Roomba has been a recognizable name in the robot vacuum market for almost two decades. They produce incredibly high-quality robot vacuums with plenty of features at various price points.
If you’re looking at buying a Roomba iRobot vacuum, you may be overwhelmed by the choices. That’s not surprising, because there are a lot of them. Let’s dive into some of the features of both the e5 and the 675 to see which one suits you the best.
Bottom Line: I personally feel that the virtual barriers are a game-changer for larger homes and even moderately complex floor plans. This is whey I prefer the Roomba e5 available here.
Main Differences Between Roomba e5 vs Roomba 675
The Main Differences Between Roomba e5 vs Roomba 675 are:
- Roomba e5 has an onboard navigation system, whereas Roomba 675 comes with a strong bumper.
- Roomba e5 has a rubber brushroll, whereas Roomba 675 has a bristle brushroll.
- Roomba e5 comes with a virtual wall, whereas Roomba 675 needs you to put manual obstacles.
Roomba e5
The Roomba e5 (full review here!) provides some of the best cleanings of all robot vacuums. It has many features, and it is a workhorse when it comes to sweeping up dirt and debris around your home.
Design and Features
The Roomba e5 is similar to other Roomba vacuums. It has three buttons on the top of the unit, the center of which serves as a power button and a start cleaning cycle button. The home button sends the robot back to its base, where it will charge until the next cleaning cycle, and the spot clean button initiates spot clean mode, focusing on a small space until it completes the cycle.
While the Roomba e5 doesn’t come with a lot of features, it does include the ones that people find the most useful. This helps keep the price low and still provides excellent value and usability.
The e5’s scheduling capabilities are supreme. If you’re busy and don’t have time to mess with a robot vacuum, let alone a real vacuum, you can use the e5 with no problem. You can set up daily or weekly schedules or a one-time schedule.
Daily and weekly schedules allow you to set up a specific time each day or week when you know the robot won’t be in your way. The e5 will begin its cleaning cycle whether you are home or not at the scheduled time.
You can set up a one-time schedule for the e5 to clean on a specific day when you don’t want to risk forgetting to start it manually. If you are having a dinner party on Saturday and you want to make sure you remember to vacuum that morning, you can set a schedule and forget about it.
You can connect your Roomba e5 to the iRobot app for easy controlling. With the app, you can set schedules, send the e5 out on an unscheduled cleaning cycle, turn on spot cleaning mode, or send it back to the dock for charging.
Size and Dimensions
Roomba sticks to its trademark size and shape because that’s what seems to work. It is round and 13.3 inches in diameter. It is 3.6” tall and weighs a little more than seven pounds. Compared to other Roomba robot vacuums, this size is standard.
Parts and Accessories
The Roomba e5 comes with a charging base and a virtual wall. The charging base is standard across most of the Roomba robot vacuums. The unit will return to the dock and charge automatically when needed.
The virtual wall allows you to block off rooms or areas of your home with invisible radial or linear lines. The radial line can reach four feet in diameter, and the linear line extends as far as ten feet, to keep your vacuum from going where you don’t want it.
Performance
The Roomba e5’s cleaning capabilities will leave you in awe. It can pick up numerous types of debris with ease and works on both bare floors and carpeting. It can clean up dirt and debris on all flooring types with nearly 100% efficiency, which is an impressive feat where robot vacuums are concerned.
The advanced brushrolls included on the e5 make this level of cleaning possible. While there doesn’t seem to be a clearcut method for the way the e5 cleans, it does clean efficiently and quickly.
Usability
Sometimes lack of complicated features is a good thing. In the case of e5, it’s easy to understand and operate. You don’t have to worry about complicated setup or processes. Just press clean and let it go.
Setup is easy with the e5 because all you have to do is unpack the box, plug the charging base in, and set the unit on it. The e5 will be charged and ready to clean in a few hours. While most Roombas come with around a 50% charge out of the box, you should charge it thoroughly before using it.
Once the battery is fully charged, it can drive around and pick up debris for roughly ninety minutes before needing another charge and requires little from you in the way of operations. You really can set it and forget it.
Use the app to make it even easier. Download the app on your smartphone, connect your phone and the e5 to Wi-Fi, and you’re good to go. The interface and home screen look like the vacuum, so the three buttons on top of your vacuum are in the middle of your app for easy use.
Value
It’s hard to beat the e5 when it comes to value. Ringing up at half the price of other newer Roombas, it offers the features you need with excellent cleaning performance and a reasonable runtime.
There’s also not a lot of maintenance to worry about. Roombas are some of the easiest robot vacuums on the market to maintain. They’re very well built, and the moving parts are the only ones that require replacing as they wear out, and that won’t be a frequent occurrence with the exception of the filter.
Roomba e5 Pros:
- Affordable
- Wi-Fi connectivity
- Ninety-minute runtime
- Virtual barrier
- Smartphone app
- Spot clean mode
- Great usability
Roomba e5 Cons:
- No navigation
The e5 Verdict
The Roomba e5 is a well-rounded robot vacuum that balances a great feature set and performance at an affordable price. It’s perfect for people who want a robot vacuum on a budget.
If you need excellent cleaning capabilities on all floor types throughout your home with a robot vacuum that can transition easily from one to another, as well as the ability to set a cleaning schedule, then the e5 is a solid choice.
How does the Roomba e5 compare to other robotic vacuums?
Roomba 675
The 675 (full review here!) is also an affordable robot vacuum that bears the Roomba name with Wi-Fi connectivity, simple usability, and excellent cleaning performance. As long as you don’t have complicated floor plans or the need to keep your robot vacuum out of certain areas, The 675 has everything you need on a budget.
