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There are ample means by which you could learn about the fascinating intricacies of feudal Japan. Still, Koei Tecmo presents the option for a doubly steep learning curve with the latest addition to its turn-based grand strategy RPG series, Nobunaga’s Ambition: Awakening Complete Edition (a repackaged edition of the initial 2023 game released for Nintendo Switch 2 and PlayStation 5).

Review info

Platform reviewed: Nintendo Switch 2
Available on: PS5 (Complete Edition); PS4, Nintendo Switch, PC, (original edition)
Release date: June 5, 2025

In this Nintendo Switch 2 game (also available on PlayStation 5), you play as a contemporary daimyō, acting as a Japanese feudal lord ruling over a province during the turbulent Sengoku period. There’s the option to follow the story of the series’ titular character, Nobunaga, head of the Oda clan, but you can also play as a host of other historical leaders from the era.

So, what is Nobunaga’s ambition? Oh, just the small feat of unifying Japan; a contentious matter among those he wished to suppress to achieve his dream. Your objective in Nobunaga’s Ambition: Awakening is to help realize this vision – whether or not you’re playing as the man himself – by developing your lands, conducting diplomacy, and, of course, a healthy dose of feudal warfare as you strive to dominate the various territories of Japan.

Along the way, you’ll also encounter cutscenes reimagining famous battles from the time, as well as rumors from your various officers, which reflect the era’s propensity for near-constant drama and gossip among its magnates.

(Image credit: Koei Tecmo)

It’s a game that struggles to find its footing; in one part, it’s a gruelling uphill battle to learn complex political systems, heightened only by the game’s stunted UI and some slightly half-baked gameplay mechanics that I accidentally manipulated to win the game in less than a minute (more on that later).

On the other hand, there is something intangibly captivating about this historical part-fiction. Combat mechanics are satisfying, there’s a fulfilling base management system, and great care and attention have been paid to injecting the game with ample historical education and context-based events to keep things interesting. It’s just so brutally difficult that any enjoyment I could find is as yet out of reach.

I played over 30 hours of the game (it felt like at least ten of those were spent reading endless text boxes and tutorials) before I got to a point where I was happy upping the difficulty to medium.

Naturally, I instantly lost, and another ten hours later, I’m still in the throes of learning the next level of strategy required to win past dumb-dumb difficulty; but I’m comforted to read online that I am one of so, so many gamers to say the same.

Humble beginnings

(Image credit: Koei Tecmo)

You begin the game by selecting a date from 1543 to 1614 and then choosing a clan to play as. Each begins the game with different setups: alliances, provinces, and officers, which you’ll take custody of and command as you grow your control of Japan.

There is a tutorial, but as you may expect if you’re familiar with the genre, it’s pretty bare-bones, covering only the fundamentals you’ll need to get started and win a campaign on the easiest settings. After that, you’re on your own, left to unpack the other 70% of the game that the tutorial scarcely mentions.

It’s worth noting that, as the game advises, you’ll want to pick one of the easier levels first, not least because the tutorial can almost sabotage you at higher difficulties. I mistakenly jumped straight in at a medium difficulty level and followed the tutorial religiously, which led me straight into war with a far more powerful enemy.

You’ll want to start your game by checking out your territories, each of which consists of a castle and counties that contribute to resource production. Each district has a farm and fair that you can harvest to increase your monthly earnings, as well as slots for settlements that offer different benefits.

The castle county also has a town square that you can develop with various facilities. That’s not always down to you to decide, though; the art of Nobunaga’s Ambition: Awakening, really, is delegation.

Rise above your station

(Image credit: Koei Tecmo)

The first port of call, then, is assigning dominion over your lands to your officers. Officers can make or break your strategy; they’ll make judgment calls for you within their lands, though you can give guidance and structure if you want to micro-manage. You’ll recruit more and more as the game progresses through covert operations and recruitment drives, and you can choose which ones to hire based on how well their unique traits, skills, and relationships mesh with your strategy.

Each castle will need a Lord stationed from your more senior officers, and then you’ll want to assign dominion to counties to ensure the land is worked efficiently. As your Lord’s station improves, they’ll be able to pick up the slack and manage counties within their territory, too.

Officers will also recommend actions and make suggestions for how to engage in military or covert operations, which you can choose to accept or decline; but lean too far and you may find they’ll start acting on their own accord or lose loyalty towards you. As the fearless leader, you’ll also have your own castle; this can be managed autonomously by Substitutes instead.

Occasionally, they’ll even want to barter with you, whether because their loyalty has dropped low enough that they wish to part ways or because they’re offering a boon in exchange for land holdings. In each trade, you’ll need to hit a certain point value to secure the officer, and if you really want what they’re offering, you can up the ante to ensure they stick around for longer.

I found this mechanic to be a bit frustrating, given that I rarely seemed to have much to barter with, and when I did, it either drastically overdelivered or underdelivered.

