Roomba 650 is the most popular robotic vacuum iRobot has ever released. It’s a best-selling device with the highest ratings on Amazon. To date, Roomba 650 remains as the most successful smart floor cleaner in its industry.
A lot of people consider purchasing Roomba 614 instead of the 650 model since other Roomba owners have told them that they can save some money (Roomba 614 is on sale quite often).
It’s true that the Roomba 614 is a newer model (despite it being called 614) and so it wouldn’t be surprising if this smart floor cleaner operated more effectively than the 650 model.
Both of these devices are highly rated products, and there are thousands of people who can vouch that these two smart floor cleaners are intelligent, practical and powerful.
In this Roomba 650 vs 614 article, we’ll analyse some of the most important aspects of these robotic vacuums to find out how these two differ and which of them takes the top spot.
Roomba 614 vs 650: Pros & Cons and Verdict
Table of Contets
To begin with, the main difference between these two robotic vacuums is the scheduling feature. Unlike the Roomba 650, the 614 doesn’t have the scheduling feature. In other words, you can’t command the robotic vacuum to clean, for example, on Wednesday at 4:00 pm.
That’s the major difference between Roomba 614 and 650. We’ll discuss the rest below and compare some of the most critical aspects of these two smart floor cleaners. Lastly, we’ll conclude the article with a reasonable verdict and crown either Roomba 614 or 650 as the leading robotic vacuum.
1. Setup Process
The first topic we need to write about is the setup process of Roomba 614 and 650. Every person who plans on purchasing a smart floor cleaner wants to buy a product that is easy to setup and takes minutes to complete.
So it’s important to know if Roomba 614 and 650 can be easily activated. I won’t write a step-by-step guide since the setup process is intuitive and only needs a few button presses to have both Roomba models up and running.
If you somehow get lost during the setup process and can’t figure what to do next, just check the user’s manual. It’s well-written, and I’m sure it’ll help you solve any issue you might have.
Suggested Read: Roomba 620 vs 650: Pros & Cons and Verdict
If you can’t find what you’re looking for in the user manual, you can try reaching out to the support team at iRobot’s website. Those people are professionals and always give great answers and tips.
2. Design
Another important topic is the design of Roomba 614 and 650. Today, when people plan to purchase gadgets that are supposed to roam free in their houses, they will try to find a device that looks attractive and well-made.
Smart home shoppers search for gadgets that are modern and techy and will look good with their home interiors. Besides the visual aspects, it’s important to know the dimensions of Roomba 614 and 650 because it plays a vital role regarding cleaning your home.
Roomba 614
Roomba 614 is visually similar to the 650 model. For some users (mostly for novices), they might even look identical. I won’t say that there are significant differences, but you can notice some minor changes.
The dimensions of Roomba 614 are 17 x 18 x 5 inches, and it weighs 11.1 pounds. Those are pretty good dimensions since Roomba 614 can fit anywhere and it can navigate its way into the trickiest-to-reach parts of your house.
According to iRobot’s statement, Roomba 614 was specifically designed to fit under most furniture, beds and kickboards.
If you take a look at the picture above, it looks quite similar to the 650 model. As always, iRobot wanted to maintain the minimalistic look, and they’ve succeeded in doing so.
Roomba 650
Roomba 650 is one of the most beautifully designed robotic vacuums. It won’t be a lie if we say that the design contributed to the success of this device.
I’ve previously owned this smart floor cleaner and know a few people who still own it. Everyone I’ve ever seen with a Roomba 650 is enamoured with the way it looks.
The dimensions of Roomba 650 are 13.4 x 3.6 x 13.4 inches, and it weighs 7.9 pounds. Like the 614 model, Roomba 650 can accommodate the hardest-to-reach parts of your house. It can easily crawl under your beds, sofas, tables, etc.
If you take a closer look, Roomba 650 does seem different and more attractive.
The colour of the 650 model is darker, shinier, and the greenish button gives the robotic vacuum an extra push.
The only thing I can add here is that, without a shadow of a doubt, the Roomba 650 is a better-looking robotic vacuum.
3. Performance
We can consider this part of our article the most important since we’re about to discuss the performance rates of Roomba 614 and 650. If these two smart floor cleaners don’t perform well and can’t meet our expectations, we shouldn’t even think about purchasing them.
Roomba 614
Roomba 614 is a robotic vacuum with a random cleaning style. It’s a smart floor cleaner that can get the basic job done but don’t expect it to do wonders as the iRobot Roomba 960 and 980 do.
The first thing we need to talk about is the problems that arise with the random cleaning style.
