A self-cleaning brushroll is particularly helpful for carpets topped with a layer of shedding. The multi-stage filtration system that traps dust and dander is another added bonus for pet parents or indoor allergy sufferers. IRobot also has a new series of automated mops under the Braava name. Like a Roomba, a Braava mop will clean your floors for you, using a spray-and-wipe method that goes deeper than a simple vacuum.
It also cleaned up more dog hair, pet dander and allergens than any other vacuum in this test group. The S9 Plus can navigate and map multiple rooms and floors, while avoiding “keep-out zones” that you can designate. The app also lets you use Alexa or Google Assistant commands to tell it to begin cleaning a room.
The Eufy RoboVac X8 seems to be a fine laser-nav robot vacuum based on our testing, but it’s relatively expensive and doesn’t offer meaningful improvements over the cheaper models. Its defining feature is supposed to be its strong suction, with two turbines pulling 2,000 pascals each (whereas most laser-nav bots have a single turbine and less than 2,500 pascals of suction total). That’s fine, but it’s still a tiny fraction of the suction you’d get from a traditional vacuum and only makes the X8 a marginally better cleaner than a much more affordable robot, like the Roborock S4 Max. The older Eufy RoboVac L70 is still available as well, but its app is not capable of permanently remembering specific rooms in your home, which makes it substantially less convenient than most current laser-nav bots.
After methodically covering our test floors, the Shark positioned itself back on the dock and emptied every speck it picked up. And not only did it pick up what we put down, but it went back to nab one straggler that it missed on its first pass. Flexible bristles and fins prevent bissell crosswave cordless the hair tangles we see on other robots. The dust bin is extra-large to hold more debris and is easy to remove and empty; its sealed HEPA system is a plus for allergy sufferers. Through the SharkClean app, you can customize cleaning to better match your home and needs.
This is important because if you set your bot to clean while you’re out of the house, but it gets stuck under your dining room table within the first 10 minutes, you’ll still have dirty floors when you get home. Even if you’re home to babysit your robot and rescue it from trouble, that kind of defeats the purpose of having an automatic vacuum anyway. We’ve tested a handful of their laser-nav bots over the past few years, including the Deebot Ozmo T8 AIVI (a higher-end but otherwise similar version of their latest models, N8 and N8 Pro). All the ones we’ve tested worked fine when they were new, but you can usually find a better bot for a lower price.
If you’re up for fiddling with maps in a smartphone app, it’s a fantastic and flexible system. “Research indicates that robot vacuums are not meant to replace upright vacuums,” Peña-Hernández said. “That likely has to do with their smaller motor size. They’re good for touch-ups and in-between uses.” With its sub-$250 price, the Eufy RoboVac 15C Max Robot Vacuumoffers an impressive suite of features, including smart connectivity, and performs well picking up most debris on carpeting and hardwood.
We found that consumers experience the most satisfaction with their robot vacuums when they view them as floor maintainers in between manual cleanings. It can keep your place from looking dusty and grab bits here and there, but you’ll still need a full-size vacuum. This pick for the best budget robot vacuum doesn’t come with mapping capabilities, although dyson robot vacuum adaptive navigation keeps it from bumping into furniture or falling down stairs. A quieter runner than others we tested, it might be a great pick for spaces or situations where a not-so-loud robot cleaner is needed. Some models will work more effectively with darker floors, most likely due to the cliff sensors mistaking the dark for a drop-off.