Overall, Nobunaga’s Ambition: Awakening’s staff management mechanics are pretty satisfying and well-rounded. The game does well to give you tips and pointers in this department, and you can really affect the game’s outcomes with your staffing decisions. Unique traits of officers really can drive the game, especially when it comes to battle mechanics and officer proposals.

A council of your peers

(Image credit: Koei Tecmo)

Another core tenet of running an effective kingdom is consulting your council. However, much of this council management is left unexplained, and as the game gets pretty tied up in its own Sengoku-specific vocabulary, it’s hard to even find the help you need within game guides.

User guides online are fairly scant, too, but I can understand why. I can’t see myself pouring my blood, sweat, and tears into learning this behemoth of a strategy game and then spelling it out for the next player for free, either.

Policies are the backbone of progress in the game, and one of the areas I enjoyed the most during my playthroughs; they allow you to unlock new features, better delegation, and strengthen your forces. However, you’ll want to wait until you have excess gold before setting up any new ones, as some are pricey.

From the council menu, you can also bestow accolades to your officers, which increases their abilities and can even grant them special effects. These are earned by achieving significant accomplishments like clan targets and demonstrating loyalty.

You can also choose to give gifts of treasure to your officers to improve their stats and loyalty, marry them to an eligible Hime, and grant titles earned by appeasing the Imperial Court from this menu.

As you grow your lands, you’ll also want to divest more responsibilities onto your officers by heading to your council and setting up a new province to be ruled over by a regent.

These run fairly autonomously, and especially on harder difficulties, the choices you make to staff these regions can make or break your game; choose a warmongering Lord and you stand to lose a fair few allies.

Friends we made along the way

(Image credit: Koei Tecmo)

With your ultimate goal being unification, you might want to make some friends in high places, so you’ll need to put on your diplomacy hat and send your highest officers – or your daimyō – as a diplomat to rack up some goodwill with your neighbors, including a monthly gold stipend to woo them.

Once you’ve built trust, you can ask them to be your allies and help you in combat, negotiate peace between warring territories, or even solidify your alliance through marriage. You’ll also want to conduct diplomacy with powerful entities like the Shōgun and the Imperial Court, the latter of which can offer you official posts in exchange for (costly) diplomatic activities to help you improve your prestige.

I’ve mentioned vassals already; once you’re allied with a smaller clan that may want or need protection and acknowledges you as a superior force, you can ask them to become your vassal and effectively join your territory. In time, and especially under pressure, your vassals might decide to just absorb themselves into your clan altogether, but either way, these relationships count towards the end goal of unification.

Do be warned, though, if you don’t want to cheese the game too much; there’s at least one clan scenario you can play where the goal territory is occupied entirely by allies, meaning you can just load a new save, vassal-ize your allies and win before you’ve even assigned your first officer.

Generally speaking, the diplomacy in Nobunaga’s Ambition: Awakening is a good enough system, though you’ll want to really think about which allies make the most sense based on your goals; some allies may end up getting in the way of your expansion or be more trouble than they’re worth when enemies come knocking at their doors.

That being said, diplomacy lacks the intricacy required to offer a rewarding alternative to war. One frustration I found was that you seemingly can’t make a country with existing vassals your own vassal. I say seemingly because in the rafts of game guides available within the software, I can’t for the life of me find an alternative other than straight-up demolishing the vassal and then building relations with your target nation, at which point it’s likely better to just chip away at the territory of theirs that you want.

It’s also really frustrating that you work so hard for what can often be so little; it can take anywhere from two to six months even to accrue enough goodwill for reinforcements, and you don’t always get the all-out assault you want.

Considering it’s six to ten months to achieve enough goodwill for an alliance, too, you can wipe out a senior officer all year-round with diplomacy if you’re not careful, leaving their civil affairs at home unmanaged.

What are we doing today, brain?

(Image credit: Koei Tecmo)

Okay then, Nobunaga’s Ambition: Awakening – if it’s war you want, it’s war you’ll get. It’s nigh-on impossible to dodge combat for an entire save, so if you enjoy a pacifist playthrough, you might be better off with a more flexible strategy game like Sid Meier's Civilization 7.

Once you’ve chosen an enemy's castle as your target, your castles will start amassing soldiers and readying supplies for war, indicating preparedness with a little flame icon next to the castle town(s) selected as your militarization base. Once completed, you’ll direct troops to march, choosing from various strategies suggested by your officers as to the route taken as well as which, if any, provinces you control will join the fray. You can also conduct covert operations to spread rumors or incite revolts across enemy territory and weaken forces, or just raze or destroy target castles to help with upcoming battles.

En route, you’ll undoubtedly encounter enemy units, and if your senior commanders or daimyō are on the field, you’ll be able to trigger a battle event. Instead of passively watching the unit counters trickle down in an autonomous head-to-head, you have the opportunity to command each of your troops yourself with the assistance of your officer’s recommendations, and broadly speaking, I’d recommend doing so if you really want to cut down their troops.

