As someone who loves home automation and craves a clean space, a vacuum cleaning robot is a natural fit for someone like me. The promise of something that can happen automatically when needed, keep my place clean, and give me something to tinker with? Perfect.
I’ve reviewed a previous generation vacuum robot from Deebot a few years ago, but I’m keen to see where the technology has improved and whether the promise of a truly autonomous vacuum has been delivered in 2025… and it seems it has.
Without further ado, I’d like to introduce you to Sadie, aka the iRobot Roomba Combo 10 Max home vacuum system, who has lived in my apartment for the last six weeks or so.
What is the iRobot Roomba Combo 10 Max?
It’s a long name, so for the purposes of this review, we’ll just refer to the vacuum as Sadie, as this is the name the kids and I chose to give our new robot helper. Sadie is marketed as iRobot’s most powerful home vacuum system, combining an autonomous robot vacuum with a mopping function, as well as a fancy home dock which can clean and refill the mopping system, empty the on-board vacuum bag, collect the dirty mop water and refresh the unit.
In common with some other Roomba devices, Sadie can clean a variety of surfaces, from carpets, rugs, tiles, wood and more, and it’s smart enough to know where it can mop and where it can’t. Better yet, unlike some other robot vacuums which can mop, Sadie has a mop which it can move out of the way to avoid getting your carpet wet. On top of that, this is a robot vacuum that can get into tight corners, making sure there’s no little dusty gross corners in your kitchen or bathroom.
On first run, your Combo 10 Max will run around your place, intelligently avoiding stairs and other hazards, and will prepare a map, marking out which areas are soft surfaces which can’t be mopped, hard surfaces which can be, and – better yet – it will have a pretty decent guess at what kind of room each is so you don’t have to spend hours setting up a floorplan of your place. In my case, Sadie identified bedrooms, the kitchen, hallways, lounge room, dining room and bathrooms without needing to be told, presumably using a combination of floor types and video to determine which room is which.
How’s it go?
In short, the iRobot Roomba Combo 10 Max is simply brilliant. From near instant hands-free setup, to seamless operation around the house and just generally staying out of the way while getting the job done, there’s really nothing about Sadie to speak against.
Out of the box, Sadie features a Dirt Detective mode which will automatically apply more cleaning to areas which are more heavily trafficked or more dirty. Bathrooms get a more intense mopping by default, especially around toilets, for those who just aren’t very good with their aim (kids, not me!)
Unlike some competing vacuum products, Sadie hasn’t managed to get lost or forget its basemap yet, and while it certainly has caught itself in places it can’t escape from, it’s only happened a couple of times in places where, frankly, I wouldn’t expect a robot vacuum to do all that well.
The kids bathroom, for example, has a door which likes to swing closed, and with the slightest bump, the open door will close, meaning there’s been a couple of times I’ve had to rescue Sadie from the bathroom after she’s managed to lock herself in.
Generally, though, this is a robot vacuum that you don’t really need to clean up for. Everyone knows the irony (and annoyance) of having to clean up before cleaners come, and the same often applies to robot vacuums, but Sadie doesn’t need this; she’s quite adept at avoiding cables, socks, other crap that kids leave on the floor and things that she shouldn’t clean, while making sure that she gets the things that she should.
This means you don’t need to tidy the kids room before letting the vacuum get to work; it’ll do a decent job of navigating toys, books and other hazards and vacuum as much floor as it can while avoiding getting snarled in common traps. I’ve had and reviewed other robot vacuums that will readily snag themselves on cables left on the floor, that will choke on socks or get stuck on books… Sadie doesn’t do any of this.
Granted, for a vacuum robot that you’re paying $1,899 for, you’d expect a lot of smarts built in and this is one occasion where you actually get everything you pay for.
It’s worth mentioning the self-cleaning dock, too, because this makes quite a difference to your home cleaning routine. Without it, after a couple of cleans, you need to pull your robot vacuum apart and empty the dustbin. You’d also need to refill water supplies, manually air out the mopping pad, and this quickly adds up to a fair bit of work. With the dock, however, all of this is automated.
At the end of each clean, the dock empties the vacuum, drains out the dirty water tank, dries the mopping pad and otherwise maintains the unit. This leaves you free to get on with your day without having to think further about it.
