Roomba
series of autonomous robotic vacuum cleaners sold by iRobot
A Roomba is an autonomous robotic vacuum cleaner made by the company iRobot, and was first introduced in September 2002. Roombas have a set of sensors which help them navigate the floor area of a home. These sensors can detect the presence of obstacles and steep drops (e.g., to avoid falling down stairs).
As of 2024, iRobot markets models of their fourth through tenth generation, while continuing to provide support and to sell accessories for their previous series. Various models of the Roomba have different features, including tangle-free brushes, separate sweep canisters, more powerful vacuums, mopping technology, obstacle avoidance, and performance maps displayed via smartphone apps. Newer models also have a camera, which works in conjunction with onboard mapping and navigation software to systematically cover all floor areas, move from room to room, avoid obstacles such as pet waste and charging cables, and find charging stations.
History
Engineer Joe Jones first conceived the idea for what eventually became the Roomba in 1989 while working at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. The initial design, using LEGO bricks, stemmed from a design challenge between Jones and his colleagues. Early prototypes were created and presented to the Denning Mobile Robot Company and Bissell in the 1990s, but neither company was interested in producing them. The concept languished until 1999, when S.C. Johnson eventually agreed to fund the project at iRobot.
“Roomba” enters the record as series of autonomous robotic vacuum cleaners sold by iRobot. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Roomba, series and autonomous can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q74050. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2002, 2024, 1989 and 1999.
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This entry incorporates text from “Roomba” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.