Great for dust bin capacity – less so for overall intelligence.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Dust compactor works very well | Gets trapped far too easily and frequently |
| Interesting visual design | Noisy operation |
| Compact size | Inconsistent and annoying app |
Score: 2/5
In this review
Roomba 205 Dust Compactor Design
Roomba 205 Dust Compactor Performance
Roomba 205 Dust Compactor Conclusion
Ethical disclaimer: The Roomba 205 Dust Compactor used in this review was sent to me by iRobot for the purposes of review, and it’s unclear to me whether it’s going back or not.
This makes no difference to the review, which stands alone without any editorial oversight or influence by iRobot, which is exactly as it should be.
As always, I feel that ethical disclosure is an important issue, which is why it’s early on in the review, rather than buried at the bottom of a review or simply not mentioned at all. For more on ART’s ethics policy, click here.
Design
While I have reviewed a number of robot vacuum cleaners here at ART, it’s been a while since I’ve tested out anything from iRobot, makers of the Roomba brand of robot vacuum cleaners. I actually bothered to look it up, because it’s been a long, long while since I’ve been able to get one in for review, with the last mention I can find of a review being for TechLife magazine some 12 years ago… but I digress.
Except I don’t, because Roomba is one of those brand names that’s almost synonymous with robot vacuum cleaners – so much so there’s a parody game series based around a not-so-subtle alteration of the brand name – and while it’s having some (cough) financial issues right now, company representatives told me that its new range, including the Roomba 205 Dust Compactor are meant to represent a fresh start for the company with a redesign of what a robot vacuum cleaner can look like.
OK, it is still, ultimately just a circular vacuuming robot, because there’s only so far you can take that kind of redesign, but I do appreciate the smaller design steps iRobot has taken here, with a subtle colour pattern on the top that gets away from having a simple glossy white or black top.
There’s a practical advantage here too, because robot vacuums by their nature attract a lot of dust. On a differentiated surface like the one on the top of the Roomba 205 Dust Compactor, dust and fluff are a whole lot less apparent.
It’s also got a slightly lower profile than many robot vacuums, which could have appeal if you’ve got low-lying furniture that other robots can’t get under. The Roomba 205 Dust Compactor is a combination robot vacuum and mop, utilising a simple water moistened pad on a connecting (and included) mop head.
Reaches the parts that other robot vacuums cannot reach. Like under this cabinet.
While the Roomba 205 Dust Compactor’s robot is nicely styled, I’m not so much enamoured with its charging station. The whole idea of the Roomba 205 Dust Compactor is that it’s meant to be compact and blend in with your home décor, which it very much does.
However, the smaller size of the charging dock, while helping it hide, also means that the Roomba 205 Dust Compactor often pushed it out of place during my review period. Careful placement against a hard surface can help here, but then it’s also stuck with the classic problem of many lower-cost robot vacuums, wanting a lot of clearance space to the sides. That’s not going to work in every home, especially smaller apartments.
The problem with the dock is twofold, however, because early on in my review period, I was concerned that I might have a defective unit out of the box.
The Roomba 205 Dust Compactor won’t start pairing with the Roomba app until it’s been charged, but the connection points between the robot and its dock are very precise and fiddly, and there’s not much of an indication that it’s in the right place to charge… until it is. The last thing you want when setting up a new robot vacuum cleaner, even one in the lower pricing tier like this, is frustration.
Performance
Setup of the Roomba 205 Dust Compactor is via the Roomba app for iOS or Android, with a typical range of features around automatic mapping and setting routines. As a reminder, the single best way to use any robot vacuum cleaner is to run it every single day, as they’re typically best suited for maintenance cleaning.
The issue I have with the Roomba app is that it’s all too often slow, even on quite high-end flagship phones. It can be slow to start up and it’s often slow to actually let me know what the robot is doing at a given point of time. One of the theoretical benefits of robot vacuums is that you can set them up and monitor them from afar, but here I was all too often left wanting.
