The S8’s obstacle avoidance is good; it rarely got derailed or trapped, but it’s not as consistent as Roborock’s S7 MaxV Ultra or Roomba j7 and did suck up the occasional cable. The S8 is a powerful, capable vacuum and mop and a good option with or without the auto-empty base. It’s worth noting that the Roomba i4 is the same robot vacuum as the i3 Evo, so pick up whichever offers the best price. But there’s no option to add keep-out zones in the app; you’ll need to buy iRobot’s virtual walls if there are places you don’t want the robot to go. These are little towers that emit a 10-foot barrier or a four-foot circle.
The real benefit here is that you don’t have to tidy up before you run your vacuum (although cluttered floors won’t get as clean). It also means that it rarely gets stuck during a job, so you won’t come home to a beached bot and a half-clean house. I’ve tested a number of “AI” bots, dyson robot vacuum and the j7 avoids debris the most reliably. The iRobot Roomba is equipped with a laser sensor that directs it around obstacles and walls. It also has sensors on the underside of the device that detect changes in elevation, allowing it to transition from bare floor to carpet.
The Roborock S7 MaxV uses both technologies, which helps explain why it performs so well here. Meanwhile, the Roomba relies on cameras and sensors alone, with lasers left out of the mix. Yes, every Wi-Fi-connected robot vacuum worth its salt today works with Alexa or Google smart speakers for voice control. However, some are limited to stop / start and pause, and maybe suction level, whereas others can be told to go clean specific areas. Then there’s the S8 Pro Ultra with a cleaner-looking dock, the option of white, the mop drying feature, and the new dual roller brushes.
It’s also great if you have a pet that sheds dog hair or cat hair daily. Most robot vacuums are designed for bare floors and medium-pile carpets. If you own throw rugs that are taller than a half-inch, your robot vacuum might not be able to climb atop it, and if it does make it up, it may get stuck. In the first two runs, we placed cork pellets under the shelves and between the furniture legs. When we let the robot vacuum loose, we look for how long a cleaning cycle takes, what obstacles it was able to clean thoroughly, and overall debris pickup. After a week of testing, we found that the L70 has no breakthrough technology, but it does have the navigation and suction power of more expensive robot vacuums.
This process is quite loud and takes two or three minutes to complete as the little brush in the base runs back and forth across the mop and scrubs it. This extends the time it will take to completely clean your home (although you can tweak the timing in the app). The mop cleaning and drying process is efficient; theoretically, you don’t need to remove the pad after every run. But I recommend throwing it in the washing machine when emptying the dirty water tank. The S7 MaxV Ultra has the same sonic VibraRise mopping action as the S8, so it mops very well. Its AI-powered obstacle recognition is a different AI tech than the S8, and it works better; this bot never gets caught on cables and successfully avoids pet waste.
When looking for the best budget robot vacuum, one of the first things you should consider is the types of floors you have in your home. Carpets demand vacuums with more suction power that can pick up debris pushed down into nooks and crannies. Unfortunately, there isn’t a universal metric by which suction is measured. Some companies provide Pascal (Pa) levels and generally the higher the Pa, the stronger. But other companies don’t rely on Pa levels and simply say their robots have X-times more suction power than other robot vacuums.
The vacuum also had very little trouble with obstacles, climbing over bumps and getting under four inch shelves. Keep things clean and stay connected with the iRobot Roomba i4 EVO robot vacuum. It connects to your wi-fi so that you can control the vacuum without lifting a finger.