The new flagship Roomba has a unique mopping feature for tackling dried-on dirt — and it might be the thing that restores i Robot to its former robovac glory | Tech Radar

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The new flagship Roomba has a unique mopping feature for tackling dried-on dirt — and it might be the thing that restores i Robot to its former robovac glory

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i Robot has unveiled its new flagship Roomba Max 875 Combo

It sprays out heated mist to dislodge dried dirt from hard floors

There's a seal around the vacuum to maximize pickup power

i Robot has revealed its latest flagship robot vacuum, and I've just seen it in action at IFA 2026. The Roomba Max 875 Combo is a combination robovac-and-mop, and boasts some intriguing features on both of those floorcare prongs.

One that caught my attention in particular is the mopping setup. Robot vacuum mopping has historically been rather underwhelming, but the latest models are showing some significant improvements. i Robot's Roomba Max 875 Combo's USP is its 'Therma Mist' function. I got the low-down from Adam Pope, Chief Engineer & Vice President of Product Planning & Development at i Robot.

"The Therma Mist is a pretty interesting technology," he tells me. "It's an ultrasonic warm mist, meant to pre-treat stains. So it'll detect stains and pre-treat them before it mops. The customer can also activate it in a certain area if they want to just do that whole area.

"The heat gives you a little better power to break up some of the oily or sugary stains that might be sticky. So that's the reason that we have the heat in there, really, try to help break those up."

Unlike on Dreame's new mist-expelling robovac, which heats the water on the robot itself, here the heating happens in the dock. From an engineering perspective, what's interesting is that the on-bot process of creating ultrasonic mist also naturally generates warmth.

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"The dock can put hot water in the robot, but the actual ultrasonic Therma Mist part of that process, it does actually heat the water as it's coming out," explains Pope. "When [the water] goes through that process, it comes out warm, even if there's room temperature water in the robot."

The fact there's no active heater on the robot itself is good news for battery life. "With the Therma Mist on, it's going to have a small impact on the battery life, but not a large one, because the process of heating is part of the ultrasonic component," Pope confirms. "It's not like there's a special heater that you're running all the time."

Unfortunately, i Robot wasn't demoing the Therma Mist feature when I visited the booth. However, based on the video (above) I was sent over later, it looks promising — there's a good amount of mist created, and it's being delivered evenly. In theory it sounds like a truly interesting innovation, and one that has plenty of potential to deliver strong mopping results.

i Robot has also extended the mop, which is larger in diameter and spins faster than its predecessors, for extra scrubbing power. It can kick out to one side to get close to the edges of rooms, and there's a shield that will slide under the roller as extra protection against unwanted sogginess when the bot is moving over carpet.

There's interesting innovation on the vacuuming front too. i Robot has added a 'Seal Force' system, which is essentially a kind of skirt around the suction inlet on the Max 875 Combo, which lowers to form a loose seal against the carpet fibers.

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"The Seal Force brings a component of the cleaning head down to the floor, so you get all that airflow going right through the deep fibers of the carpet, trying to pull everything deeply out of the carpet, or even out of crevices, grout lines, that sort of thing," says Pope. "It's really kind of applying the suction where you need it most."

In the demo, the 'Seal Force' seal wasn't as dramatic as I had been expecting. You can see the moving frame around the suction inlet below, and in the right-hand photo it's about as extended as it gets. That small shift could be enough to make a big difference to the suction, through — we'll need to test it out to find out.

i Robot is traditionally shy about publishing its suction specs, but here it has done: the Roomba Max 875 Combo offers 35,000 Pa, which is right up there with the highest numbers you'll find anywhere. I'm increasingly of the opinion that it doesn't really matter anyway. The suction is only as effective as the wider design you put it into — and if it works as intended, this seal could make a big difference to the Max 875's pickup power.

The past few years have been a rocky time for once-supreme robot vacuum brand i Robot. Its bots have fallen behind the pack when it comes to features, so it's exciting to see the company starting to find its footing again when it comes to innovation.

The i Robot Roomba Max 875 Combo is on sale now in the UK, priced at £1,099. (equivalent to about

What about the US? Due to the new FCC ban on foreign-made "advanced" robots, the Max 875's launch is on pause for now. i Robot was founded in the US, but at the start of the year it was taken over by Chinese manufacturing company Picea. However, this takeover isn't to blame for the fact the brand can't now sell its new products in the US; the ban refers to where the product is manufactured, and Roomba bots have long been made outside of the US.

In terms of future plans, Pope has this to say: "We're working through with our advisors on how we continue to sell in the US. So we have multiple plans that we're working through and multiple strategies that will come to fruition, and we'll still be able to bring cool technology to the US as well."

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Ruth is Tech Radar's Collections Editor, responsible for masterminding Tech Radar's approach towards the new Collections format — a themed, curated selection of product recommendations designed to provide readers with an exciting new way to shop for the very best new gadgets and gizmos.

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