iRobot Roomba 690: One of Best-Rated Vacuum Cleaners to Keep Your House Clean

Roomba is probably the most famous series in the robot vacuum business. This series always makes it to “top 10 vacuum cleaners” lists.

It was among the first attempts at making automatic machines that could keep our homes clean by cleaning up the mess all by themselves.

The Roomba 690 is a new product in this series from iRobot, one of the best vacuum cleaner brands. It's designed to make vacuuming even easier by allowing users to schedule and control the machine completely remotely.

Not having to do the vacuuming yourself is clearly a huge benefit. But is this machine worth it? Let's find out in our review.

Design

Since you can pretty much control and schedule everything from the mobile app, the controls on the robot itself are quite simple and uncluttered.

The iRobot Roomba 690 has some manual buttons on its user interface, including the start/stop button, sending the robot back, or telling it to clean a specific spot more thoroughly. On the body of this Roomba, you can also find the lit icons indicating its Wi-Fi status and charge levels.

We think the folding handle on the Roomba 690 is unnecessary because the whole machine weighs less than eight pounds, and its diameter is under one foot.

The robot cleans floors by utilizing two caged brushes: one bristled and one rubber. These rotating brushes work together to lift up the dirt into the machine. There is another smaller side brush located under the front end, whose job is to clean debris out of corners.

There is a release button on the dirt bin, which you can use to slide it out of the machine easily. It's easy to empty dirt and clean, which is a nice thing to hear as you will need to do this regularly due to the small size of the dirt bin.

Setup Process

When shipped to customers, the iRobot Roomba 690 usually carries a partial charge, so you can use it right away without waiting for a full charge.

Just remove the bin insert and the strip blocking the battery connection, then press the “Clean” button to start this robot vacuum. It will whirr into action immediately.

However, it's still highly recommended that you charge it to its maximum capacity before the first use. Push the “Home” button to tell the machine to go back to its base for charging. A full charge of the Roomba 690 takes around three hours.

iRobot says that you should place the base position in a clear area so the robot can find its way back to the base quickly. The ideal home for the machine should have side clearances of 1.5 feet and another 4 feet out front.

After each vacuuming cycle or when it runs out of power, this iRobot vacuum will automatically return to its home base. But it doesn't always successfully find its “home”, so always try to provide enough clearance for the home base.

Keep the area free from clutter and furniture. Even area rugs may confuse the robot and throw it off course when it's trying to dock. It may make it eventually, but the whole process could be smoother if the home base is placed on a consistent surface.

Mobile App

What's a good vacuum cleaner these days? It must have a mobile app.

The companion app of the Roomba 690 can be found on both Google's Play Store and Apple's App Store. It's pretty straightforward to set them up on a smartphone, even though you may need to create an iRobot account.

You will need to provide the Wi-Fi password so the robot, the app, and the home base can connect to your home network.

The interface of the mobile app is minimal and intuitive. The huge “Clean” button on the home page is pretty self-explanatory: to activate the vacuum.

When the Roomba 690 is already vacuuming, pressing again will pause the process. You can access the previous cleaning sessions through the history section.

The maintenance section of the app allows users to track the overall health of their machine and the time left in the filter. There are links to buy additional accessories and replacement parts as well.

Through the mobile app, you can also schedule this iRobot for up to seven sessions. Other robots from the Roomba series can be used in the same app.

Performance

After testing the iRobot Roomba 690 on multiple surfaces, we find that it works best on hardwood flooring and low-pile carpets - or basically anything not too deeply grooved or textured.

There are some areas where this robot seems to struggle a bit, especially when the floor consists of varying textures of bare flooring and area rugs.

When the robot runs over an area it thinks is dirty, the blinking light on the machine will show that it has gone to the “Dirt Detect” mode, meaning it will circle around the area, cleaning it thoroughly. The Roomba 690 records the number of those dirt events, which you can find on the mobile app.

As the Roomba 690 doesn't utilize any mapping technology to plan the path in advance, the vacuuming course looks a little chaotic. It may bump into a chair leg, turn back, and bump into it again. When it can't find the way out, the robot will send an alert through the app to the user, asking for help.

Compared to regular uprights, the noise level of this Roomba isn't too bad. When you let it run in the background, you will hardly hear anything at all.

Conclusion

The iRobot Roomba 690 is a promising robot vacuum with a lot of handy features and great suction.

But it falls short of our expectations when it comes to mapping or maneuverability. It's fine to use it as your vacuum and should have a place in most vacuum cleaner comparisons. But it's certainly not in the category of the best vacuum cleaners in the world and it’s ideal to let it run on its own on a daily basis.

About ALL IN ONE Guides

ALL IN ONE Guides has purchased and put many robot vacuums through rigorous testing to see whether they can perform well in real-world scenarios, including surfaces like bare flooring and carpets.

Our reviewer, William Cawley, has been researching the advancements of robot vacuums over the years. He shares our passion for finding the best rated vacuum cleaners on the market has to offer.

With his solid knowledge in the field and objective testing, we're confident about assessments and recommendations. And we're always happy to share them with you through best vacuum cleaner reviews like this.