Battling is generally quite fun, especially when the game throws you a historical fight sequence with a good lore drop.

Best bit

(Image credit: Koei Tecmo)

After hours of trial and error in higher difficulties, followed by more hours of learning the ropes in lower difficulties, I returned to the scenario that had me stumped to begin with and opted to manually control my troops for a challenging siege that I won in the first try. Nothing beats that feeling.

There are a few ways to win here: destroy the enemies’ path to escape, decimate their forces, or crush their morale with consecutive defeats on the field. Some battlefields also have strategic key points, and controlling these improves your armies’ standings and morale, too.

Battling is fun, but Siege encounters are a bit trickier. Maps are slightly more complex, and if you don’t manage to launch your attack on the castle before it’s finished preparing for your attack, you’ll have an even harder time as you encounter traps and barricades. These can be brutal, especially in the early stages, and if you don’t follow your officers’ advice to always bring three to five times the units your enemy has – and I’d really recommend you aim high.

If you want to skip these siege sequences altogether, you can – and they can be a little tedious if you mostly want to auto-play – but then you miss out on the authority mechanic. Winning battles will earn you authority, which can mean anything from lands submitting themselves to you to new (or fallen) alliances.

A beautiful mess

(Image credit: Koei Tecmo)

So, that’s gameplay covered, but what about the actual user experience of the game?

I mentioned already that the user interface is a little disappointing, and that point stands; crowded menus, unclear navigation, and clumsy controls make an already challenging game downright frustrating. It’s a shame, because the game itself isn’t bad, aesthetically. Sure, the map and menus are all dated, but the splash art is delightful, the music is immersive, and the voice lines are delivered with conviction and minimal cheese.

The standard button layout is really confusing and unintuitive, especially for navigation and menu access, but the biggest crime is the UI clarity and visibility. Battle and siege interactions play out on an unzoomable field, and when more than three or four units on each side are on the battlefield, it’s nigh-on impossible to see where your forces start and your enemies end, which can make manual controls for retreating and resting troops hard.

Thankfully, some of these complaints are deftly handled by having the Switch 2 as my platform of choice for this review; mouse mode makes navigating through rafts of menus and directing your troops far smoother than using a controller. In fact, I’d say unless you’re used to how the games lay out their UI on a controller, it’s the de facto way to enjoy Nobunaga’s Ambition: Awakening (outside of a PC, of course).

Still, there’s just a lot of chaos in the game and abundant quick fixes that could be made to streamline the interface. For example, annoyingly, if you want allies to send reinforcements as you march to battle, you’ll have to head to the alliance interface instead of conducting from your marching orders screen, which can often mean they arrive long after or before your troops.

Generally, automation and management are fine, but more options to issue mass directives for castle or province management would really help to reduce time spent clicking through various menus.

Not easy to love

(Image credit: Koei Tecmo)

Over time, I grew to really enjoy Nobunaga’s Ambition: Awakening. It’s an addictive uphill slouch for infrequent strategy players, but even for the more experienced, the work needed to fully learn the game might come as a blow.

Had I not needed to play it for this review, I might just have given up after the third or fourth false start, but having to persevere has earned the series a new fan. I can’t, in good conscience, rate it more highly than I have; it’s just too messy and inconsistent, and too many parts of the game stick out like a sore thumb for their shallowness when compared to the richness and complexity elsewhere.

Winning feels good, though, and not just because it’s despite the issues the game presents. Even on easier modes, nothing is handed to you on a platter, and you need to engage with the game’s source material and setting to reap the many rewards of playing Nobunaga’s Ambition: Awakening. If you’re up to the challenge, this game will bring it.

Should I play Nobunaga’s Ambition: Awakening?Play it if…

You love grand strategy
As far as strategy games go, this one has got most others beat with the sheer amount of micro controls, all while also giving you plenty to do at a macro level. View Deal

You enjoy battle tactics
War mechanics in this game are rich and fulfilling, offering a few different ways to play and clear direction to victory. Provided you can read the UI. View Deal

You want to keep coming back for more
There is so much replayability to Nobunaga’s Ambition: Awakening; not only to beat your own runtime, but also to play all the various clans across the years.View Deal

Don't play it if…

You hate a steep learning curve
Hoo boy, this is not the game for you. From controls all the way to core functions in the game, it’s a long road to knowing how to play.View Deal

You want more ways to win
Diplomacy plays a role in the game, yes, but I’ve yet to find a way you can achieve Nobunaga’s Ambition without at least a little bloodshed.View Deal

You can’t tolerate bad UI and UX
From confusing button layouts to nonsensical menus to its weak tutorial and hard-to-parse interfaces, sometimes Nobunaga’s Ambition: Awakening is physically tiring in its poor design. View Deal

Accessibility

Nobunaga’s Ambition: Awakening is far from an accessibility-first game, but there are some features of note.

