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iRobot’s Roomba brand is a true market leader in the world of robot vacuums, and the Roomba 605 is currently the cheapest way to introduce that brand into your home. When using Roombas over the years, we have been impressed by the overall quality, with suction, durability and connectivity to rival more expensive alternatives from other brands. Even as the entry-level model, the iRobot Roomba 605 is not the cheapest robovac around, but we are confident that it will live up to its branding and impress every bit as much as the Roomba 671 and others in the range that we have reviewed previously.
- Value for Money 70%
- Battery Life 75%
- Durability 90%
- Suction Power 85%
- Noise 80%
- Connectivity N/A%
Key Features
- 3-stage cleaning for everything from day to day dirt to pet hair
- Auto-adjusting cleaning head to seamlessly move between surfaces
- One-touch cleaning
- Auto-docking for instant charging
- Big brand with fantastic customer support
- Entry level price without compromising on build quality and cleaning power
If you have been doing your research or have already taken a look at our iRobot Roomba 671 review, then you will know that we are incredibly fond of the Roomba brand. It warrants its position in the upper echelon of robovac brand names with a consistently excellent product line-up. Slotting in right at the bottom of the range by way of price is the iRobot Roomba 605, which represents the lowest-cost option for adding a Roomba to your personal selection of home cleaning equipment.
The 605 is visually striking in a category that starts to resemble the start of Ford production – “you can have any colour, so long as it’s black.” The white finish here might well appeal to Apple fans and anyone with brighter décor, but we are not going to allow colours to influence our opinion. It is not really a factor anyway given that the Roomba 606 is exactly the same unit albeit significantly more challenging to get your hands on.
Anyway, that is enough about what we will not be doing – what does the Roomba 605 bring to the table? As soon as we got our hands on it, it immediately felt familiar. It looks and feels just like the Roomba 671, which strikes a fantastic balance between price and quality. The 605 spans the same dimensions and weighs practically the same. However, it comes in at two-thirds of the cost or thereabouts, and so there must have been a compromise made somewhere.
That stems from connectivity. One of the reasons we love the Roomba 671 is the fact that we can switch it on from anywhere. Fancy a clean floor when you get in from work? Open up the app and hit ‘Clean’ on the train and the robovac should be finished by the time you get home. Even from another room in the house, one tap on the app and you’ll hear the 671 spring into action and go about its cleaning business right away.
That more expensive model also supports voice control, and you can ask Alexa, Google Home or your smart system of choice to get the cleaning underway, even assigning a name to the unit for that extra personal touch.
Simply put, this connectivity is not present on the 605. Not only is there no app for this device, but there is no remote control, and if you want to start cleaning, you’ll have to go up to the unit and hit ‘Clean’ manually. For some, this will take some of the magic of the robot vacuum away as many users prefer to be as hands-off as they possibly can. For others, not having to supervise every little move is enough compensation to make getting up and moving a minor inconvenience.
With Wi-Fi and voice activation out of the equation, we must once again reference the Roomba 671. This unit aroused suspicion of similarities in terms of size and weight, and they are essentially the same machine. Fortunately, that is no bad thing. The cleaning power packed into this robovac is impressive at the 671’s price point, ensuring that it is truly outstanding on a sub-£200 model. Three stages of cleaning ensure that the iRobot Roomba 605 is ideal for various surfaces and can grab everything from dust and dirt to pet hair. This robot vacuum is not suitable for particularly high pile carpets and rugs, and very dark floors have the potential to confuse the intense cleaning sensor, but there are relatively few cases where this one will be unsuitable.
With 60 minutes of runtime and a 3-hour charge, the Roomba 605 will be good to go when you need it and should be able to complete most cleaning jobs without needing to head back to base. In our tests, it managed a full clean of both floors in a standard 3-bedroom semi-detached without issue, pausing, of course, to take it upstairs. There, the capable drop sensor ensured that it stayed upstairs without collapsing into an error state, and that is another excellent feature that adds to the inherent independence of the unit.
iRobot Roomba 605 – Pros and Cons
Suitable for most surfaces thanks to adjustable cleaner height
Great battery life to clean two floors without requiring charging
- Automatic base return for tidiness and a full charge
No app support or remote control – the Roomba 605 must be started with a button press
Unsuitable for high pile carpets and rugs
- No dedicated mapping making for occasionally haphazard cleaning or the use of virtual walls
iRobot Roomba 605 – The Verdict
If you want a robot vacuum cleaner and have decided that Roomba is the brand for you, then there is no cheaper way to bring one into the home. The iRobot Roomba 605 is a fantastic automatic vacuum cleaner with plenty going for it, and overall cleaning quality that belies its price point. You get plenty of sensors for your money – the 605 will not fall down the stairs, does a decent job of avoiding obstacles and can tell when an area of the floor requires a particularly intensive clean and responds appropriately.
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iRobot Roomba 605 Review
The big decision comes down to whether you want to spend about half as much again to gain the connectivity features that make the iRobot Roomba 671 a truly smart vacuum cleaner. If your home resembles the bridge of the Starship Enterprise and you demand voice control, then the Roomba 605 is not it. Even the app and Wi-Fi connectivity for remote activation can be worth the price of convenience for the right user. However, if your list of demands involves value for money cleaning, a unit that does not disappoint in any way and you’re happy to get up and press the button when you need a clean, the Roomba 605 is an excellent piece of kit. There are obviously superior robovacs out there, and you are paying for the name to a certain extent, but at this price point backed by the strength of the brand name, you will not find much better.
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