Upgrading iRobot Roomba i7 with an i3+

I already had a Roomba i7 which is a great robot vacuum cleaner, but it needs frequent emptying of the dustbin by hand. iRobot also has docking stations that don’t just charge the robot’s battery, but also empty multiple runs of cleaning into a more regular vacuum cleaner bag. They are e.g. the i3+ and i7+ models.

To update the i7 to an i7+ you can buy a separate ‘cleaning base’ but it’s also possible to buy an i3+ and use its cleaning base (no pairing or anything required). One important thing is that you also need to swap over the robot’s dustbin because it needs to feature the port on the bottom that says “automatic dirt removal”. If you don’t use a dustbin with the port, the cleaning base will say it is clogged.

I’ve only done one run so far with the i7 and the i3+’s dustbin, but it appeared to work flawlessly. The emptying of the bin after returning to the station is noisy, but quick, like turning on a traditional vacuum cleaner at full power for about 10 seconds.