GoKawiilRobot vacuums are a great way to do some general cleaning, but most lack the power of a dedicated vacuum cleaner because you can’t pack enough suction into a small design. iRobot may have an interesting solution for that with its new Roomba Max 875 Combo, which it describes as the “most powerful robot ever” because it uses a proprietary vacuum seal technology that concentrates suction power on the floor.
“With the Roomba Max 875 Combo Robot, we not only increased overall suction power, but also changed how that suction gets applied to the carpet,” Adam Pope, vice president and chief engineer at iRobot, said in a statement. “With SealForce, we’re able to seal the chassis against the carpet fibers, so the airflow, which has the greatest impact on pickup performance, has somewhere to go instead of escaping around the edges. More suction helps, but the seal is what takes it to a level beyond what’s previously been possible.”
I cover vacuums and home tech for CNET. While I’m here at IFA Berlin 2026, I’m determined to seek out the most interesting tech that solves your most common cleaning problems. I’m excited to see the Roomba Max 875 Combo Robot in person on Wednesday. I’ll report back with my impressions later.
iRobot
In a video call with me prior to IFA Berlin 2026, Pope described the technology as being similar to pressing down harder on the carpet when you’re vacuuming with a regular vacuum, to increase the seal and focus the suction on a particular spot. In the case of the Max 875, rather than pressing down, the robot vacuum’s chassis lowers a “skirt” that forms a tight seal against carpet fibers.
Once the seal is established, it can use 35,000 pascals of suction to clean the floor, which iRobot describes as “tornado-like airflow.” The company also says that it has three times deeper carpet cleaning and the best pickup performance to date among its models. Essentially, rather than just boosting suction power, the robot vac is making its suction more targeted and efficient on the surfaces it cleans. It’s a good idea if it works as promised. In our testing, we’ve generally found that cordless vacuums have better suction than robot vacuums, but this type of tech could help robots catch up.
There’s also some other interesting cleaning technology under the hood. To handle dried-on stains on hard floors, the Max 875 Combo continuously sprays heated mist as it mops, loosening and softening older stains so the mop roller can remove them. Pope told me that the new roller mop is also the industry’s largest, has 300 rotations per minute and 18 newtons of downward pressure. The company claims that all this gives the robot vacuum twice the stain removal, 3.75 times deeper scrubbing and 1.2 times wider coverage per pass.
iRobot
Available on other robot vacuums, the 875 Combo has an AI-powered carpet-detection feature that automatically raises the mop when it detects carpet and lowers a protective shield to prevent dripping. It also comes with the other high-end features we’ve come to expect from flagship robot vacuums, including antitangle and hair-cutting main brushes, side brushes, lidar navigation and AI object recognition for more than 300 household objects.
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