To pick up pet hair, you’ll want a robot vacuum with strong suction power. Most companies in this space advertise power in pascals , the metric unit of pressure, though iRobot doesn’t always make this information easy to find. In general, the more power, the better, especially if you have carpet, but battery life and obstacle avoidance capabilities are also a factor. If you’re choosing between the two most premium robot vacuums money irobot vacuum cleaner can buy, the S7 MaxV Ultra and the X1 Omni, go with the former if you have a lot of hard flooring and you’re mainly concerned with mopping performance. Roborock’s bot uses sonic vibration technology to scrub your floors 3,000 times per minute, while the X1 Omni’s circular mopping pads spin at 180 revolutions per minute. Both robots left our test floors streak-free and shiny, but the S7 MaxV Ultra is slightly better at deep cleaning.
We’ve found that as long as a robot has a brush roll and a side brush, it’ll pick up crumbs, tufts of pet hair, and other common debris from bare floors and low-pile rugs. That’s enough to keep most homes tidy, and most owners seem happy with it. This system looks dumb, and some people simply can’t stand to watch it. The bots might even (semi-randomly) miss a patch of ground or even an entire room in any given session.
I’m PCMag’s expert on fitness and smart home technology, and I’ve written more than 6,000 articles and reviews in the 10-plus years I’ve been here. I unbox, set up, test, and review a wide range of consumer tech products from my home in Florida, often with the help of my pitbull Bradley. I’m also a yoga instructor, and have been actively teaching group and private classes for nearly a decade. I’m PCMag’s executive editor of reviews, steering our coverage to make sure we’re testing the products you’re interested in buying and telling you whether they’re worth it. I previously managed the consumer electronics reviews team, and before that I covered mobile, smart home, and wearable technology for PCMag and Gigaom.
It’s also sold as the Roomba i4 (and Roomba i4+) from certain retailers. IRobot recently rereleased the i3 as the Roomba i3 Evo, which the company is billing as the same robot as the original i3 we tested, but with the new Smart Map feature preloaded. Our ratings shark cordless also factor in predicted reliability and owner satisfaction scores based on members’ experiences with more than 9,000 robotic vacuums from our recent surveys. For a limited time, you can get the eufy by Anker Robot Vacuum for $100 off its regular price.
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. IRobot doesn’t claim that the Roomba j7 can avoid most kinds of obstacles yet. “You’d be surprised at how many types of poop there are,” said Hooman Shahidi, iRobot’s vice president of product development, in a conversation with Wirecutter. He noted that they’ve curated a large learning library of different “shapes and configurations” of pet waste.