Firstly, when a robotic vacuum cleans randomly, it hits the same spots over and over and results in having a partially cleaned house that requires manual back-up.
If a robotic vacuum has a weak navigation system, it means that it has a poor understanding of its surroundings. If so, such devices will regularly collide with obstacles at high speed, and if you have fragile objects placed on tables and stands, they might fall.
As we’ve said before, Roomba 614 is a basic robotic vacuum that doesn’t have advanced features like Multi-Room Navigation, Virtual Walls and Smart Scheduling.
Roomba 614 is relatively quiet if we compare it to a traditional vacuum cleaner. If we had to measure the noise, I’d say that it’s as loud as an A/C unit with the fan turned to medium. So you won’t be able to sleep while Roomba 614 is activated, but you can concentrate on studying, reading and watching TV if you relocate to a different room.
Besides the fact that Roomba 614 cleans randomly, one of its most significant drawbacks is not having the scheduling feature. A lot of people love to schedule their devices so that it can clean the house when they’re out. Unfortunately, Roomba 614 doesn’t offer such comfort, and we have to activate and keep an eye on it when we’re home.
Despite everything we’ve said, Roomba 614 is a beautiful robotic vacuum. It picks up a lot of dirt and the running time is fair. When we tested the 614 model, it worked for an hour and a half non-stop. It’s a pretty good achievement for a smart floor cleaner this old.
Roomba 650
Roomba 650 is a powerful robotic vacuum that performs at a high level. Since I have owned the Roomba 650, I can share the results from my personal experience to make the review more authentic and accurate.
When I first got my Roomba 650, I immediately activated it and made it clean the whole house. Roomba took about five to six hours to finish working, and we changed the dustbin four-five times. We were amazed how much dirt Roomba 650 picked up since we had no idea manual vacuuming was leaving out so much dirt.
There are two possibilities here:
- Roomba 650 is more potent than the traditional vacuum cleaners
- Roomba 650 is a smarter cleaner and pays attention to more ‘detailed areas’ than human beings
I can’t say for sure which scenario is the correct one but what I know is that Roomba 650 picks up a lot of dirt – more than you would imagine it to.
Besides the things we’ve mentioned, it’s important to know that the Roomba 650 is a random-cleaning robotic vacuum and, like the 614 model, it doesn’t know what’s where and frequently collides with obstacles.
When you decide to activate Roomba 650 in a specific room, it’s recommended to remove any obstacle that might obstruct it. For example, if you have stands, tables and chairs, it’s better to relocate them until Roomba 650 finishes its work.
But don’t freak out yet. You should only do so if you plan to leave Roomba 650 on its own and you won’t be around to babysit it. Removing the obstacles is a simple move that increases the chances of Roomba 650 finishing its work.
If we’re not home and Roomba 650 collides with something, it won’t move unless you manually remove the obstacle from its way.
What I found interesting about the Roomba 650 is that it works much better if you effectively place the Virtual Walls. The user’s manual explains how to position the Virtual Walls so that the Roomba 650 can move around more freely.
Popular Read: Roomba 650 vs 860: Pros & Cons and Verdict
If you activate Roomba without the Virtual Walls, it’ll have trouble finding its way. So to get the most from this device and to maximise its performance rate, it’s essential to set up the Virtual Walls.
If we directly compare the navigation systems of Roomba 650 and 614, they’re on the same level. There are some aspects where Roomba 650 beats the 614 model, but there’s nothing significant or unique.
4. Features
When people look for robotic vacuums, the first thing they’ll want to know about is the features.
So it’s important to know the features of Roomba 614 and 650 to make sure we’re not purchasing devices that are poor and under-equipped. Hence we’ve created a detailed chart that perfectly illustrates the features of Roomba 614 and 650.
| ROOMBA 614 | ROOMBA 650 | |
|---|---|---|
| Spinning Side Brush | 3-Stage Cleaning System | |
| Self-Charging | Self-Recharge & Auto Adjust to Floors | |
| AeroForce 3-Stage Cleaning System | Simple to Use | |
| Simple to Use | Convenient Scheduling | |
| Auto Adjust | Virtual Wall Technology | |
| – | Spinning Side Brush | |
| – | Recharge and Resume | |
| – | Dirt Detection | |
| – | Auto Docking | |
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As you see from the chart above, there’s a considerable difference between Roomba 614 and 650. It’s true that the Roomba 614 is a newer model and should be a more advanced robotic vacuum but it didn’t turn out that way.
