What's in the Box and First Setup
The Roomba 115X Combo is the Amazon version — same robot as the Roomba 115 Combo without the X. It comes with or without the AutoEmpty Dock; this page covers the version with the basic charging dock. Everything I found in testing applies to the Roomba 115X Combo.
The Roomba 115 surprised me. In first-look testing it performed very well — the biggest issue isn't that it's a bad robot, it's the price and what else that money buys. This is a new design from iRobot: very thin with a small footprint, and a solid-state LiDAR sensor on the front instead of a spinning turret on top.
In the box: the robot, a basic charging dock, and a flat microfiber mop pad on a spring-loaded holder. Setup was relatively simple — a real positive. The one extra step: carpet has to be added to the map by hand in the app, which was easy enough.
Cleaning Performance: What It Actually Picks Up
Hard Floor & Tile Performance
Navigation was okay and the mapping itself was accurate. The robot cleans in rows and does a pretty good job of vacuuming, though every so often it stops and spins in a circle to figure out where it is. Being thin with a small footprint is a real plus — it gets under furniture a lot of robots can't reach.
Carpet and Pet Hair
Carpet Cleaning was the best score on the card at 7/10. Hair Tangle scored 6/10 and failed my Hair & Pet Test. The main brush roller is a fairly standard design, not one of the newer anti-tangle cutting-brush systems, and it collects a noticeable amount of wrapped hair. There's a small comb, but it doesn't do much. The floating dual roller on the Dreame D20 Pro Plus handles long hair far better.
Mopping Performance
Mop Performance scored 6/10 and the Mopping Test was a pass — barely. The robot did a decent job cleaning up mud in my first test. Mud isn't a sticky spill or a dried-on stain, though, and a simple dragged pad shouldn't be expected to handle those. SmartScrub helps: it moves the robot in a Y-shaped pattern that adds some scrubbing action, and it did improve the mopping. With suction and water on high and two passes, it got most of the mud up.
The big limitation is that the pad can't lift. If the robot has to cross carpet to get from the dock to a hard floor, it drags the wet pad across the carpet. After every combo run, the dirty pad has to come off, get washed and go back on — and the mop-pad holder itself (not the fabric pad) is somewhat difficult to remove and reinstall. When the robot returns to the dock the pad can still be quite wet, and there's no ramp or tray under it, so the damp pad sits directly on the floor unless someone pulls it off soon after. Dreame's D20 ships with a plastic mat and the D20 Pro Plus has a ramp that solves this.
Edge and Corner Cleaning
iRobot is doing something interesting here. The side brush is spring-loaded: it doesn't reach out into corners, but when it hits something like a chair leg, the whole brush assembly springs back and then returns to position, which may help the robot work closer around furniture and edges. The mop-pad holder uses the same idea. The pad sticks out slightly from the side, and if it hits a chair leg it springs underneath the robot and then back out. Out of the box it almost looks like the robot will move the pad back and forth while cleaning — it doesn't. I’m not convinced the spring mop is necessary, though it may help clean a little closer around objects. The mop still doesn't get up close to the walls. Corners came out not too bad on the vacuum side.
Obstacle Avoidance
Obstacle Avoidance scored 6/10 — a pass for my clutter test, not the best but okay. It still failed Ad vs Reality: the listing says it steers around shoes, pet bowls and furniture, and cords and small items were hit or miss. There's no threshold-climbing system. Pick up the floor before a run.
The Dock and the Real Maintenance Story
This version's dock only charges. Everything the robot picks up stays in its dust bin until you carry it to the trash — the bin is bigger than on the AutoEmpty version, but it's still a hands-on job. There's no mop washing, no drying and no solution tank either. I prefer robots with an auto-empty dock, and at this price there are ones that have it.
The hands-on part is the mop: pull the pad off, wash it, dry it and put it back on every time, with a holder that's awkward to get off and back on. Maintenance failed on my Maintenance Reality check for two more reasons: replacement parts are hard to find, and the side brush is extremely hard to pull off — for someone older or without much hand strength, replacing it could be a real problem. The filter can be cleaned a couple of times before it needs replacing.
The Roomba App Experience
The settings on this robot are some of the most basic I’ve seen. There are very few robot or dock controls — you can rename the robot and reboot it, and that's about it for customization. There's no Do Not Disturb setting, and no way to turn off recharge-and-resume, where the robot goes back to charge and then returns to finish a job.
Starting a clean is better. That's where the important controls live: several suction levels, three water levels for the mop, and one or two cleaning passes. Automations and scheduling are more advanced, so routines are easy to set up, and Robot Health is a nice touch that shows when parts are due. But settings can't be changed once a clean has started.
The map is accurate, but the way the app draws it bugged me. The walls don't line up closely with the real walls — instead there's a gray area around where the wall should be. The app also dropped Wi-Fi and locked up during testing, sometimes needing a hard close or a robot restart. The only way to run this robot is the app, so it has to just work. Next to competitors like Dreame, it feels extremely basic.
What I'd Change About the Roomba 115X Combo
- Build out the app — add Do Not Disturb, dock controls, an option to turn off recharge-and-resume, and a map that draws the real walls.
- Lift the mop pad, and add a ramp or tray so a wet pad never sits on the floor.
- Make the mop-pad holder and side brush easy to remove, and make replacement parts easy to buy.
- Bring the price down. At a much lower price, the basic cleaning is good enough to be a real contender.
Roomba 115X Combo vs the Competition
Roomba 115X Combo vs Dreame D20 Pro Plus
The Dreame D20 Pro Plus is my pick instead of the Roomba 115X. Run it without the mop pad and it's a proven vacuum: a floating dual roller that doesn't wrap long hair, a bagged auto-empty dock with a ramp so a wet pad never sits on the floor, and a Dreame app that's much easier to use. It usually sells for less than the Roomba, too.
Roomba 115X Combo vs Dreame D20 Air Plus
For homes without pets. Run it as a vacuum and skip the mop — strong suction, a smaller brush head, an auto-empty dock, and a much better app and user interface, for noticeably less than the Roomba. I found its navigation a bit better too; the Roomba is a little thinner, which I don’t see as a big deal.
Roomba 115X Combo vs Mova P10 Pro Ultra Gen 2
The one to get if mopping matters. At the AutoEmpty Roomba's full price you're getting close to this robot, which raises and lowers its mop pads, presses them down to scrub, has a carpet sensor, and washes the pads in the dock. The Roomba 115 just drags a pad across the floor.
Roomba 115X Combo vs Roomba 115 Combo and the AutoEmpty versions
The Roomba 115 Combo is the same robot with the same charging dock — buy whichever is on the better sale. The AutoEmpty versions (Roomba 115, 115X and 1110 Combo + AutoEmpty) are the same robot with a dock that empties the bin for up to 90 days; same score, same verdict.