The difficulty is adjustable to a fairly granular level; different scenarios offer different star ratings, but you can also head to settings before starting a scenario to adjust AI difficulty and behaviors right down to how clans form alliances.

You can also opt to spend more of the game delegating and focusing on macro controls if the micro management proves challenging.

Mouse controls are a boon to the game’s unwieldy AI, and could double as useful alternatives for those who can’t use Joy-Con control layouts. There are no specific audio accessibility features, nor are there colorblind or graphics settings.

How I reviewed Nobunaga’s Ambition: Awakening

I played Nobunaga’s Ambition: Awakening Complete Edition on the Nintendo Switch 2, racking up over thirty hours of gameplay. In that time, I set up multiple campaigns in different scenarios and difficulty settings, playing through to the victory scenario in each and trying all of the various features.

While using docked mode, I was playing on a 4K TV with the Nintendo Switch 2 Pro Controller. I also tried handheld mode using the Joy-Con 2 controllers and used mouse mode.

I love a good strategy game, clocking in over 250 hours playing Sid Meier’s Civilization 7 (and that’s only on one console where I own it!) and reviewing strategy games like Age of Empires 4.

First reviewed July 2025

Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., wants the USDA to revoke high-level access granted to the Department of Government Efficiency to a database that controls payments and loans to farmers and ranchers.

(Image credit: Christian Blaza for NPR)

Samsung and Motorola have two different approaches toward their highest-end flip-style Android phones.

• AWS unveils Kiro, an agentic AI way to code
• Kiro looks to help solve typically issues seen in "vibe coding"
• Kiro is in preview now, with three tiers set to be available

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has unveiled Kiro, an IDE which uses AI agents to streamline the development process.

Available now in preview, Kiro looks to cut down on potential issues with "vibe coding", the process where agents are being asked to create and build software with minimal human interaction.

As well as helping with coding, Kiro can also automatically create and update project plans and technical blueprints, solving one of the most troublesome issues for developers who are still getting to grips with the potential AI brings.

AWS Kiro

Announcing the launch, AWS said Kiro is looking to help transition from “vibe coding to viable code.”

It works by breaking down prompts into structured components, which can then be used to guide implementation and testing, as well as tracking any changes as the code evolves, ensuring no inconsistencies break through.

There's also Model Context Protocol (MCP) support for connecting specialized tools, steering rules to guide AI behavior across your project, and agentic chat for ad-hoc coding tasks.

Finally, it can also automatically check through code to make sure nothing is amiss, making sure developers can submit or launch code without fear of any problems.

Kiro looks, “to solve the fundamental challenges that make building software products so difficult — from ensuring design alignment across teams and resolving conflicting requirements, to eliminating tech debt, bringing rigor to code reviews, and preserving institutional knowledge when senior engineers leave," Nikhil Swaminathan, Kiro’s product lead, and Deepak Singh, Amazon’s vice president of developer experience and agents, said.

"Kiro is great at ‘vibe coding’ but goes way beyond that—Kiro’s strength is getting those prototypes into production systems with features such as specs and hooks."

For now, Kiro is free to use during the preview period, but it seems AWS is looking at introducing three pricing tiers: a free version with 50 agent interactions per month; a Pro tier at $19 per user per month with 1,000 interactions; and a Pro+ tier at $39 per user per month with 3,000 interactions.

"Kiro is really good at "vibe coding" but goes well beyond that," Amazon CEO Andy Jassy wrote in a post on X.

"While other AI coding assistants might help you prototype quickly, Kiro helps you take those prototypes all the way to production by following a mature, structured development process out of the box. This means developers can spend less time on boilerplate code and more time where it matters most – innovating and building solutions that customers will love.

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• Hackers only need cheap hardware and basic skills to stop a moving freight train remotely
• The American Association of Railways dismissed the threat until federal pressure forced a response
• The system still isn’t fixed, and full updates won’t arrive until at least 2027

A critical flaw in the wireless systems used across US rail networks has remained unresolved for more than a decade, exposing trains to remote interference.

The vulnerability affects End-of-Train (EoT) devices, which relay data from the last carriage to the front of the train, forming a link with the Head-of-Train (HoT) module.

Although the issue was flagged in 2012, it was largely dismissed until federal intervention forced a response.

Ignored warnings and delayed responses

Hardware security researcher Neils first identified the flaw in 2012, when software-defined radios (SDRs) began to proliferate.

The discovery revealed that these radios could easily mimic signals sent between the HoT and EoT units.

Since the system relies on a basic BCH checksum and lacks encryption, any device transmitting on the same frequency could inject false packets.

In a concerning twist, the HoT is capable of sending brake commands to the EoT, which means an attacker could stop a train remotely.

“This vulnerability is still not patched,” Neils stated on social media, revealing it took over a decade and a public advisory from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) before meaningful action was taken.

The issue, now catalogued as CVE-2025-1727, allows for the disruption of U.S. trains with hardware costing under $500.

