: the majority of oats were picked up and only a small amount of flour was left behind as it was trapped in the pile. Tellingly, it engaged the ‘Dirt Detect’ mode several times, its light on top flashing blue and the movement of the vac changing to a forward/backward motion until the debris had been picked up.
While good at everyday mopping, it isn’t the best solution for sticky spills
The wet mess presented more of a challenge. Although the back and forward scrubbing motion lifted off all the sauce, including that trailed around by the wheels, some stickiness remained on the floor. While visually clean, once dry, a manual mopping was required.
This suggests that the Roomba Combo 10 Max, while good at everyday mopping, isn’t the best solution for sticky spills. It does have a feature for cleaning the pad after specific room mopping – but you’ll need to select this.
Throughout testing, the AutoWash Dock performed well, washing and drying the mop cloth and emptying itself after each job. However, the emptying is especially noisy: there doesn’t appear to be a way to suspend this, so early morning cleaning had to be delayed.
Price & Availability
The iRobot Roomba Combo 10 Max launched with a price of £1,499 but at the time of writing, it’s come down considerably. You can now buy it from Amazon for £749 and from iRobot for an even more appealing £679.
This is really well-priced for its feature set and compares favourably to many models in our round-up of the best robot vacuums we’ve tested. If this is more than you want to spend, see our recommendations among the best budget robot vacuums.
Should you buy the iRobot Roomba Combo 10 Max?
In a lot of ways, iRobot’s Roomba Combo 10 Max is a step forward in technology. More of its effort is spent on the parts of your home that become dirtier than others, rather than an equal amount of time on all, and you can configure its settings to suit each space.
Overall, it delivers a good clean, outperforming many rivals on soft flooring, although perhaps don’t throw away your mop just yet. However, considering that you can pick up a mopping robot vac for a third of the price of the iRobot Roomba Combo 10 Max, make sure you’ll get adequate value out of its scrubbing, dirt detecting and targeted functionality before you buy.