Don’t chalk up the bot as a total loss until you check to see whether the broken part is available as a replacement. Once we whittle down each test group to arrive at our picks, we keep running those bots, and we examine how loud each one is (using a decibel meter), what replacement parts are available, and what warranties are offered. It will look stupid sometimes, and that can shatter the illusion that you have an artificially intelligent magic machine. Like our top pick, the Roborock Q5 can map multiple levels of your home, so it knows where to clean and where not to clean.
Generally, you’ll find her watching the latest Netflix series, digging around in the garden or attempting to make a cake that is edible. Rachel Cericola is a senior staff writer at Wirecutter who has been covering smart-home technology since the days of X10. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Wired, shark cordless Men’s Health, USA Today, and others. She hopes her neighbors read this bio because it would explain why she always has four video doorbells running simultaneously outside her home. If your bot breaks down outside of the warranty period, you may be able to repair it, particularly if it’s a Roomba model.
However, it’s a good buy for large homes with plenty of hard floors and, thanks to app control and voice integration, busy families, too. The iRobot Roomba S9+ is the best robot vacuum you can buy right now, although, with such a hefty price tag, it will be out of the reach of some. It proved simple to use during testing, and the S9+ impressed us when it came to sucking everything from fine dust and biscuit crumbs to cereal on hard floors. However, its pick-up on carpets wasn’t quite shark cordless as thorough – although our existing cordless vacuum also struggled to suck up some of the remaining fine dust, suggesting this is deeply embedded into the pile. This small, practically silent robot is an ideal inexpensive option for a cozy apartment or to use as a second bot for an upstairs space or home office. Currently selling for $180, it lacks smart mapping features, has no smart obstacle avoidance, doesn’t have an auto-empty dock option, and only runs for 90 minutes.
For example, you can’t use Siri to set up Automations as you can with Alexa and Google Assistant—though to be fair, Automations on those two platforms are pretty limited, as well. Using Alexa, Rachel was able to create an automated Routine that would tell the Roomba i4 EVO to start vacuuming whenever Rachel and her smartphone left her house. However, as with most robot vacuums, you could also set a Schedule to accomplish these tasks. For every robot vacuum, we run at least two regular cleaning cycles across about 1,000 square feet, with lots of obstacles and thresholds.
But I like how easy they are to repair, a crucial factor for an expensive gadget you’d like to use for many years. While parts are costly, they are readily available, including mechanical bits like wheels and the entire cleaning module. Roborock, for example, doesn’t sell spare parts beyond bags, bins, and brushes on its accessories site; you have to ship the robot to the company for any repairs.
“The goal of this is to limit noise output when it isn’t actively running,” said Williams. By looking at best practices for choosing a robot vacuum and the different features Roomba offers, it can be easier to figure out which one fits your needs, space and budget. For starters, let’s consider what a robot vacuum gives you and what features actually matter.