Neils's findings were met with skepticism by the American Association of Railways (AAR), which dismissed the vulnerability as merely “theoretical” back in 2012.

Attempts to demonstrate the flaw were thwarted due to the Federal Railway Authority's lack of a dedicated test track and the AAR denying access to operational sites.

Even after the Boston Review published the findings, the AAR publicly refuted them via a piece in Fortune.

By 2024, the AAR’s Director of Information Security continued to downplay the threat, arguing that the devices in question were approaching end-of-life and didn’t warrant urgent replacement.

It wasn’t until CISA issued a formal advisory that the AAR began outlining a fix. In April 2025, an update was announced, but full deployment is not expected until 2027.

The vulnerability stems from technology developed in the 1980s, when frequency restrictions reduced the risk of interference, but today’s widespread access to SDRs has altered the risk landscape dramatically.

“Turns out you can just hack any train in the USA and take control over the brakes,” Neils said, encapsulating the broader concern.

The ongoing delay and denial mean US trains are probably sitting on a keg of gunpowder that could lead to serious risks at any time.

Via TomsHardware

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iRobot Roomba 205 DustCompactor Combo: two-minute review

The Roomba 205 DustCompactor Combo feels like a missed opportunity given iRobot's recent restructuring and slew of new upgraded floor bots. The unique dust compactor is an intriguing concept – the bot houses an oversized internal dustbin with a motorized paddle that compresses all debris, theoretically negating the need for a large self-emptying dustbin dock. However, in practice it's messy to deal with and ultimately impractical, especially if you have shedding pets in the home.

Granted, the 205's suction performance is acceptable enough – although not up there with what you'd get with one of the best robot vacuum on the market – its halfhearted mopping system is extremely outdated and when the mop pad is fitted, it prevents the robot from traversing rugs or carpet. The 205 is also a much noisier machine than any other robot vacuum cleaner I've thus far reviewed. And while its newly-adopted LiDAR navigation is clearly better than the company's previous V-SLAM camera-based incarnations, it also feels erratic and unsophisticated, at least when compared to other LiDAR systems.

I used to be a massive fan of iRobot products but I'm absolutely dumbfounded by how poorly its latest machines have behaved. The Roomba Combo 10 Max was mostly disappointing but I actually think that the Roomba 205 is worse. It's just so frustrating to use and requires too much intervention from the user. I wish I could recommend this model but it just doesn't perform as you'd expect for a robot vacuum cleaner in the year 2025.

(Image credit: Future)Roomba 205 DustCompactor review: price & availability

• List price: $469.99 / £399
• Launch date: March 2025
• Availability: Widely, including US and UK

With a list price of $469.99 in the US and £399 in the UK, the iRobot Roomba 205 DustCompactor Combo sits towards the top of the mid-range price bracket. Note that at time of writing, there's a $170 discount in the US.

Given all the peculiarities with this machine, if you don't mind making a little more space for a simple, small-bodied, self-emptying dock in your home, I would recommend doing some research on other models in the same price range. For instance, the Roborock Q5 Pro+ has a list price of $699.99 / £499.99 but can often be picked up for a similar price to the Roomba 205, and offers far more reliable performance.

Alternatively, if a small dock is the priority and you're not dealing with huge amounts of dust, it could be worth considering a model without dust compression. There are a number of cheaper options in this category, for example, the Dreame D9 Max Gen 2, which costs $299.99 / £219 at list price and impressed our reviewer.

If you're hellbent on going for the Roomba 205 DustCompactor Combo simply because of its unique bin system, by all means go ahead. But make sure your home is on the smaller side and with no rugs or carpet to block its path when the mopping pad is attached.

• Value for money score: 2.5 out of 5

Roomba 205 DustCompactor specs

Max suction:

Not stated

Robot size:

14 x 14.1in / 35.9 x 35.8cm

Robot height:

4in / 10.1cm

Dock dimensions (W x D x H):

3.5 x 5.9 x 5.3in / 9 x 15 x 13.5cm

Dust bin volume (onboard):

~ 1.5L

Water tank volume:

0.25L

Base type:

Charge only

Max noise level:

78dB at 5ft

Roomba 205 DustCompactor review: design

• Hybrid robot vacuum and mop with internal dust compression
• Compact, charge-only dock that refuses to stay put
• Only one rubber roller rather than iRobot's usual double rollers

Given the financial troubles that have besieged US brand iRobot during the past few years, it's good to see that the company has since restructured itself and developed a new range of robot vacs and mops entirely from the ground up. However, in design terms, I feel that the Roomba 205 is a pale shadow of its forebears like the Roomba ‘i' and ‘j' series, and especially the excellent S9+ (for my money, by far and away the best robot the company ever made).

