iRobot Roomba Plus 505 Combo Review

Design and features

• Self cleaning and emptying dock
• LiDAR navigation

The Plus 505 Combo is easily – along with the other new arrivals – one the slickest looking Roombas to date.

The familiar disc shape remains, but the detailing is more refined, with subtle shading and textures across the top panel and just two physical buttons tucked neatly to the side. Power and home are really all you need, and it helps keep the design clean.

You can pick it up in either black or white, which makes it easier to match to your home.

At 10.6cm tall, thanks to a top-mounted LiDAR turret, this is not a low-profile robot. It will not squeeze under low sofas or cabinets in the way slimmer Roborock or Dreame models can and actually looks a bit like one of the robots from that duo… but from a couple of years ago.

It is also on the heavier side at 4.3kg, which you notice when carrying it between floors.

Flip it over and you will see a notable shift for iRobot. The traditional dual rubber roller system is gone, replaced with a single rubber main brush paired with a fixed side brush.

It feels like a concession to modern robot design rather than a step backwards, and in day-to-day use it does a decent job of sweeping debris into the suction path, particularly along skirting boards.

In the box you get four spinning mop pads, a spare dust bag for the dock, and the usual documentation.

The pads are dual-rotating and extend outwards during cleaning, which becomes important when we get to mopping performance.

The AutoWash dock is the most feature-rich base in the new Roomba lineup. It empties the onboard dustbin, washes the mop pads during and after cleaning, heat-dries them, and runs self-cleaning cycles to stop grime building up inside the dock itself.

iRobot claims up to 75 days of dust collection before the bag needs changing, and around four weeks of mopping and pad washing before the water tanks need attention.

On the bottom of the dock you’ll find four status LEDs representing charging, water management (clean/dirty), and waste capacity. These light up if attention is needed, for example the water tank is empty.

Setup is straightforward. After pairing the robot in the redesigned Roomba Home app, the 505 heads out to map your space.

My open-plan downstairs took around 15 minutes to map and, once complete, you can split rooms, name areas, and add no-mop or no-go zones.

I added a no-mopping zone over a rug in the living room, even though the robot will automatically lift its mop pads when it detects carpet.

It felt like a sensible extra safety net and was one that was definitely needed. This robot is very guilty of getting thick pile carpet and rugs wet, even with the mop pads lifted. It doesn’t leave the mopping discs behind in the dock for a vacuum-only clean, as more premium rivals such as the Dreame X50 Ultra Complete or the Robrock Saros 10R and Saros 10.

The Plus 505 Combo is the only model in the new lineup to include dedicated obstacle avoidance. iRobot calls this PrecisionVision AI, using a front-facing camera alongside LiDAR.

In practice it works well. Cables, socks, and most toys were avoided without drama, though the odd small toy left behind by my kids did catch it out.

There are four cleaning modes available: vacuum only, mop only, vacuum and mop at the same time, or vacuum first then mop.

You also get four suction levels, options for repeat passes in high-traffic areas, and SmartScrub for extra back-and-forth mopping on tougher messes.

The app itself is easy to navigate, albeit with some weird quirks, with plenty of settings to tinker with, including a robot health section that shows remaining life for consumables like filters, bags, brushes, and mop pads, with direct links to order replacements.

Cleans are called ‘Routines’ weirdly, and while you can create custom ones, I couldn’t seem to save those. Maybe you can but the app wasn’t clear on that.

I also couldn’t seem to work out how to set these ‘Routines’ so that I could have different cleaning modes set for different rooms at the same time.

The app also repeatedely showed the 505 as “Connecting” when it’s online, or saying it “Needs help” when it was safely in its dock.

Another downside is stability. On more than one occasion the app crashed mid-clean, showing no live position data until I force-quit and reopened it. It always recovered, but it is not really a great experience.

Voice control is supported via Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri, and basic smart home integration works as expected.

Matter support has, according to a few people on Reddit at least, been added in the past few months. However, I couldn’t get the 505 to sync with Apple Home which is supposedly the first step on this path.

Performance


• Cleans well on hard floors
• Struggles with thicker carpets
• Mops well

On hard floors, the Plus 505 Combo is pretty impressive, despite a relatively modest 7,000Pa suction rating, which looks weak next to similarly-priced rivals like the SwitchBot S20 or Xiaomi X20 Pro.

However, this amounts to a pretty solid clean.

Dust, crumbs, and everyday debris were picked up reliably in a single pass, and edge cleaning is better than older Roombas thanks to the fixed side brush and improved navigation.

Carpets are another story. This robot is clearly tuned for hard floors first. Low-pile rugs are handled reasonably well, but thicker carpets expose the limits of its suction – and also the limits of how high it can lift its mop pads.

If your home is mostly carpeted, the step-up 705 model makes more sense. For hardwood floors with rugs, the 505 will do a decentjob.

Noise is also a weak points. On the highest vacuum setting it is very loud, and the auto-empty cycle at the dock is particularly intrusive. It is not something you will want running while you are on a call or watching TV nearby.

This is where the Plus 505 Combo really redeems itself. Unlike older Roombas with token drag-behind pads, this uses dual spinning mop heads rotating at 200RPM, combined with downward pressure and SmartScrub’s back-and-forth motion.

The PerfectEdge system extends one of the mop pads outward to clean closer to walls and corners, and it makes a noticeable difference in kitchens and hallways.

Light spills, dried footprints, and everyday grime were handled well, and the robot automatically lifts its pads when it detects carpet.

After a couple of weeks of mopping, the dirty water tank does start to smell, and emptying it is not pleasant. A bit of disinfectant in the dirty tank helps, but it is something to be aware of.

The dock washes and heat-dries the pads, which keeps them fresher than air-drying systems.
While you get spare mop pads, they do not fit neatly into the dock alongside the spare dust bag, so I ended up squeezing them next to the main dust bag.

Should you buy it?