There are three key disadvantages of your typical robot vacuum cleaner. The first is that, obviously, it can’t tackle stairs and, similarly, can often have trouble dealing with certain raised floors and furniture. This is the most expensive robot vacuum cleaner we’ve reviewed. Cleaning power and performance may go some way towards justifying the cost, but there are alternatives that do a good job for a lot less. Thanks to its powerful motor, the Dyson 360 Heurist cleans as well as a regular vacuum cleaner, sucking mess out of carpet and hard floors with ease, cleaning right up to the edges of the room. Robot vacuums start in the $250 range for some of the Deebot models, and go up to near $1,000 for the latest Roomba or Samsung robot vacuums.
And, as the label on the top of the machine says, the new vac will be powered by one of Dyson’s new “Hyperdymium” motors. This is the name that Dyson has given to its new brushless motor, which allows it to create powerful, lightweight machines. How long they will work before you need to empty them depends on the size of your home dyson robot vacuum and how messy the people living there are. But expect to empty them every 1-3 runs and you won’t be disappointed. The EufyHome app is as intuitive as we would like, and – once we switched our router to the correct bandwidth (it only likes 2.4GHz) – we were able to connect, control, add schedules and do spot-cleans with ease.
The Micro is as compact as Dyson gets but its diminutive size is deceptive as it gets the job done over the course of its 20-minute battery life. The 0.2-litre capacity isn’t all that sizeable but should carry you through in smaller living spaces or if used for single-room cleaning. The Roomba’s run time is 75 minutes, but charge time is only 90 minutes, so you can schedule it to clean up twice a day or more.
It can’t get under as many things as a Roomba, it still bumps into thin things and it still can’t clean everything, meaning it’s not the only vacuum you need to own. Out of the 0.2 ounces of pet hair, it collected 0.17 ounces on the mid-pile carpet, 0.19 ounces on the low-pile carpet, and 0.19 ounces on the hardwood floor. Since we’re talking about 0.01 shark cordless differences in some cases, this result is still excellent. It also has that classic Dyson aesthetic going on, even though this is the brand’s first robot vacuum. Since I tend to like Dyson products from a pure design-appreciation standpoint, I like the 360 Eye’s looks, too. Specifically, it’s swathed in a glossy gray finish with bright blue accents.
Fitted with tank tracks rather than wheels, the Dyson 360 Heurist can power over different levels of flooring and even push through deep-pile carpets. For the latter, the option to turn off the brush bar means you can, to a degree, even clean deep-pile carpets and rugs that other cleaners would get stuck on. Dyson believes this solves one of the most common problems with other robot vacuum cleaners which is that because they can’t see, they end up missing parts of the house.
Like Dyson’s handheld vacuums, its robot vacuum operates using cyclonic action, which reportedly allows it to capture particles as small as pollen. The company claims the 360 Eye sports the strongest suction of any robot vacuum, thanks to being equipped with Dyson’s proprietary digital motor. That said, the 360 Eye is frustrated by a couple of things in my home. Specifically, it has issues with sloped pedestal stands for chairs, including ones found on my living room lounger, and those which support my kitchen bar height stools. The Dyson bot regularly tries to climb these, seems to hesitate about it halfway over the lip, and then essentially gives up, freezing until I come and reposition it.
“Engineers are dreadful — they always have better ideas. I don’t mind that — I think it’s quite a good habit.” The point being, he continues, that his company spent a lot of money in 16 years “to make the right product.” The gap sensors that prevent it from taking a tumble down stairs work well, but unlike my Roomba, it doesn’t think the black portions of my area rug are pits into which it might tumble. With the Roomba, I was able to work around the issue by taping pieces of paper over the gap sensors and walling off the open stairwell to the basement with one of its virtual wall emitters. Its smaller footprint makes a difference in its ability to get in and around table and chair legs, and it takes up less space when sat on its dock, which makes it a lot easier to live with in cramped flats and terraces. Taking the bin out and emptying it is quick and easy, but it is a small bin and you might have to empty it mid-run if you have particularly dirty carpet. Of the dozen-plus autonomous floor cleaners we’ve tested to date, it holds its own alongside the best of the best.