The USP for the Roomba 205 DustCompactor Combo I'm reviewing here is that it's equipped with an extra large onboard dustbin (about 1.5 liters) with an internal motorized plastic paddle that swings back and forth to compact all detritus towards the back of the bin, thereby creating more space for subsequent cleaning sessions. That means it can offer a large dust capacity without the need to make space for a large auto-empty dock.

iRobot states a period of about 60 days before the bin needs emptying but I can see it filling up with dust and hair within a week or so if you have shedding pets in the home (this is not one to consider if you're on the hunt for the best robot vacuum for pet hair). On the plus side, you will never need to buy any extra dust bags.

(Image credit: Future)

From an aesthetics point of view, the 205's dock is almost invisible in a room so I can see the appeal of a back-to-basics approach like this. However, from my tests I've found that emptying the bin myself has been quite messy and not especially pleasant (I'll get into this more in the Performance section).

Personally, I'm not sure such an innovation is necessary, either. The are models on the market that have petite, unobtrusive self-empty docks equipped with large dustbin bags – I'd happily sacrifice those few more inches of floorspace for the relative ease of this setup.

Another drawback of iRobot's solution is that the 205's titchy dock is so light in weight that it shifts around when the robot is docking and this often causes the robot's contacts to fail to connect with the dock. It's even worse when the dock is placed on carpet – I tried this the first time I used the 205 and it failed to dock at all; the charging base simply refused to stay put.

(Image credit: Future)

Let's take a look at the unit itself. The Roomba 205 is roughly the same width as most robot vacs but a bit taller, which means it might not reach under some low furnishings.

Flip it over and you'll notice that the 205 has only one rubber roller brush, which is a bit strange considering that iRobot invented the twin roller brush that so many high-end robot vacs use these days. I'm not sure why, but this roller brush tends to clatter across my hard wooden floors and jitter over one of my Persian-style rugs as if it were on a corrugated surface, which is distinctly annoying.

iRobot doesn't list any of its robots' suction power in Pascals so it's difficult to tell how powerful it is in comparison to other bots on the market. But, hey, you can take it from iRobot that it's ‘70x the suction of the older 600 series', whatever that means. Incidentally, you get three levels of suction power with this unit – Light, Normal and Deep.

The 205 also comes with the obligatory side spinning brush for flinging wayward debris along edges into the path of its suction. However, unlike many newer (and perhaps pricier) robovacs with side brushes that automatically articulate outwards when traveling along edges and in corners, the 205's side brush is firmly fixed in position.

(Image credit: Future)

The 205 DustCompactor's mopping system comprises a simple mop pad with its own 250ml water container above it. The user takes charge of filling the tank and washing the pad – the dock won't help with this, as is the case with some bots.

For mopping, the robot will simply drag the pad along the floor. You can set the amount of water that's dispensed but just don't expect any miracles, especially when it comes to deep stain removal. This kind of basic mopping setup isn't unusual setup for an affordable robovac, and for general day-to-day floor cleaning it does pass some muster.

Me? I've removed it entirely because I've since discovered that the robot refuses to cross rugs or carpet if the mopping pad is attached, but more on that in the Performance chapter.

(Image credit: Future)

Given that iRobot has refused for years to include LiDAR as part of its navigation system, even when every other manufacturer and their dogs have, it's refreshing to note that the company has at last seen fit to include LiDAR navigation on the 205.

However, while most bots have their LiDAR turret in a raised puck their top surface, to allow a full 360-degree view, here iRobot has hidden it behind a narrow slot just above the camera, thus restricting the view to around 180 degrees. Thankfully the camera provides backup, although it's not AI enabled like so many models these days.

Setup

The iRobot Roomba 205 DustCompactor Combo arrives in a small box containing the robot, its tiny charging dock, a clip-on side brush and rear mop mount. Initial setup was relatively easy but only once I'd discovered that the old iRobot Home app isn't compatible with this model, so I downloaded the newly upgraded Roomba Home app instead.

All went according to plan until it connected to my Wi-Fi and then proceeded to automatically download the latest firmware update. That's normal, I thought, but then a warning popped up saying that ‘Roomba is having some trouble updating and to make sure Rosie (Rosie?) is docked with a good Wi-Fi connection'.

‘Rosie' was docked and the internet was fine so I waited a while, then got impatient and restarted it. It sprang to life again and gave the impression it was ready to work, so I commanded it to and it proceeded to spin round on its dock for about a minute, entangling itself on its own power cable.

(Image credit: Future)

I took it off the dock and placed it on the floor, whereby it started spinning again. At this point I thought I'd been handed a dud so I took it to a different area downstairs, plugged it in and left it to fully charge. Lo and behold, when I launched the app again, it showed the ‘start mapping' screen which suggests it was updating all along, only without any icons or progress bars to tell me so.

Anyway, I tapped the mapping button and it proceeded to map my entire floor plan efficiently and – because the roller brush was turned off – without getting caught on any rugs. The upshot of all this is that if you decide to buy a Roomba 205, just be patient and let it fully charge and complete its first firmware update, even if it says it's having trouble connecting, before trying to request any cleaning.