Considering that the Roomba 650 is the most successful robotic vacuum iRobot has ever released, it’s not easy to exceed the capabilities this smart floor cleaner has.
The main reason why people should consider the Roomba 650 as their priority robotic vacuum is the scheduling feature. You can program the robotic vacuum to clean the house when you’re out and this way, you’ll have minimal contact with the dirt, and the noise won’t bother you.
5. Cleaning Capabilities
These two robotic vacuums are quite pricey, and it’s important to know the cleaning capabilities of Roomba 614 and 650. If these two smart floor cleaners underperform and can’t deliver acceptable results, there’s no point in forking out such sums.
Roomba 614
It’s true that Roomba 614 lacks some features and a lot of people, including us, don’t consider this model better than the Roomba 650.
In 2016, iRobot announced the release of Roomba 614. Buyers have been reporting that this model is more intelligent, smart and enhanced compared to the previous models.
Roomba 614 always returns to its docking station, never gets stuck under the furniture, and some even say that the navigation system is so good that it can rival popular models like the Roomba 860 and 880.
One of the most important improvements I’ve noticed is the smooth transition from wood floors to carpet or rugs. If you ever owned an old Roomba, you must’ve had cases when it treated thick rugs and carpets like walls and often evaded them because Roomba couldn’t understand what it was facing.
It would appear the new software of Roomba 614 made the device act smarter, leading to the opinion that it’s a more advanced robotic vacuum.
Another great thing about Roomba 614 is that the dustbin rarely gets full. Whenever Roomba 614 finishes its work, I have the habit of checking whether the dustbin is full or not. Surprisingly, Roomba 614’s dustbin has a lot of capacity, and you don’t have to clean it after every use.
The most prominent drawback of Roomba 614 is that you shouldn’t leave it on its own. Whenever we tried doing so, Roomba 614 had some unpleasant experiences. At first, somehow, it managed to close the bedroom door on its own, and it got stuck in the room. We found it with a drained battery, and the house was not even half cleaned. We had to charge it, activate it and set it to work again. It was quite time-consuming, and I’m pretty sure no one has spare time to waste.
So if you want the Roomba 614 to deliver satisfying results, be sure to ‘babysit’ it and not leave it completely unattended. Otherwise, knowing that it sometimes collides with obstacles at high speed, there could be some less than desirable outcomes.
Roomba 650
Roomba 650 is a powerful robotic vacuum that has excellent cleaning capabilities. This smart floor cleaner is efficient, effective and reliable and is iRobot’s most successful product.
What I can say about Roomba 650 is that it’s an old robotic vacuum with some major flaws. To begin with, like the 614 model, Roomba 650 is a random-cleaning robotic vacuum with a weak AI and navigation system.
Roomba 650 does use infrared sensors and Virtual Wall to help itself navigate more effectively, but not sufficiently to be comparable with smart floor cleaners like the Neato Botvac D80 and Roomba 980.
I’ve previously owned Roomba 650 and have used it for a very long time. Roomba 650 does an outstanding job cleaning your rooms, but it has some annoying problems. I’ve noticed that the 650 model can’t navigate itself as well as the 614 can.
As it seems, 614’s software made the robotic vacuum smarter and better. The good-old 650 makes more mistakes and gets confused a lot more often.
I’ve used Roomba 650 to clean on different surfaces and, in most cases, results were pretty good. It perfectly cleans rugs, hardwood and kitchen tiles.
To give more precise numbers, Roomba 650 cleans 90% of the dirt in the room. It regularly hits the same spot over and over, but in the end, it gets the job done.
Like the 614 model, Roomba 650 doesn’t have a full bin indicator, and you have to check so that it doesn’t get full. If we compare the cleaning capabilities of Roomba 650 and 614, I’d say that it’s a tie where the 614 has a slightly better navigation system and AI.
6. Advantages and Disadvantages
Besides the things we’ve discussed, it’s important to know the pros and cons of these robotic vacuums. To make the right decision and adequately differentiate between these two models, we’ve created two charts that show the advantages and disadvantages of Roomba 614 and 650.
Roomba 650
| PROS | CONS | |
|---|---|---|
| iAdapt Navigation | Weak AI | |
| 3-Stage Cleaning System | Weak User Experience | |
| Simple to Use | ||
| Self-Charge | ||
| Smart Cleaning | ||
| Good Battery | ||
| Relatively Quiet | ||
| Smart Schedules | ||
| Virtual Wall System | ||
| Works With All Floor Types | Purchase Roomba 614 |
Roomba 614
| PROS | CONS | |
|---|---|---|
| Lithium-Ion Batteries | No Scheduling | |
| 3-Stage Cleaning System | Weak Navigation System | |
| Simple to Use | ||
| Self-Charging | ||
| Enhanced AI | ||
| Auto-Adjust | ||
| Good Sensing Abilities | ||
| Large Dustbin | ||
| Infrared Sensors | ||
| Deep Clean | Purchase Roomba 650 |
So both of these robotic vacuums have their own strong and weak points. If we take another look at the charts above, Roomba 614 and 650 have a lot in common.
