The robot vacuum cleaners They have become one of the star elements in many homes. And it is that being able to automate some cleaning tasks is always a huge advantage, since we gain time, comfort and, ultimately, quality of life in our home. As you know, within this segment there are very diverse models and some of them even have additional features, beyond the aspiration itself, such as the possibility of being controlled by voice assistants. Today we are going to explain precisely how to connect a Roomba (one of the most popular ranges on the market) with Alexa (one of the assistants par excellence) and all the commands you can use to get the most out of it.
Roomba models compatible with Alexa
The Roomba catalogue, which is how the iRobot brand vacuum robots are known, is quite extensive and although all of its proposals obviously have autonomy to automatically clean the house, not all available versions enjoy the same connection technologies (or home mapping, for example). In this way, we find more basic vacuum cleaners, which we will program and a little more (although they are fewer and fewer) and other much more complete ones that we can even manage with our voice, hardly having to resort to the application to execute many of its functions.
It is precisely this second group that interests us now: that of the Roombas compatible with Alexa, the famous Amazon voice assistant. It is likely that by entering the iRobot application for your smartphone, you have already seen if your equipment supports it or not, but just in case, we list below the colors that offer it so you have no doubts:
- Roomba Combos
- Roomba e5xxx
- Roomba e6xxx
- Roomba 89x
- Roomba 69x
- Roomba 67x
- Roomba 96x
- Roomba 97x
- Roomba 98x
- Roomba i3xxx
- Roomba i7xxx
- Roomba i9xxx
- roomba j7
- roomba s9
- Braava jet m6134 (floor cleaner)
All these devices therefore allow control through Alexa, as reported by the manufacturer itself on its official website, and are compatible with all the commands that we leave you a little below.
How to connect the vacuum cleaner with the assistant
Before you start testing all the commands you can run, you need, of course, to set up the settings between your Roomba and the voice assistant first. To do this, you will have to resort to its official application and follow a few simple steps that will serve as a bridge to the final task: activate a skill of the robot and link it with your Alexa account.
- Make sure you have the Alexa app installed on your phone (although you obviously will if you use the assistant).
- Open the iRobot app on your smartphone (either iPhone or Android).
- Tap on the three lines icon that you will see in the upper left corner.
- Choose "Smart home«.
- In the options that will appear on the screen, choose the first one, “Accounts and connected devices”.
- Once inside you will see the available options: select Amazon Alexa.
- Doing so will redirect you to the Alexa app and notify you of the activation of the skill and link with the assistant.
- Once in it, tap on the blue Link button.
- You will return to the screen of point 6 and after a few seconds you will see the message that the robot and Alexa are already connected.
La disconnection, As you can imagine, it is as simple as following the same steps that we have just explained, only that, once inside the "Amazon Alexa" option, (where you will see the message that Alexa is already linked), you will have to touch the blue button at the bottom, where it says "Disconnect Amazon Alexa". In a matter of a second, the robot and the assistant will be unlinked. That easy.
Alexa voice commands for your Roomba
Although all the basic commands are available in the models that we mentioned a little above, some specific phrases are still maintained that can only be used with certain equipment (the most modern and advanced in the catalogue), since they correspond to additional commands not available in their little brothers. Are the ones with specific names, like Braava or those that we can rename in the iRobot app (Rosie or Rob, as the company gives an example).
But as the months go by, own skill of iRobot has been spreading widely to almost all current models in its catalogue. We detail below what they are so that you can put them into practice (those specific to some models in italics).
Commands for Alexa-compatible Roombas
start cleaning program
- "Alexa, tell Roomba to start cleaning"
- "Alexa, tell Braava to start scrubbing"
- "Alexa, tell iRobot to clean with Rosie and Bob"
- "Alexa, tell Roomba to vacuum for 20 minutes"
- "Alexa, tell Roomba to vacuum in 15 minutes"
Pause / resume cleaning program
- "Alexa, tell Roomba to pause/resume cleaning"
- "Alexa, tell Braava to pause/resume mopping"
Stop the program and return to the charging station
- "Alexa, tell Roomba to come home"
- "Alexa, tell Roomba to stop vacuuming"
- "Alexa, tell Braava to stop mopping"
- "Alexa, tell Roomba not to disturb me"
Search or stop searching for Roomba
- "Alexa, ask Roomba where it is"
- "Alexa, ask Braava to sing me something"
- "Alexa, tell Roomba I found it"
Roomba Status
- "Alexa, ask Roomba what it's doing"
- "Alexa, ask Braava if it's done"
Scheduling the cleaning process
- "Alexa, tell Roomba to schedule cleaning"
- "Alexa, tell Roomba to schedule cleaning on Monday at 10 am"
- "Alexa, ask Braava to schedule morning mopping"
- "Alexa, tell Roomba to list my cleaning schedule"
- "Alexa, tell Roomba to clear scheduled cleaning on Tuesdays"
Cleaning rooms, areas and objects or favorites
(Only works with i/j/s/m series robots)
- "Alexa, tell Roomba to clean the master bedroom"
- "Alexa, tell Braava to scrub the kitchen"
- "Alexa, tell Roomba to clean the kitchen and living room"
- "Alexa, tell Roomba to vacuum and Braava to mop the kitchen"
- "Alexa, tell Roomba to clean in front of the couch"
- "Alexa, ask iRobot to review my favorite place to dine"
- "Alexa, ask Roomba to schedule dining room cleaning on Tuesdays"
In case of using models from the range brava, instead of "Roomba" you will have to say "Braava", the default generic names of these two devices. In case you have both at home, Alexa could ask you which robot you are referring to so that you can better specify the device and avoid confusion. It is all very intuitive, so you will follow the conversation without problems as it arises.
Little else you have to know about this this. Now all you have to do is familiarize yourself with the commands (so you don't have to look at the cheat sheet every 2 x 3) and check how well the robot vacuum works under voice commands. Now they only need to pass the feather duster...
Get the most out of Alexa and your Roomba with routines
Telling your robot to go vacuum or mop is fine, but it's much more fun if you program one routine so that the device itself goes out to do the rounds at certain hours of the day. Doing it is very simple:
- Opens the alexa app on your mobile phone.
- Tap on the ' tabMore' in the lower right corner of the screen.
- Locate the section 'Workouts'.
- Click on the '+' icon' in the upper right corner.
- Give your routine a name, such as 'Automatic Cleaning'.
- In 'When', check 'Opening hours'. Set a time for your robot to wake up and start working. You can select the days you want. If you want to set a different schedule for weekends, you can create a different routine for those days.
- Above 'Action' is where you have to set what your Roomba is going to do. You can select it within 'Digital Home', although ideally you should click on 'Personalized'. There, simply write the command that you would do with your voice —the ones we have seen in the section above.
- Save the changes and that's it. You already have your Roomba working autonomously without the need for you to have to give the commands directly.