Today, an alert popped up on my iRobot app telling me I could now use the j7 Combo robot vacuum to see a live view of my home, should I want to. A new beta feature called Remote Check In turns the company’s flagship robot vacuum into a livestreaming security camera. iRobot is playing catch-up here; lots of robot vacuum manufacturers have had the live view camera function for a while now (including Samsung’s JetBot AI and models from Roborock and Ecovacs). But I was intrigued to see how the Roomba would handle this new task.
Part of the iRobot beta program (which you sign up for in the app), Remote Check In launched in a limited capacity in November 2022. Today, it became broadly available, according to Ryan Schneider of iRobot. Hence the…