Roomba 105 Combo review: Less is more

It doesn’t take long to realise the Roomba 105 Combo is just a $379 robot vacuum with a couple of add-ons. You’ll pay $120 to add on the mopping component, and an additional $200 on top of that for the auto-empty dock. Before you know it you’re at $700, which is cheap for a robot vacuum but still a hefty price tag to justify for most.

These extra costs get you more functionality, theoretically. However most of the issues we found with the 105 come from these additions. Mopping performance is mid, and its carpet avoidance could see big chunks of your home neglected depending on how you position your rugs. The AutoEmpty Dock is unreliable, and you’ll likely have to manually empty the canister anyway. Neither of these extras are worth their weight, and frankly the Rooma 105 is a better buy without them.

When it comes to budget tech devices the bar is relatively low. Like a $200 phone, a $379 robot vacuum should be able to go through the motions without too many pain points. You’ll usually lose out on bonus features, smart navigation, and suction power, but as long as it can get around and suck up most of the dirt then it hits the mark. Roomba 105’s performance is this in a nutshell.

Both its large and small particle performance sits at around an 85-90% clearance rate. While it looks closer to 95% the Roomba has a tendency to shift particles around as it cleans. I found oats (our large debris testing material) and sprinkles (small) up to five metres away from where I originally put it. So while plenty of the dander gets lifted away it isn’t guaranteed to make it back to the dock.

Edge cleaning is well below this threshold however. Despite the edge sweeping brush the robot could only snag around 80% of debris close to the wall. Practically this means you’ll probably end up with dust deposits along the edges of your home, but it's nothing your trusty stick vacuum won’t be able to pick up once a week (or month - I don’t judge).

Although these numbers aren’t top tier, they’re still excellent results for this price range and suction power. The Ecovacs Deebot Neo 2.0 - the robovac that always goes on sale at Aldi for $350-$500 - has just about the same clearance rates, and that one will set you back $999 without the discount.

Mopping on the other hand is far less effective. The mopping add-on (which puts the Combo into the 105 Combo) costs $120 and includes an in-built water tank and a detachable micro-fibre mop pad. Combined these two can’t really hack it against anything more than a water spill. In our testing both wet messes like tomato sauce and sticky ones like honey just ended up smeared around the floor. This left a vague smell of tomato sauce, and a sensory nightmare of sticky residue across around three square metres of my dining room. Results like this are typical for basic mopping setups like this one. They can do a good enough job sweeping for extra dust (like a swiffer might), but aren’t really built to tackle the big jobs.

The auto-empty dock follows a similar trend. For the most part I am a fan of automatic empty stations, they contain PM2.5 particles, they make the cleaning process less messy, and it means you can forget about the device for longer. This addition doesn’t quite live up to that promise though. While it does attempt to empty the dustbin every time, it doesn’t succeed. Plenty of debris and dust tend to stay stuck in the on-board canister and I found I had to frequently clean it out manually, ultimately defeating the purpose.

Although the standard Roomba 105 hits its target the extras are letting it down. Combined you’ll pay $320 more to get mopping and an auto-empty station, but neither of them offer a tangible improvement to the baseline. It seems counterintuitive, but paying less will likely offer up better results and better customer satisfaction in the long run.

Alongside iRobot’s new range it also released a new and improved app, and if that is the case I am morbidly curious about the old one. Roomba Home is by far the least intuitive robot vacuum cleaner app I have used. I don’t want to get too UX nerd on you here, but there are plenty of redundant steps in the user journey. For actions that would take one tap on any other app, you need to do two, or three, or in some cases in the teens. One example is starting your basic clean. While most other apps have a play/pause button which sends the vacuum on a general clean of the whole mapped space, on the Roomba app you need to tap through, select all the individual zones, and then press ‘Start Now’. You can create cleaning routines to speed up the process, but even navigating to this takes at least three taps of the screen.

Practically it is also super slow. Locating the vacuum on the map takes upwards of a minute, map loading takes just as long, and even toggling between menus and screens summons the loading wheel of doom. It is so frustrating that I have defaulted to just pressing the power button on the robot itself. Sure I have to stand up, but it still seems like less of a slog. Honestly it shocked me, especially because the initial setup through the app was so quick. It set some high expectations that it quickly fell short of.

Once the device is up and running it is as reliable as you would expect from a budget device. The 105 uses what I affectionately refer to as ‘bumper technology’. Rather than noting objects before it arrives at them and veering away, the device gently bumps up against them as it rotates in small increments until it can get past. While it is endearing in its own way, this means the object detection and avoidance is quite poor compared to others on the market. You will definitely need to clear the floors as best as you can before sending the 105 out, or else risk it running over things and getting stuck.

I also found it had trouble establishing its position and would sometimes refuse to go to a cleaning zone I had created in the app. I would have to physically move it to the space, and after a few minutes of figuring out where it was then it would get to cleaning. Admittedly this issue arose only when I had the mopping pad attached. When the mop is on the 105 switches on carpet avoidance, which does what it says on the tin. Unfortunately this means it also can’t traverse over any rugs, so there is a chance my large living room rug created a forcefield of sorts the Roomba couldn’t get past. There was definitely enough hard floor space for it to fit through, but the device simply isn’t that perceptive.

The basic Roomba 105 retails for $379 in Australia, the 105 Combo goes for $499, and the Combo + AutoEmpty Dock will set you back $699.

At its most basic, the 105 is a practical, bareboned robot vacuum cleaner that will do what it says on the tin. It might not seem like it, but that is high praise. Cheap robot vacuums are few and far between these days. Most manufacturers bank on expensive and exceptional flagships, but not everyone wants to pay $3,000 for a vacuum, and not everyone should. At the $400ish mark you either need to hold out for an Aldi sale, or settle for an old device that no longer gets security updates. Neither are ideal. There is a market for affordable home robotics and Roomba’s 105 range is a refreshing addition to it.

Although the extras like the auto-empty station and the mopping attachment seem like a value add, the device really shines on its own. The additional benefits that come with the mop and auto-empty dock don’t practically align with their cost, and for most households the standard 105 is going to be the best buy. Sometimes getting the best out of a device means nailing the basics, and in the case of the Roomba 105 less really is more.