We’ve seen the videos, those tragic tales of robot vacuum cleaners leaving a trail of puppy poop behind. For all of their AI technology, they simply don’t recognize one fact. Some messes just won’t vacuum up neatly. Your robotic cleaning device ends up doing more harm than good. Roomba maker iRobot says they’ve nipped the problem in the bud. A writer at Daily Paws put this to the test. In her testing, the latest Roomba j7+ really does have the digital smarts to avoid pet messes.

I came home late from work one night to see that my elderly Chihuahua had missed the wee pad by a good bit and left her own dollop of poop on my kitchen floor. I had scheduled the Roomba for a run that was set to begin in a few minutes, so instead of cleaning up the accident myself, I decided to see what the j7+ would do.

It expertly avoided my pup’s poop. I was absolutely in awe. Once again, after the clean, the iRobot app asked me if this was a temporary obstacle, and I confirmed.