Wirecutter’s Liam McCabe wrote the previous versions of this guide, evaluating some 200 robots and testing close to 50 models since 2012. We now recommend the iRobot Roomba i4 EVO (and the iRobot Roomba i4+ EVO, with included dock) as the best robot vacuum. Next to each product on this list, you may have noticed a Real Simple Selects seal of approval. Any product appearing alongside that seal has been vetted by our team—put through tests and graded on its performance to earn a spot on our list. Although we buy most of the products we test, sometimes we do get samples from companies if purchasing a product ourselves isn’t an option.
We think any household device that saves time and energy is worth the money, especially a hands-free robot vacuum. There are budget-friendly models that are quite effective in removing dirt and debris from carpet, even if they don’t have all the bells bissell crosswave cordless and whistles of their more expensive counterparts. If there is room in your budget to splurge on a pricier device, know that the premium models on our list have features galore that might make you actually look forward to cleaning your house.
The i3 has an attractive woven plastic gray top — a nice change from most of the shiny black plastic you find in this category (a magnet for dust, fingerprints, and scratches). It still gets stuck on common robot traps such as phone charging cables, cat toys, and in my house, the skinny feet of a lounger chair. You do need to tidy up a bit before you set it free, but it does dyson robot vacuum better with large cables and rug tassels than many other robots. (iRobot has anti-tangle tech that makes the bot reverse course if it starts to get tangled.) This works pretty well for bigger items but, sadly, not phone charging cords. For several hundred dollars less than the j7, the i3 has similar software features, the same suction level, and a slightly smaller battery.
But the VibraRise feature can only clear low-pile rugs, so I set a no-mopping zone around my plush floor coverings. The Electrolux Pure i9 is an oddity that we want to love but can’t recommend. The iRobot Roomba 677 vacuum cleaner takes all the guesswork out of automatically cleaning your home. You can easily schedule the Roomba to remove dirt, dust, and debris with the iRobot HOME app or your voice assistant.
But it didn’t recognize (or at least didn’t try to avoid) our other obstacles, including toys, a sock, a shoe, and a water bowl. We like this bot for a lot of other important reasons (expected durability, cleaning power, smart navigation), and the obstacle recognition is almost like a toss-in feature, so it isn’t a bad buy. The company has a good history of following through on those kinds of promises, but you should expect the improvements to trickle out over several years, not months. We’ve tested a handful of its laser-nav bots over the past few years, including the Deebot Ozmo T8 AIVI (a higher-end but otherwise similar version of the N8 and N8 Pro). All of the Ecovacs models we’ve tested worked fine when they were new, but you can usually find a better bot for a lower price.
We measured the decibel rating of each vacuum we tested, and the quietest option was the Samsung Jet Bot AI+ Robot Vacuum Cleaner, which was only 68 decibels. The object avoidance technology was also impressive; when we tried it at home, we noticed how well it avoided walls and table legs due to the sensor, even rerouting around the dog on its way back to the charging base. It does a great job of picking up dog hair and dust, as well as chunkier debris (we even noticed a few screws in the dustbin). If you have a large home, a complex layout, or you only want your robot vacuum to clean certain rooms at a time, you’ll likely find that vacuums with mapping technology are the best to use. We found that the Ecovacs DeeBot T9+ Vacuum and Mop Combo was the best robot vacuum with mapping, as it easily navigated around obstacles during our real-world tests. After completing a cleaning job, this robot vacuum will automatically empty everything it picked up into the dispenser, so you’ll never have to come in contact with the grime from your floors.
It’s really up to you, but the advantage of a robot vacuum is that it can clean floors more often than many people are willing to vacuum. If you schedule it to run every few days, or even every day, dust and crumbs never have a chance to accumulate, leaving your floors feeling cleaner than they would without a bot. In most homes, a bot is likely to stay in good shape if you do about 15 minutes of maintenance per month, maybe a bit more if the bot has a heavy workload. In December 2022, an shark cordless MIT Technology Review article revealed that images captured by cameras on development models of iRobot Roomba vacuums were leaked publicly by a third-party company, Scale AI, with whom iRobot had shared the data. Another surprisingly useful upside to the basic Eufy bots is their short body. At 2.85 inches, the 11S is almost a full inch shorter than the Roomba 694, enough for it to glide under even lower-clearance furniture, where dust and hair build up but never see the light of day.
Whatever you do, don’t choose a model based on claims around pet hair removal alone — confirm its performance where possible, which is where our tests will help you out. According to Williams, the Roomba 600 series is “great for dorms, small homes, apartments and condos because they run on battery power and have only a 60-minute runtime before automatically heading back to home base to recharge. The iRobot 600 series contain its most basic models, with the Roomba 614 being the most affordable at under $300.
If you’re a beginner in the robot vacuum world, this is probably not the model for you. If you have the patience to let this device map and learn your home, then it can be worth the splurge. As one of the most popular robot vacuum brands, it’s generally easier to find replacement parts for Roomba vacuums, which will enable you to keep it in good shape for longer. But Williams recommends regularly cleaning and replacing air filters, inspecting and cleaning the rollers and occasionally wiping down the sensors on the bottom of each robot. The iRobot Roomba S9+ is self-emptying when it reaches a certain level in its bin.