There are one or two points where these smart floor cleaners differ, and, on all the other points, Roomba 614 and 650 have or lack the same things.
7. Support
iRobot has a superb support team. I’ve had talks with them about ten times, and they always give professional tips and answers. You can reach iRobot’s support via email, live chat or phone.
These people are super fast to reply, and that’s another plus to the company. So if you have any questions about anything that concerns iRobot’s robotic vacuums, you can reach out to them.
8. Comparison Chart: Roomba 614 vs 650
Before we conclude our article, we’d like to compare Roomba 614 and 650 directly. Below, you’ll find a detailed chart that compares the most important aspects of these robotic vacuums.
| NAME OF THE ROBOTIC VACUUM | ROOMBA 614 | ROOMBA 650 |
|---|---|---|
| Robotic Vacuum Name | Roomba 614 | Roomba 650 |
| HEPA Filters | Yes | No |
| Full Bin Indicator | No | No |
| Smart Cleaning | Yes | Yes |
| Energy Usage Reports | No | No |
| Cleaning Style | Random | Random |
| Modes | None | None |
| Sensing Qualities | Average | Average |
| Mobile App | No | No |
| Noise | Average | Average |
| Battery Life | Good | Average |
| Power | Weak | Normal |
| Dimensions Of The Product | 18 x 17 x 5 inches | 13.4 x 3.6 x 13.4 inches |
| Problems | No Scheduling | Weak Navigation & AI |
| Unique Feature | None | None |
| Warranty | 6 Months | 1 Months |
| Check Price |
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Frankly, Roomba 614 and 650 are two robotic vacuums that have a lot in common and a few differences
For example, the scheduling feature makes Roomba 650 quite attractive but the fact that Roomba 614 is a newer model and it slightly exceeds the 650 model regarding navigation and AI, can make buyers wonder which one is the better option.
The Bottom Line
These two robotic vacuums have nearly identical capabilities. Roomba 614 has enhanced sensing abilities; it’s good at sucking and can navigate itself quite effectively. Without a doubt, it’s a powerful robotic vacuum that offers flexibility and freedom.
The biggest drawback of the 614 that might make you doubt the functionality of this smart floor cleaner is the lack of ‘scheduling’ feature. That’s a crucial feature that every Roomba owner considers as a ‘must-have’. So if you think that you’re going to need the scheduling feature, it might be a better idea to get the Roomba 650.
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If you believe that the scheduling feature is something you can’t live without (and I’m 100% sure every Roomba owner agrees that it’s one of the most valuable features), you should go for the Roomba 650.
If you think low of the feature mentioned above, get the one that is cheaper. That’s the only significant difference between the 614 and 650, and without it, these two are much the same.
| Robotic Vacuum | Roomba 614 | Roomba 650 |
| Amazon Link |
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Rick says
Just purchased the 614 on black Friday 2017 for $200. I would say I’m one of those people who don’t care about scheduling. When tried for the first time I put the charger under a table(I know the guidelines) but away from the wall on a slick hardwood floor. After getting tired watching I went upstairs. When I went back down it pushed the charger askew and was bouncing around the legs and a slight smell of over heating was in the air. 2nd time around I pushed the charger against the wall and it docked even though it’s under a small lamp table. Better there out of sight than out in the open. But, while cleaning it had gotten stuck and shut down twice in the same spot under my dining room table in a triangular cavity under one of the table supports. So while I am quite impressed with the job it has done so far cleaning, I’d rather be around while it’s doing its job. It’s really no big deal for it to be cleaning a couple times a week while I’m cooking dinner or whatever. I really can’t recommend scheduling capabilities be anyone’s deciding factor.
Jeremy Jauncey says
Thanks for the input, Rick! Much appreciated.
Lillian Zimmer says
I purchased a 614 model Apr 9th 2018 .It had a clicking sound , also 2 of the 3 side brushes broke off . . I received a replacement . It is not a 614 model , it has a silver top like the roomba I bought in 2013 . It does not clean the carpet well , it lightly skims over and does not leave tracking marks . The 614 I returned with the clicking sound did an excellent job .