Automation is the key
Out of the box, the iRobot Roomba Combo 10 Max can be controlled via its partner app on your iOS or Android device, but you can also link it to your choice of home automation system, including Amazon’s Alexa, Google Home, or Apple Siri (note, though, that it does not integrate directly with Apple Homekit).
This is where you can say things like “Hey Siri, ask Roomba Combo to clean in front of the couch” and it will broadly do as you ask.
However, I’m not a huge fan of voice commands for things… as much as I enjoy living in a Jetsons-style future where everything can be done with a voice command, some things shouldn’t require instructions to start and vacuuming squarely fits there.
Fortunately, integrating Sadie with my chosen home automation platform – Home Assistant – was super easy, and while there’s some features you can’t readily control from HA without some advanced fiddling, the basics – stopping and starting a clean, emptying the onboard dustbin etc – are all easily automated.
In my case, I’ve got a nice simple automation that does the job – every day, if I leave the house between 8.30 and 9.30am (i.e. the times I’d normally leave for work or to take the kids to school, etc), HA will automatically switch everything off in the apartment (no forgotten lights), and also start the whole-house vacuum.
It takes Sadie around two hours to achieve this, but by the time I get home, the floors are vacuumed, the kitchen and hallway mopped, the bathrooms mopped and cleaned, and the house just looks fresh. There’s something very satisfying about coming home and seeing the tell-tale wheel tracks in the carpet.. knowing that everything’s nice, clean and tidy.
Are there any issues?
In short, nothing major.
Even though my carpet isn’t all that fluffy or unusual, I found that Sadie would often get stuck on it out of the box, refusing to continue cleaning saying that the vacuum rollers were stuck. On closer inspection, they weren’t, but it seemed that the pile of my carpet was an issue.
The most immediately apparent way to fix this at the time was to pull one of the rollers out, leaving Sadie to clean with just one roller instead of two. It doesn’t seem that this made any difference to how the vacuuming was completed or the quality of the clean, but it did seem to solve the issue.
After a few cleans, I reinstalled the second roller, and there hasn’t been an issue since.
Probably the only other thing to note is that, in common with many robot vacuums, iRobot’s Roomba Combo 10 Max isn’t exactly quiet, and if it’s running around the house while you’re trying to work or on a video / phone call, it can be quite disruptive. However… it’s not hard to pause the job while you’re working, and you can easily restart it when more convenient.
Besides that, Sadie has worked reliably every time. Even when I’ve left bath mats on the floor, forgotten to pick up a towel, or when the kids have been particularly untidy and left things everywhere, there’s been no issues.
Final thoughts
Sadie, the iRobot Roomba Combo 10 Max, has truly exceeded my expectations in combining home automation with cleaning. It’s been a game changer in my daily routine, giving me a cleaner home without the hassle of manual cleaning. From the seamless setup to its intelligent navigation, Sadie handles the work while I get to enjoy the fruits of its labor. It’s not perfect—every now and then, it needs a little help when it gets stuck—but overall, it’s been incredibly reliable.
The integration with my home automation system has been a huge bonus. I love that I can set up automations so that, without even thinking about it, the house is cleaned while I’m out, and I come back to freshly vacuumed and mopped floors. There’s something undeniably satisfying about walking into a home that smells clean and seeing those tell-tale wheel tracks on the carpet, knowing Sadie has done the work for me. It’s like having a personal assistant for the house, except one that doesn’t require any praise or payment—just a little occasional maintenance.
While the Roomba Combo 10 Max comes at a premium price, the time and effort it saves—along with its seamless integration into home automation—make it an investment worth considering. For anyone who values a clean home but not the effort of cleaning, Sadie is a true game-changer.
For anyone who loves the idea of a cleaner home but hates the cleaning part, Sadie is the perfect solution. It’s reliable, smart, and handles the mess so I don’t have to. Now, if only it could do the laundry or clean the shower too…
The iRobot Roomba Combo 10 Max is available online from $1,899. You can also find one at The Good Guys, Harvey Norman and Big W (amongst other places). Check the pricing though, as the discounted price of $1,899 isn’t available everywhere – Big W will, at the time of writing, charge you the full RRP of $2,199.
