iRobot, maker of the robotic Roomba vacuums, has confirmed to The Verge that a software update has been causing issues for some users of its i7 and s9 robots and that it’s working on another one to prevent future issues. The catch? It might be a bit before things get sorted out, with iRobot expecting the update to roll out “over the next several weeks.”
According to users on Reddit and Twitter, the recent 3.12.8 firmware update has been causing navigation issues. One user described their robot cleaner as acting “drunk” after the update: spinning itself around and bumping into furniture, cleaning in strange patterns, getting stuck in an empty area, and not being able to make it home to the dock. What’s more, some other users are reporting that the environment maps their Roombas made were wiped out by the update.
The severity of the issues ranges from Roombas now taking longer to clean the house to not being able to make it back to its charging station and thus barely working at all. And while iRobot has been working with affected customers to roll back the update, some are reporting that they’re still experiencing issues. It’s possible they’ll have to wait until the new software update rolls out for the vacuums to start working properly again.
One Reddit user took a time-lapse of their Roomba with the update, as it struggled and finally failed to make it home to its base station. The video shows the behavior described by many other posters on the Roomba Reddit and on Twitter as well. One poster detailed their support experience, saying they had waited two and a half weeks for the software update rolled back on their Roomba, and it still hadn’t happened.
