iRobot has unveiled the Roomba Duo at IFA 2026, and rather than simply making another robot vacuum with more suction power, the company has come up with a rather different idea: use two robots instead of one.
The Roomba Duo combines a large main robot capable of vacuuming, washing and steam-treating floors with a much smaller companion robot designed specifically to reach underneath low furniture and into tighter areas. The two robots share the same home map, communicate with each other and operate from a unified AutoWash dock.
We’ve reviewed quite a few robot vacuums over the years, including the Roomba Combo 10 Max + AutoWash Dock, but this is certainly one of the more unusual approaches. Instead of trying to make one robot slim enough, powerful enough and capable enough to do everything, iRobot is effectively splitting the job between two specialised machines.
One Roomba Carries Another Roomba
The larger main robot has a mechanical deployment arm mounted on top, allowing it to physically carry the smaller robot around the home. When the system identifies an area that the larger robot cannot access, it can lower the companion unit onto the floor and let it take over. That sounds pretty sci-fi and just cool.
Both robots are connected through the Roomba Home App and work from the same map of the house. According to iRobot, they communicate in real time and use AI to coordinate cleaning tasks.
The larger robot handles open areas and heavier vacuuming and washing duties, while the smaller unit heads underneath furniture, between chairs and into other spaces where a full-sized robot vacuum may struggle to fit.
It’s an interesting solution because robot vacuum manufacturers have traditionally tried to solve this problem by making the entire robot thinner, using retractable LiDAR modules or redesigning their navigation hardware. iRobot’s approach is basically: why compromise the main robot when you can send another one underneath?
More Serious Floor Washing
The larger Roomba Duo robot is also considerably different from a conventional disc-shaped robot vacuum.
Its cylindrical design provides more internal space for a wet-and-dry washing system, high-performance motor and larger battery. The main attraction here is a 60mm PowerSpin Max Roller Mop, which iRobot says applies 46N of downward force, equivalent to roughly 4.7kg of pressure, while scrubbing the floor.
Before the roller gets to work, an internal heating system can generate controlled steam over particularly dirty areas to loosen dried-on grime and sticky spills.
The roller then continuously cleans the floor while washing itself, rather than dragging the same dirty mop pad around the house. A hot-air drying component positioned behind the roller also helps remove moisture from the floor immediately afterwards, which should be particularly useful for timber flooring.
We’ve already seen iRobot moving towards roller-based mopping with products such as the Roomba Max 705 Combo, but the Duo appears to take the concept considerably further. For vacuuming, iRobot says the main unit also provides enough suction to tackle pet hair, crumbs and everyday debris, although the company hasn’t provided a specific Pascal suction figure in its announcement.
A Smaller Roomba for Under the Furniture
The secondary robot demonstrated at IFA is based on the Roomba Plus 575 Combo Robot, which iRobot launched earlier in 2026.
At just 8.35cm tall and 29.8cm wide, it is designed to go into areas the larger Roomba Duo cannot physically reach, including underneath low beds, sofas and TV cabinets.
It also incorporates iRobot’s PerfectEdge mop system, which can extend its mop pad by up to 31mm to reach closer to walls and corners. An extended side brush performs a similar job while vacuuming along edges.
Air-lift omni-wheels allow the smaller robot to climb thresholds of up to 3.5cm, so it isn’t restricted to cleaning a single room after being deployed.
This could potentially solve one of the awkward compromises with increasingly sophisticated robot vacuums. As manufacturers add larger batteries, water tanks, more powerful motors and increasingly complicated mopping mechanisms, keeping the robot itself thin becomes progressively more difficult. Having a second low-profile robot dedicated to those areas means the main unit doesn’t necessarily have to make that compromise.
AI Navigation Shared Between Two Robots
Both Roomba Duo units feature ClearView Pro dual-line LiDAR and PrecisionVision AI for recognising and avoiding common household obstacles. The larger robot also adds top-mounted AI cameras, giving it a higher vantage point from which to identify furniture, room layouts and potential areas that require additional cleaning.
iRobot says the system can use this information to create more detailed maps of larger homes and identify significant stains or debris build-up that may require targeted cleaning.
The company has been gradually expanding its use of LiDAR and AI-based obstacle recognition across the newer Roomba range. Its 2025 Australian line-up marked a substantial shift towards ClearView LiDAR across multiple models, alongside PrecisionVision AI on selected machines.
The Roomba Duo’s main robot also rides on large 17cm wheels powered by hub motors, which should help provide stability while carrying its smaller companion.
One Dock Takes Care of Both
Both robots ultimately return to the same AutoWash dock, which handles much of the usual maintenance automatically. The station contains separate clean and dirty water tanks, washes and dries the mopping hardware, and empties collected dust into a larger disposable bag.
Rather than maintaining separate docking stations for two robots, the idea is to make the entire Duo behave like a single cleaning system from the owner’s perspective. Two robot vacuums roaming around the house isn’t necessarily new, but having one robot physically transport another, deploy it where required and coordinate cleaning through the same mapping system is a very different approach.
iRobot CEO Richard Li says the company deliberately moved away from trying to make one robot perform every cleaning task, instead developing specialised robots that operate together as a single system.
Whether having two robots ultimately proves more practical than increasingly sophisticated single-robot designs remains to be seen, but the Roomba Duo is certainly a much more ambitious concept than simply adding another few thousand Pascals of suction to the next flagship model.
iRobot unveiled the Roomba Duo at IFA 2026. Australian pricing and retail availability have not yet been announced.
