Roomba 761: Smart and Simple Multisurface Robotic Cleaner
This Roomba 761 review will be interesting for anyone searching for a simple and intelligent cleaning assistant. With a single press of a button, this vac will clean the floor. It has a self-adjust cleaning head that automatically adapts to any floor surface and a well-developed navigation system, which makes it one of the smartest robots in its price range in my opinion.
Dimensions
The iRobot Roomba 761 vacuum cleaning robot measures 26.3 x 20 x 6.1 and weighs 14.6 pounds. As you can see, it isn't thin, so it struggles to get under some types of furniture.
Features
Just like more advanced models from the iRobot's 760 series (such as the iRobot 770, for example), this machine is equipped with all the necessary sensors to guide it around the objects and furniture in your house. As a result, its navigation system prevents the vac from finishing the cleaning process until it has reached every inch of the floor surface (it surprised me a lot since the cleaner has a random cleaning pattern that is known for being not very effective). In addition to that, it also has a dirt detection sensor.
This model uses a standard 3-stage cleaning system (like most other robotic cleaners). During my test for this Roomba 761 review, I discovered that it cleans the floor of hair, pet fur, and dirt in about half an hour (it can cover small and medium spaces) and finds its way back to the charging dock automatically. Nevertheless, it has quite small wheels, so long hair wraps around them and jams them. The battery lasts for two hours, so the bot can clean several rooms in one run. It also has a very low noise level: it’s quieter than background music or TV (55 dB).
Bear in mind that this model cannot lift big objects such as napkins or socks, so make sure to keep such items out of its way. On the other hand, it easily recognizes cords and passes through them without problems.
The Roomba 761 does its best job on bare floors but struggles to ensure a thorough cleaning on carpets (you may need to run it 2 or 3 times to get satisfying cleaning results on a carpet). However, this model uses a brush with tough bristles that may leave tiny scratches on a painted floor.
In terms of value, this machine performs nearly flawlessly. As a result, I am confident in awarding it a 9/10.
Design
The body of the iRobot Roomba 761 robotic vacuum cleaner is made of light plastic that quickly gets scratched when it bumps into walls. It has a classic round shape and uses two side brushes to clean the edges. Its top surface is gray while the sides are black. Although the device comes with a remote, it has 5 buttons on its control panel:
- Clean button with green backlight
- Dock button
- Schedule button to program cleaning sessions
- Spot button that lets you forcefully direct the vac to repeatedly clean a certain area
The last 4 buttons have bright blue backlight and are well-visible in the dark.
The design of the cleaner is well-understandable. However, the quality of the housing is questionable, so here the 761 gets an 8/10.
Conclusion
In the last part of this objective iRobot Roomba 761 review, I can report that this machine is user-friendly and automatic. It shows good cleaning results on bare floors (but not on carpets) and has an impressive navigation system.
