If you have both carpet and hard flooring throughout your home, you might want to consider a hybrid that can do double duty as a vacuum and a mop, such as the Deebot Ozmo T8 AIVI or the Bissell SpinWave Wet and Dry. Standalone robot mops aren’t eligible for this list because they don’t suck up dirt and debris, but they can leave your hard floors nice and shiny. With so many different features to choose from, which robot vacuum is right for you? Read on for our top picks, as well as all the factors you should consider when buying a robot vacuum.
It never got stuck on common obstacles like power cords and long curtains, and had no trouble sucking up dust, hair, and other debris. That’s one feature I was happy I never got to test while reviewing this Roomba, as my cat kept all of her activity to her litter box. Otherwise, the Roomba j7 did a good job sucking up dirt and debris around my apartment and it didn’t make too much noise while doing so.
“WiFi connected robot vacuums can also provide maintenance tips and reminders via the companion app, even offering health status updates on various components, such as filters and roller brushes,” Hild says. “Even though I own a Dyson Animal V8, I hardly ever use it now because the Yeedi has become my primary vacuum cleaner,” our long-term tester said. “I run the robot vacuum twice each day during the week, and on the weekends, I run it once per day. Now, the only time I use my Dyson is to clean the furniture my dog rests on or any nooks and crannies that the Yeedi vacuum can’t get to.” Handle debris, sticky messes, and liquid spills alike with a multi-purpose vacuum and mop.
Floors cluttered with obstacles like wires, charging cords, toys, shoes and clothing can stop robots in their tracks. Some robot vacuum models clean tile, wood flooring and different types of carpet better than others. Over the years, we’ve consistently noted that robot vacuums that use laser-guided lidar navigation tend to be very good at mapping their environment and finding their way around. Meanwhile, 3D-mapping cameras with object recognition smarts can give robot vacuums an extra ability to identify and adapt to obstacles in their path. The Roborock S7 MaxV uses both technologies, which helps explain why it performs so well here.
The 3-stage Cleaning system is included with a self-charging feature, so you do not have to worry about fussing with the dock; it can find its way home to charge. Did you participate in data collection efforts by iRobot or other robot vacuum companies? The earliest model, the Swedish-made Electrolux Trilobite, came to market in 2001. It used ultrasonic sensors to locate walls and plot cleaning patterns; additional bump sensors on its sides and cliff sensors at the bottom helped it avoid running into objects or falling off stairs. But these sensors were glitchy, leading the robot to miss certain areas or repeat others.
It gets our vote for the best of it’s kind with AI which utilizes an RGB camera and 3D structured light to quickly learn the home, tailor cleaning strategies, and auto-generate paths according to the type of obstacle, flooring, and room. The battery provides up to 300 minutes of runtime on the lowest suction setting. However, despite its D-shaped design, which Neato says is suitable for edges and corners of rooms, we found it struggled to collect all of the debris from the corners shark cordless and crevices of the baseboards in our home. Look no further than this model if you want a robot vacuum that’s great for collecting pet hair and other dust and debris. If you love the idea of a robot vacuum that can mop and vacuum, but you’re on a budget – this hybrid floor cleaner from Eufy is well worth considering. At just under half the price of the Ecovacs Robovacs that can mop as well – and often discounted – this certainly comes with a more affordable price tag.
With just a 75-minute runtime, this is another iRobot model that would be better in a smaller space, said Williams, though it is a step up from the 600 series. The Roomba i series are equipped with tracking sensors, so instead of random navigation around your home, the i series can clean bare floors and carpeting in neat, straight lines, says the brand. The Roomba i3 EVO is a standalone vacuum, but the i3+EVO comes with a self-emptying dock. IRobot vacuums are a type of robot vacuum that combine cleaning materials with wheels in order to move around your home.
Despite their many joys, the best robot vacuums can be quite pricey – although prices are definitely coming down. So to ensure you get the most cleaning bang for your bucks, we’ve tested eight of the leading models in our own homes to really put them through their paces. We’ve put all their key features to the test – runtime, suction power, mapping and automation capabilities and more – to help you find the best robot vacuum for you and your home. To find the best bots for your buck, we’ve spent the last several years torture-testing the top robotic vacuums in our lab and in our homes.
Another option is to set up do-not-cross lines or no-go zones, which is a great way to keep bots out of areas where they tend to get stuck or make a mess (like around pet food bowls). The dust- and crumb-pickup stress tests are meant only to give us an idea of each bot’s cleaning power—they don’t tell the whole story, and we don’t place much weight on them when we’re deciding which models to recommend. We’ve found that as long as a robot has a brush roll and a side brush, it’ll pick up crumbs, tufts of pet hair, and other common debris from bare floors and low-pile rugs. That’s enough to keep most homes tidy, and most owners seem happy with those results. If you have thicker rugs, or if you just feel like owning a stronger bot, go ahead and spend a little more on a bot with better brushes or stronger suction.