Design and Features
Just like all other Roomba robot vacuums, the 675 comes in a circular shape, and the dimensions are similar to that of other Roombas. It has a large clean button at the top of the unit, and that’s all you need to start a cleaning cycle. These minimalist controls offer great usability.
It also has a handle on the top that you can pop out and use to carry the vacuum to another room if needed. The bumper on the front protects your furniture and the robot when it bumps into things navigating about the room.
The underside of the 675 contains similar hardware as other models like a brushroll, side brush, and three wheels.
Size and Dimensions
The Roomba 675 is 13.4 inches in diameter and 3.5 inches tall, which is slightly bigger than the e5. It weighs almost twelve pounds, which is considerably heavier than the e5, but maneuvers easily, so no problems here.
Accessories and Parts
The Roomba 675 comes with a charging station, line cord, one extra filter, one flat cleaning tool, and an owner’s manual to get you started. However, it does not come with a virtual barrier.
While this could be a potential drawback for you if you need to block off spaces where you don’t want your robot vacuum to go, you can always solve the problem by closing doors or putting obstacles in the way.
Performance
The Roomba 675 cleans with nearly 100% accuracy on all flooring types. That includes bare floors, low pile carpets, and high pile carpets, which is impressive. The only problem you may encounter is that the brushroll gets tangled with hair because it has bristles. The rubber-style brushrolls on the e5 tend to get less messy.
Quality
You can always expect quality from Roomba robot vacuums regardless of the advanced features. The 675 may not include the same upgrades as many of the higher priced models do, but the hardware is well-built, and you shouldn’t have any maintenance problems.
You should always keep the dustbin and filter clean and replace the filter more frequently than other parts, but the 675 isn’t a maintenance nightmare. Roomba recommends a cleaning and replacement schedule, which will depend based on how much use your vacuum gets.
The battery is also reasonably good with a ninety-minute runtime and a two to three hour charge time. This isn’t nearly as bad as some other robot vacuums that can’t provide that much runtime or that fast of a charge.
Usability
Setup of the Roomba 675 is efficient, just like the e5. Plug it in, charge it up, connect it to the app, and start cleaning. To use Wi-Fi, you need to install the smartphone app, but that shouldn’t take any longer than five minutes.
You can use the app to start or stop a cleaning cycle, see a cleaning history, or schedule your cleanings on a weekly basis. At the cost of the 675, Wi-Fi is a nice bonus, because many other robot vacuums at this pricing tier don’t have it.
The low profile of the 675 allows easy maneuverability, and it can turn very sharp to avoid obstacles. It contains a bumper because it doesn’t have onboard navigation, but it knows how to turn around and continue on its own.
While there aren’t any fancy features, its cleaning power is similar to that of higher priced models, so if you have a smaller house or an apartment, there’s no need to spend the extra money on navigation when you get the same cleaning power with the 675.
Value
It’s hard to argue with the value of the Roomba 675. It’s affordable, and the cleaning power is excellent. It has a long runtime, a HEPA filter, and high performance. With the Wi-Fi feature, it surpasses the value of many others.
One of the most significant drawbacks for you may be the lack of a virtual wall, rubber brushroll, and navigation. With the price point and cleaning performance, it’s easy to overlook these things or work around them.
Roomba 675 Pros:
- Budget-friendly option
- Wi-Fi connectivity
- Amazon Alexa or Google Home voice control
- Smartphone app
- Ninety-minute runtime
- Great usability
Roomba 675 Cons:
- No virtual barrier
- No navigation
The 675 Verdict
If you’re looking for a budget-friendly robot vacuum with excellent cleaning power and Wi-Fi connectivity, but don’t need the higher cost of a virtual barrier, the Roomba 675 is it.
Wi-Fi connectivity means hand-free control, so if you want to be able to set schedules using the app or start cleaning cycles from your phone, the 675 can do all of the above. Considering that many other robot vacuums at this price point don’t come with Wi-Fi the 675 is a tremendous value.
While you don’t get the onboard navigation, you don’t need it if you have a small space and there’s no need to spend the money for more cleaning power when the 675 already has it. It provides a great balance between price, features, and functionality.
Comparison Chart
| Roomba e5 | Roomba 675 | |
| Wi-Fi | Yes | Yes |
| Spot clean mode | Yes | No |
| Brushroll | Rubber | Bristle |
| Floor type | All | All |
| Runtime | 90 minutes | 90 minutes |
| iAdapt navigation | Yes | No |
| Mapping | No | No |
| Virtual wall | Yes | No |
Frequently Asked Questions:
Will Roomba e5 work without using the iRobot HOME App?
The Roomba e5 can be perfectly used without the support of the iRobot Home App. You can still send your robot to clean, but the app will provide you with the best experience and access to many features like scheduling.
How does the Roomba 675 work?
This Roomba robot works with a system of Dual Multi-Surfaces Brushes that cleans all kinds of dirt, like hair, dust and debris. The first brush installed in the unit, lifts and pulls the dirt and the second moves the debris into the suction channel.
Does Roomba e5 have mapping?
The Roomba e5 doesn’t come with the signature Roomba’s navigation system: The iAdapt 2.9 Technology. For this reason, this model does not have an integrated camera or map of your house.
Roomba e5 or Roomba 675
The primary advantage to the e5 is its virtual barrier. If you have spaces you need to be blocked off while vacuuming, then that’s the choice for you. Otherwise, both robot vacuums are well-built, offer Wi-Fi, have excellent runtime, and offer a powerful clean. The decision is yours.
Bottom Line: I personally feel that the virtual barriers are a game-changer for larger homes and even moderately complex floor plans. This is whey I prefer the Roomba e5 available here.
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