• Design score: 2 out of 5

iRobot Roomba 205 DustCompactor Combo review: performance

• Decent vacuuming but emptying is messy
• Woeful mopping and won't ride over carpet with mop attached
• Below average obstacle avoidance

After a confusing setup, the 205 started behaving as expected and mapped my open-planned, four-room downstairs area surprisingly quickly, even if it did create nine different rooms that I had to merge in the app. This is common with most robot vacs when mapping open-plan environments though it has to said that nine divisions is a record for me.

Also, for a LiDAR-equipped robot, the detail of its mapping in the app is lamentable and way behind the likes of Roborock, which displays every nook and cranny instead of just a basic overview of one's floor plan.

(Image credit: Future)

Since it's been running, the 205's LiDAR-based navigation has been mostly okay though I have had one or two issues where it has either got stuck while trying to cross a loose rug – a common issue with some models – or suddenly stopped dead next to a kitchen cupboard for no apparent reason. With most other robot vacuum I've tested, I've learned their working methods to some degree, but this model's navigation process remains largely a mystery to me.

Obstacle avoidance

As mentioned above, the Roomba 205's LiDAR is tucked under a slotted housing so it doesn't appear to give the robot a full 360–degree view. There is a camera on the front, however, and this seems to help with its obstacle avoidance. In my test I placed the usual assortment of dog toys in front of it, plus the obligatory phone cable. It carefully avoided the first two large toys but simply snow-ploughed all the others. As expected, it also rode over the phone cable and then dragged it along behind it for a while.

(Image credit: Future)

In the pantheon of obstacle avoidance, the Roomba 205 isn't the worst I've seen but it's not that great either, and clearly not a machine to have running around if you have (for example) a non-house trained puppy in the home.

Vacuum performance

Let's take a look at the vacuuming performance. There are few niggles to note up top. Firstly, as noted above, the Roomba 205's rubber roller made quite a racket as it trundled across my wooden hard floors. But perhaps worse than that was the monotonous high-pitched sound of the suction motor, which was clearly audible from meters away. I measured the sound waves at an average 78dB from five feet away and at an annoyingly high-pitched frequency of 660Hz.

Aside from the noise issues, the side sweeping brush fell off twice during my tests, despite being firmly connected before setting off.

(Image credit: Future)

To get an objective ideal of this bot's suction powers, I ran TechRadar's standard vacuuming tests. This involved sprinkling debris of different sizes – specifically, flour, muesli and rice – on the floor and assessing how efficiently the robot picked it up. Here, the Roomba 205 was pretty decent, though it did leave traces of flour in the cracks.

(Image credit: Future)

However, when I later went to the dock to grab a photo of the robot returning after a standard cleaning session, I noticed a small scattering of rice and muesli that it had deposited in front of the dock from its previous cleaning test, which suggests it never fully sucked all the rice and muesli into its bin and instead simply held some of it in its brush housing. This anomaly hasn't repeated itself on subsequent tests, so hopefully it was just a glitch.

(Image credit: Future)

I then proceeded to run the same tests on carpet. This proved to be quite a challenge, because although the app has a menu item called ‘furniture and zones' under the heading ‘routines', nothing happens when you tap it. What it should do is provide an editable square that can be expanded or contracted over a specific cleaning area.

In the end I opted to select ‘spot clean' which was equally tricky because the map for each room is very basic and cannot be expanded so it takes trial and error to find the exact spot that relates to a specific area. Anyway, I'm pleased – indeed surprised – to report that the 205 collected all evidence of rice and muesli though, like other robots I've tested using this method, it did leave some flour marks behind.

Dust compactor performance

Moving on to the unusual bin system. While the Compactor's paddle does indeed push all detritus to the outer edges of the bin, I found that emptying it has been quite messy and not especially pleasant.

Firstly, the lid of the robot's bin doesn't open anywhere near wide enough, so I couldn't find a practical solution for emptying its dusty and hairy contents into my average-sized Brabantia kitchen bin without some of the contents spilling all over the floor. Worse, my model has a sticky bin latch so I've had to be doubly careful when trying to open the bin lest its contents end up all over the floor and my clothing.

(Image credit: Future)

iRobot states ‘up to 60 days' of cleaning before the dustbin requires emptying but my test model required emptying after just eight days of vacuuming. I should add that I have two Labradors and two cats that regularly shed hair and my home is also surrounded by woodland and farm fields so it's dustier than most urban environments.

Mopping performance

Onto the mopping. First things first: if you have any rugs or carpet dividing your hard floors, this may be the last hybrid robot you want, because it will not traverse any rug or carpet when the mopping pad is fitted. I first thought that it was the small protruding lip at the bottom of the mop mount that was catching on my rugs but it transpires that the unit has a carpet sensor on board that, in my case, refused to allow the robot to proceed the moment the front half of the robot touched the rug.

