The Joovy Roo peaked our interest during our investigation largely because the Roo is so visibly different than any of the other car seat strollers in the review. There are several features of the Roo that we find to be very forward looking, primarily the lowering of the parent tray, and what this means for the safety of baby. The full breakdown of the Joovy's performance follows below.
The Roo earned a 6 of 10 rating in ease of use, which places it in the bottom half of our review.
Ease-of-FoldingOne of the primary goals of a car seat frame stroller is that the product should be easy to use. During our testing we found the Roo difficult to fold. The first obstacle we encountered was the physical strength required to activate the fold mechanism. When compared to the other competitors we found that the Roo fold trigger may require a both hands, whereas others were much easier to activate. Secondly the fold lock on the Roo is manual, and will definitely require two hands to engage and to release.
StorageNotably the cup holders on the Roo are located below the infant's car seat. This is a significant improvement over the design of most competing products. Joovy explains on their website that they have chosen to make this design choice for the safety of baby. We like the idea of storing beverages below baby. The premise is that by keeping the cup holders lower than baby, the likelihood of spills on baby or that a container will become dislodged and fall on baby is reduced.
The Roo boasts the deepest cup holders at 3.5" and we like this because the deeper the cup holder, the more likely it is to keep a beverage container from falling out.
The Roo also does not self-stand when folded, unlike top scoring competitors. The ability to self-stand is convenient when trying to store the stroller, or when loading and unloading the car.
The Roo earned a 7 of 10 rating in ease of attaching. The Roo comes with adapters for each of the car seats it is compatible with, and one of these needs to be installed for your car seat brand as part of the set up process. Once configured we found the seats sit nicely inside the frame and demonstrate a secure connection. However, to get the seat to fully click in, we needed to use a fair amount of downward pressure. In comparison, top scoring competitors would click in solidly with much less effort required.
The Roo has a click-in system that is meant to work with three brands of car seat, and we find click-in systems substantially better than strap-in systems. The Roo required significant downward force to get a solid click in connection. Worse, when using the Chicco seat, we could occasionally hear a click, but with only one side of the seat actually latched in. Because of this, the Joovy's score in safety suffered. Once properly connected, the seats were held firmly and we found that they had little lateral wobble.
We found the brakes on the Roo are easy to operate, and are quite sandal friendly. We found them firm, and they held the stroller well.
The Joovy placed in the bottom half of our review with a 5 of 10 rating in our maneuverability tests. There were a couple inescapable flaws, which ultimately lead to the Roo taking home the third worst score in the test.
We found it difficult to maneuver the Roo one handed, particularly if you are trying to move quickly.
The Roo handles bumps and thresholds reasonably well, and notably better than other car seat strollers in the review. We did not have to lift the front wheels in order to cross through doorways or over uneven surfaces.
The Roo has front suspension, but we did not find that it provided signficant advantages over competitors with no suspension.
The front wheels can be locked out, which can aid in traversing off pavement surfaces.
We found the Roo did well when ascending or descending a curb. There is little flex in the frame, and provides solid control as the stroller navigates the obstacle.
The Roo ranked at the very bottom of our Folded Size / Weight category, with a 6 of 10 rating. The Roo is the heaviest stroller in our review, and while 16 lbs 5oz is still light compared to full size strollers, it is noticeably heavier than competitors. For comparison, the Graco SnugRider weighs in at just 13 lbs 6oz, and yet is more fully featured.
The Roo lists at $100 and can be found online for about $60, which is an attractive price. However, we would still recommend spending a bit more for the better performing competitors.
The Joovy Roo is a quality product with a unique capability to provide click-in connection to three top brands of car seats: Graco, Chicco, and Peg Perego. Each of these brands offers a competing car seat frame stroller that provides stiff competition for the Roo:
Graco SnugRideIf you own a SnugRide car seat, either a classic connect or click-connect, we find the Graco Snugrider to be a better value than the Roo, due to significantly better performance. Even though the Graco costs about $30 more, we believe the performance justifies the cost.
Chicco KeyFitThe Joovy will accept the Chicco KeyFit car seats, but we found the Chicco KeyFit Caddy outperformed the Roo in almost every category. While costing about $30 more, we think the KeyFit Caddy's performance relative to the Roo makes it worth the additional expense.
Peg Perego Car Seats
