iRobot's Roomba Electro Plus Isn't a Robot—And That's the Point

iRobot has introduced the Roomba Electro Plus, a $399 hard-floor cleaner that breaks a fundamental rule in the company's playbook: it is not autonomous. There is no robot here. The device is a cordless, manually pushed unit that vacuums, mops, and disinfects hard floors. You operate it the same way your grandparents operated a mop — you push it across the room. No mapping software, no docking routine, no scheduling via an app.

The headline feature is the water treatment system. The Electro Plus converts ordinary tap water into what iRobot calls a commercial-grade disinfectant by running it through an electrolyzing process—technology developed by Picea, iRobot's parent company. The company claims this kills 99.9% of bacteria, viruses, fungi, and other germs The Verge. That chemistry puts the machine closer to brands like Tineco or Bissell's CrossWave than to anything Roomba has sold before. The device includes a self-cleaning mop head, a small motor to reduce pushing effort, and a dock that washes and dries the mop with hot water and air between uses. The catch: users must manually drain, clean, and refill the water tank themselves—a maintenance step that iRobot spent years automating away on its robot lineup.

That contrast tells the real story. iRobot built its brand on removing the human from the cleaning loop: autonomous navigation, obstacle avoidance, self-emptying bins, self-washing mops. The Electro Plus flips that value proposition entirely. iRobot is betting that some buyers want disinfecting capability without the extra cost, subscription dependencies, or discomfort of letting a networked device roam their home unsupervised. At $399 for a fixed hard-floor footprint, it appeals to renters, smaller households, or anyone skeptical of robot autonomy. It is a different pitch for a different customer.

Five new robot models arrive alongside it

iRobot paired the Electro Plus launch with five new robot vacuum models for the US market. All have higher suction power, smaller footprints, and lower prices than their predecessors The Verge. These models actually debuted in Europe in May 2025; the US rollout is iRobot sequencing markets rather than launching a new product cycle.

The premium option is the Roomba Max 775 Combo Robot with Auto Wash Dock at $999.99, an upgrade to the earlier Max 705 Combo The Verge. The 705 offered 175 times more suction power than older models, heated mopping, and carpet protection. Below that is the Roomba Plus 505 Combo bundled with the AutoWash dock at $599, and the Roomba 105 Vac paired with an AutoEmpty dock. All sit alongside the lidar-based Roomba lineup iRobot introduced in 2025—a system that uses laser sensors to map rooms, similar to how autonomous vehicles navigate streets.

Picea's ownership explains the shift

Picea is not a new relationship. It was iRobot's original equipment manufacturer — the company that built Roombas to iRobot's specifications — before iRobot acquired it outright in 2025, following the company's bankruptcy The Verge. That acquisition is the hinge on which everything turns. The manufacturer that used to build robots under iRobot's direction now owns the brand and sets the product roadmap. That explains why iRobot's release schedule over the past year looks different from its SoftBank, Amazon, and independent eras through the 2010s—and why the company is now pushing into product categories, like a manual cleaner, it never touched before.

Gary Cohen remains CEO of iRobot through this transition iRobot, and the company has maintained a steady release pace since restructuring. In March 2026, iRobot launched the compact Roomba Mini in the UK and Europe, designed for tight spaces where larger robots struggle to fit, following a court-supervised restructuring that wrapped in January iRobot press releases.

The broader picture here is a company diversifying beyond the robot form factor to capture buyers who were never going to pay for autonomy in the first place. Whether that segment is as large as iRobot hopes, the bet itself makes sense. The electrolyzing water-treatment technology is the more durable intellectual property here than the vacuum shell surrounding it. Picea can iterate the design cheaply once the core chemistry is proven. At $399, it is a low-cost experiment with meaningful upside if the disinfecting capability, and the simplicity of no network involvement, appeal to the audience iRobot never quite reached.