If any of these brands disappear after a year or two, it wouldn’t be the first time it’s happened in the competitive world of robot vacuums. We’ve also noticed that the lesser-known brands have not updated their robots’ software with bug fixes or new features as consistently as Roborock has. With outstanding maneuverability, the Miele Scout RX2 Home Vision can vacuum through your home for up to two hours, taking care of your floors and carpet without bumping into obstacles. During testing, this robot vacuum tackled every size mess efficiently and more quickly than our other picks.
Since iRobot’s first Roomba came out in the early 2000s, robot vacuum technology has improved dramatically. You can now find better mapping technology, stronger suction, longer battery runtimes, home surveillance, and self-emptying charging docks. In testing, the Roomba s9+ performed the best of any robot vac on hardwood flooring. Its D-shaped design came within an inch and a half of the corner, picking up everything it could reach.
In addition, it lacks automatic surface detection capability, which would allow it to automatically increase its suction power on different surfaces and eliminate the need for you to choose this setting manually. If that’s a must-have feature for you, you could look at the Roborock E4, though it features a less advanced mapping system that relies entirely on optical sensors and can’t generate a permanent map of bissell crosswave cordless its coverage area. The iRobot Roomba vacuum cleaner shoulders some of the housework load by automatically cleaning your carpet and floors. It vacuums up debris, even in hard-to-reach spots like beneath your furniture and along baseboards. Most robot vacuums are reliable when it comes to getting rid of standard household detritus, so you don’t have to worry about whether they can suck up lint, dirt, or hair.
The Bissell is a great starter robot vacuum for those not into techy gadgets. There are more robot vacuums 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 vacuums for pet hair and so much more. One great thing about Roombas is that there’s a model to suit almost every size home and budget.
It demonstrated about the same power to remove sand from hardwood floors (92.8%) as the Roomba S9 Plus (93%) and Neato D7 (95%). The Ecovacs Deebot Ozmo T8 AIVI is a pricey 2-in-1 robot vacuum and mop with excellent battery life, the ability to identify and avoid obstacles, and a unique home monitoring feature. Many of these robot vacuums can also pair with a smartphone app, which lets you command the bot to clean specific rooms or sections of a room, while ignoring other areas. This “smart mapping” tech is incredibly convenient, and one of the most compelling reasons to spend a little extra on a robot.
It uses a built-in camera and machine learning technology to recognize obstacles in its cleaning path in real time, and automatically reroute itself around them. The dream scenario is that you set your robot to automatically run on a schedule and then empty itself out, so you don’t have to touch your bot or even think about cleaning your floors for weeks on end. But the dream is possible—and even if it isn’t fully realized in your home, it’s still super-convenient to not deal with a messy dustbin every time you use your robot vacuum. The downside with some of these other bots is that you might end up having a hard time getting customer support. It won’t always be clear where you can get spare filters, brushes, or other consumable parts, let alone major components like battery packs, wheels, or LiDAR assemblies. It’s tough enough to find these parts from established brands like Roborock, so it’s hard to imagine the smaller brands will make it any easier.
However, we noticed that it’s better at picking up pet hair and kitty litter compared to Cheerios — this is usually the other way around. We’ve tested over 40 robot vacuums, and below are our recommendations for the best robot vacuum cleaners you can buy. These picks are selected not only based on their performance, but also their feature set, design, and price. For more recommendations, shark cordless look at our list of thebest vacuums, thebest vacuums for high-pile carpet, and thebest vacuums for pet hair. If daily pet-hair vacuuming is a hassle, consider this option we tested in a house with dogs. The iRobot Roomba s9+ is one of the newest models from the brand and among the priciest, but its upgrades make it extremely efficient for pet-loving households.
We set the Roomba to work every other day while we were working, and during every session it would clean under the sofas and beds, reaching places that, if we’re being honest, would be missed if we do the job ourselves. Download and install the iRobot app on your Android or iPhone, give the Roomba a name , follow the simple instructions for connecting irobot vacuum cleaner it to your Wi-Fi network and you’re ready to go. The app lets you connect to the Roomba remotely — to ask it to clean up while you are at work, for example — and receive notifications about when it has finished its job, or when the bin is full. Scouted selects products independently and prices reflect what was available at the time of publish.
Like every robot—especially one that comes in contact with the grimiest parts of your house—you need to care for it regularly. Error messages may prompt you to empty the bin mid-run, cut the hair off the rollers, or wipe off the cliff sensors. Unfortunately, Ecovacs includes some other features that make me give it the side-eye, like onboard cameras, speakers, and a microphone so you can … roll the vacuum up to your toddler and talk to them? And it doesn’t include basic protections like two-factor authentication. If you have the cash, this is one of your best options for a clean kitchen floor, but if it creeps you out, you have other options.