The app’s layout doesn’t help either. It took me a while to work out where the spot cleaning feature sits in the app. It’s to the far right of any other cleaning routines in the primary My Home tab, and it’s limited to a 1 metre square space.
You can set predefined “Clean Zones’ of variable sizes, but this is hidden in another layer of the mapping UI, because…. well, because it is, but that’s not good UI design, iRobot! Your competitors have worked out that making this kind of zoned cleaning a simple “set and forget” experience within the primary interface is more desirable, because it very simply is.
The Roomba 205 Dust Compactor lacks a dust emptying tower, but iRobot’s contention is that it doesn’t need one. Instead, a rotary arm within the dustbin itself compacts down dust, fluff and hair to allow for a dustbin that doesn’t – as per the company – require emptying any more frequently than every two months.
At least with my own experience as a guide, most of the vacuums in this price range typically require emptying weekly, sometimes twice or more, so that’s quite a good and novel step, though whether you’d get through 60 days without needing to empty it will depend on your needs.
Tip: Opening the dust bin so you can photograph it for a review is a great way to spill detritus all over the floor. Learn from my mistakes.
The Roomba 205 Dust Compactor had few issues navigating through my thicker carpets or over a small floating floor ledge in my home, two factors that often trip up lesser robot vacuum cleaners, but it wasn’t exactly plain sailing for its cleaning routines.
It’s slightly noisier than many competing robot vacuums, though this is a minor complaint; I suspect a lot of robot vacuum cleaner owners set them to run when they’re not home anyway.
The Roomba 205 Dust Compactor uses inbuilt lidar for object detection, but, frankly, it’s a bit of an aggressive jerk, often bumping into objects as it made its way around cleaning my floors.
That’s kind of cute to watch in some ways, but it means it also often gets itself tangled in objects or stuck, sometimes both.
That feels like a retrograde step to me; while I’m yet to find a robot vacuum cleaner that hasn’t gotten stuck at least once during my testing, the Roomba 205 Dust Compactor did feel like it erred more on the side of stupid than I’d really like.
In one instance, it got baffled by a chair.
Not stuck under the chair, or boxed in because the chair got moved while it was cleaning.
The app simply told me that it was stuck, and I investigated, finding it sitting to the side of the chair, refusing to move at all.
On the mopping front, the Roomba 205 Dust Compactor’s mop head attaches easily enough, but like every other basic mop pad solution, what you’re doing to your floors isn’t really mopping; it’s more like a coordinated large scale wipe of your floors.
You’re never going to get an in-depth floor scrub out of a mop pad like this. It is what it is.
That can work for smaller spills and picking up some grot off the floor, and it’s entirely an expected technology choice at this price point, but it’s equally not one I can get too excited about.
Roomba 205 Dust Compactor: Alex’s Verdict
As a basic robot vacuum and mop, does the Roomba 205 Dust Compactor ultimately vacuum and mop floors?
Yeah, it does that, and the inclusion of the larger capacity, self compacting dust container is a welcome step; it’s easily the best feature of the Roomba 205 Dust Compactor.
Still, this isn’t a robot vacuum I’m going to recommend, because it ultimately felt like a step backwards to me.
Not because I hadn’t reviewed a Roomba for some time, but simply because I have reviewed Roomba’s competitors, and even at this price point, they’re not delivering robots that get as confused as the Roomba 205 Dust Compactor does, or with apps that are as inconsistent as Roomba’s app is.
Was this review useful to you?
Support independent media by becoming a sponsor or buying me a coffee!
[kofi]
Donate via PayPal
Find out more about how you can support Alex Reviews Tech here.
Roomba 205 Dust Compactor: Pricing and availability
The Roomba 205 Dust Compactor retails in Australia for $699.
Was this review useful to you? Support independent media by dropping a dollar or two in the tip jar below!
[kofi]
About the Author