It did do its darnedest to head over the rug en route to the hard floor kitchen, but after 10 minutes of trying at every conceivable angle, it eventually announced that it was unable to continue cleaning before returning to the dock, having not performed the assigned mopping task. I can't believe that I'm the only household in the world with rugs scattered over hard flooring but what I do know is that, for me, this model has proved to be as useless as a chocolate teapot when it comes to complete household cleaning without any human interjection.

(Image credit: Future)

Anyway, having failed to ride over my rugs, I resorted to carrying the bot to the kitchen so it could perform a spot clean on a spill of milk. I had to make several attempts at this because, as I had discovered for the carpet vacuuming test, the app's map is so unrefined that it's almost impossible to select a specific cleaning spot. Anyway, I eventually spilled some milk in its path and it duly soaked up the milk leaving no signs of it. But then I expected that – much like I'd expect a single swipe with a paper towel to do the same thing.

In its favor, it did also mop the rest of the area quite effectively, leaving only a damp swathe that dried up quickly. I then had to pick the robot up again and place it near its dock so it could get back to charging.

It's not unusual for a budget robot vacuum to have this kind of simple mopping setup (not including the refusal to pass over carpet – that is very unusual). More advanced bots will have pads that vibrate, rotate or press down to dislodge dirt, but you might need to pay a little more for this kind of setup.

• Performance score: 2.5 out of 5

iRobot Roomba 205 DustCompactor Combo review: app

• New app for this current range of Roombas
• Very basic with incomplete menus and unrefined maps
• Frustrating and slow to use

The new iRobot Home app was recently launched as a replacement for the older app that's now been renamed iRobot (Classic). Having used it extensively during the past week I can report that there's a lot of work to be done on making this app more user-friendly. Firstly, it's slow to send commands to the Roomba 205 and some user inputs cause a spinning cog wheel to pop up on screen while it sends its signal.

Perhaps I'm too used to Roborock's fully comprehensive app but I found the iRobot Home app to be too simplistic and, at times, very irritating to use. For instance, the floor plan maps it creates are so basic it's difficult to tell where one room ends and another begins. Also, its Spot Clean function is almost impossible to use since you can't expand the map in this menu and the little spot cleaning square it provides can't be placed exactly where you need it.

Image 1 of 2

(Image credit: iRobot)Image 2 of 2

(Image credit: iRobot)

Although the app allows you to create routines and standard cleaning schedules, and make adjustments to both vacuum power and water amount for mopping, you can't create any specific cleaning zones, like in front of the dog bed or a specific rug. Bizarrely, there is an option to select ‘Furniture and Zones' but when you click on this function, nothing at all happens. I'm sure iRobot will be adding improvements to this app going forward but, as it stands, it's woefully inadequate.

• App score: 1.5 out of 5

Should you buy the iRobot Roomba 205 DustCompactor Combo?

Attribute

Notes

Rating

Value

Mid-friendly price, but performance issues make it a poor investment. Other cheap bots work much better.

2.5 / 5

Design

Hybrid robot vacuum and mop with internal dust compaction and a simple, small dock. An intriguing idea let down by multiple design flaws.

2 / 5

Performance

Decent vacuuming but mopping is basic, and navigation and obstacle avoidance are mediocre at best. Noisy and glitchy in use.

2.5 / 5

App

Overly simplistic, buggy and irritating to use, the new iRobot Home app needs a serious overhaul.

1.5 / 5

Buy it if...

You absolutely do not want a large dock
The Roomba 205's dust compactor system means it can hold more dust than most bots with charge-only docks.

Your home has a simple layout
The 205's basic navigation means it's best suited for simple floor plans.

Don't buy it if...

You have pets
The compacting bin will fill too quickly with hair – if you have shedding pets, it's worth investing in a bot that comes with a self-empty dock.

You want hands-off cleaning
You will need to empty the bin and clean the mop yourself here, and I experienced various issues that required manual intervention in use.

It's at full price
Although not expensive within the market, there are similarly priced (and indeed, cheaper) robovacs that offer much better performance.

How I tested the iRobot Roomba 205 DustCompactor Combo

As is the way with all TechRadar tests, we live with the product for as long as possible, observing its day-to-day functions and generally appraising it from afar. We then get down to some serious testing while making copious notes on the product's performance.

In the case of the iRobot Roomba 205 DustCompactor Combo, I had it installed at home for just over a week while I observed its navigation behaviour. I then proceeded with my vacuum, mopping tests on both hard floor and carpet using a variety of household ingredients in order to replicate a real-world scenario. I then tested its obstacle avoidance system using some dog toys and the obligatory phone cable.

I should add that this particular review took me a lot longer to complete than usual because the machine in question failed to behave as I expected. Hence, I had to spend extra time repeating tests to make sure its previous hiccups weren't just one-off glitches.

Read more about how we test robot vacuum cleaners

• First reviewed July 2025

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