Ultimately, though, this set of images represents something bigger than any one individual company’s actions. Just watch the above GIF, which shows what happened when we put the iRobot Roomba J7 Plus to the test — specifically, its promise of identifying and avoiding pet waste. With a variety of (I assure you, fake) dog poop shark cordless scattered about a small, enclosed test floor, the Roomba did its best to vacuum the area without touching any of them. It succeeded, never bumping into any of our disgusting-looking test turds at all. That makes this highly-versatile floor-cleaner a top value pick, and an easy recommendation for the very top of our list.
Again, our educated guess is that they all probably work okay and are just more prone to app glitches and less likely to get useful software updates over time than models from the best brands in this category. The biggest problem with the RoboVac series is that these bots don’t last as long as Roomba models do. About a year after the 11S was released, we started to hear from owners whose bots had already died.
In testing, it had no problem traversing hard flooring and carpet, and thoroughly collected dog hair from both, so it’s also a strong budget-friendly choice for pet owners. With app and voice control support, smart navigation, and strong suction power, the RoboVac G30 is a solid choice for anyone on a budget. Its compact design makes it especially appealing for small homes and apartments, particularly if you have low-profile furniture.
“Before incorporating this device into my home, it felt as if my floors were always dirty no matter how much I vacuumed,” our tester said. When it came to maneuverability, our testers gave this robot vacuum a perfect score. It has built-in sensors and a camera at the front to help it detect furniture, stairs, pet bowls, and more in its path, so you won’t come home to a huge mess or a broken vacuum. If you want to closely monitor your Samsung Jet Bot as it’s working, the integrated app allows you to see its path on the digital map or tap into the vacuum’s front camera to see a live view of its location. This was somewhat surprising to us, as the robot vacuum doesn’t have a brushroll to help it capture gunk and hair.
And even though it navigates with absolutely reckless abandon, we’ve found that it’s actually a lot less likely to get stuck on random hazards around the house than other bots, as it has several specific “escape” routines for common traps. This is the Roomba i3 EVO packaged with a charging dock that automatically sucks all the debris out of the robot after a cleaning session. An article in the MIT Technology Review revealed that images captured by a camera-enabled iRobot vacuum were leaked publicly by a third-party data company.
Make sure you have a space in mind for your robot vacuum’s dock before you make a purchase, otherwise you might have to move some furniture around. Robot vacuums have improved tenfold since they were first introduced, both in terms of navigation and pickup. And while the gap between these devices and upright models is indeed closing, there is still admittedly a gap. Robot vacuums do not offer as strong a performance as upright vacuum cleaners, particularly corded ones. It’s for this reason that we don’t recommend throwing away the best vacuum cleaner even if you decide to invest in one of these strong contenders. Testing every model to this extent took time, but as a result we can say with confidence that the below list accurately reflects the best you can buy.
This was the case for all of the machines I tried that came with clean bases; they’re all quite loud, but the Roomba j7+ was the loudest of them all. The whooshing sounds last for only five to 10 seconds, but it was shocking the first time it happened. Just keep that in mind if you ever decide to shark cordless run your self emptying robot vacuum at night when others are sleeping. Every Wi-Fi-connected robot vacuum worth its salt today works with Alexa or Google smart speakers for voice control. However, some are limited to stop / start and pause, whereas others can be told to go clean specific areas.