How to Reboot and Factory Reset a Roomba Vacuum

How to reset a Roomba vacuum

You’ve truly fallen for your Roomba. Never did you think you’d be able to relinquish weekly vacuuming duties to an all-powerful sentient bot, a trusted cleaning companion that gets at all the nooks and crannies, adhering to your automated schedule, and providing detailed reports of all the dirty work your bot has tackled. Heck, your Roomba is even smart enough to empty its own debris tank when it gets full.

Contents

Two different types of reset for Roomba
Rebooting your Roomba
Factory resetting your Roomba
How to perform a soft reset on a Roomba
How to perform a hard reset

A Roomba is a thoughtful addition to any web-connected home, taking a bulk of the pain out of keeping a clean house. That said, there are times where your Roomba may experience a setback or two. Or, maybe you’re looking to sell off your bot to trade up to a newer model. In either of these scenarios, you’ll want to reset your Roomba.

Two different types of reset for Roomba

Rebooting your Roomba will power it down and then re-power it. If you’re finding your Roomba isn’t connecting to Wi-Fi, or there’s some other type of glitch, that’s a good time to reboot it. With a reboot, all of your Roomba’s companion app data (logins, saved maps, user preferences) will still be available once your robot vacuum returns to life.

If you’re looking to get rid of your Roomba or are having some deeper-seated issues that a simple reboot can’t remedy, you may need to perform a full factory reset of your bot. This step will essentially return your Roomba to its out-of-the-box defaults and remove all user data from both the bot and the companion app.

Depending on your Roomba model, the process to perform both reboots and factory resets will vary. Here’s a guide on how to reset each Roomba model type.

Rebooting your Roomba

The iRobot Roomba i3 cleaning along base trim.

Roomba S and I series

Press and hold the Clean button on the Roomba for about 20 seconds. After you release the button, the light ring around the bin lid will begin to glow white, indicating the reset was successful. The actual reboot process is only complete once the light ring stops glowing, which may take up to a full minute and a half.

Roomba 700, 800, and 900 series

Press and hold the Clean button on the Roomba for about 10 seconds. After releasing the button, the Roomba will emit a chime, indicating the bot has been reset.

Roomba 500 and 600 series

Press and hold both the Spot Clean and Dock buttons for 10 seconds. Once you release both buttons, you’ll hear a chime, indicating the reset is complete.

Factory resetting your Roomba

You can perform both a soft and hard factory reset of your Roomba vacuum. You need to complete a soft reset manually with your bot’s deck buttons. A soft reset preserves all user data in the companion app, including logins, saved maps, and preferences. You can do a hard reset in the Roomba app, which will eliminate all of your personal data from the bot, the app, and Roomba’s cloud storage.

How to perform a soft reset on a Roomba

Here’s a step-by-step guide to soft-resetting several types of Roomba models.

Roomba S, I, and 900 series

Press and hold the Home, Spot Clean, and Clean buttons simultaneously. Then, wait for the light ring around the Clean button to begin swirling. Once there’s a light ring, let go of the three buttons. Now, the Roomba will restart, signaling the end of the factory reset process.

Roomba 800 and 600 series

Press and hold the Home, Spot Clean, and Clean buttons simultaneously. When the Roomba makes a beeping tone, release the three buttons.

How to perform a hard reset

You’ll need the Roomba companion app to perform a hard reset of a Roomba bot. The hard reset eliminates all user data from your vacuum, the app, and the Roomba cloud.

To perform a hard reset, open the Roomba app, tap Settings, then tap Factory Reset. Your Roomba will then begin resetting.