Erica Puisis writes about home products for The Spruce and specializes in interior design and plant care. She’s contributed to Forbes and smart home blogs like Smart Home Solver and TechDigg. Get the latest Black Friday and Cyber Monday offers by visiting our deals homepage and following @EngadgetDeals on Twitter. Upgrade your lifestyleDigital Trends helps readers keep tabs on the fast-paced world of tech with all the latest news, fun product reviews, insightful editorials, and one-of-a-kind sneak peeks. Perfect for home and pet owners alike, the iRobot Roomba e6 is the ultimate cleaning companion, capable of daily cleaning and filtering up to 99% of allergens with ease.
The vacuums we’ve tested are equipped with lasers, motherboards, sensors, and even Wi-Fi to navigate around your home without assistance. With a few exceptions, you barely have to interact with them at all. The options are more capable and affordable than ever, and we’ve rounded up the best robot vacuums to help you pick one that’s just right for your home. Whether it’s spilled crisps from the kids, pet hair from the dog or general dust from every day living, the floors always need a good hoover. There is an app for the ILIFE V9e which can be connected to Alexa so you can give voice commands, but that’s the most notable tech feature of this robot.
Some of the most advanced robot vacuums, such as the Ecovacs Deebot Ozmo T8 AIVI, feature artificial intelligence technology to automatically identify and avoid obstacles like shoes and toys. Premium models may also feature a camera, letting you view live video of your home from wherever you are. While pricey, iRobot’s Roomba j7+ robot vacuum has smarts to spare, with a guarantee to avoid pet waste and a self-emptying base that means you rarely have to lift a finger. Though it’s not Wi-Fi connected, with the remote, you can direct the robot to clean only the edges, or do a quick spot clean, which it did very well.
There are more robovacs than ever on the market today and they have come a long way from the very first one we tested in our Good Housekeeping Institute Cleaning Lab way back in 2002. We regularly test all types of vacuums in our Labs, from stick vacuums to canister vacuums to HEPA vacuums to irobot vacuum cleaner vacuums for pet hair and so much more. The size and square footage of your home should play a key role in how you choose which Roomba is right for you. A smaller house or apartment won’t need a Roomba with the longest battery life or the largest dust bin available, but a larger home might.
Like with most robot vacuums, sensors prevent it from falling down stairs, but it’s best to set up a virtual barrier. We measure the particles and pet hair they pick up from carpet and hard floors. With 40 times the suction power of a standard Roomba, the s9 simultaneously lifts away small and large debris from all floor surfaces and extracts embedded crumbs from carpets.
You can send it out to tackle high traffic areas that need deeper cleaning or messes you need picked up in a hurry with UltraClean mode. Keep in mind that you will need to use the app to access all the extra customization features this robot has to offer. The bag can hold the dirt and debris from up to 30 cleaning sessions, irobot vacuum cleaner and the unit will alert you within the app when it’s time to change the bag. This is Roomba’s most independent vacuum yet, meaning you don’t have to frequently empty the small, onboard dust bin. The Roomba 694 connects to WiFi and works with iRobot’s mobile app, which lets you turn on the robot, set schedules and more.