The Lift-away is also available as a lightweight and bagless upright vacuum. There are other vac options with a more powerful suction ability and built-in lithium-ion battery for some heavy-duty, battery-powered vacuuming. Handheld vacuums from Dyson and BISSELL, for instance, offer great performance. Get one of these cordless vacs or pick from many others among Target’s collection, and revel in hassle-free cleaning. We purchased and tested 30 robot vacuums, including multiple Roomba models, in The Lab in Des Moines, Iowa, for two days. Our testers assembled each vacuum, inserted any filters, and hooked up docking stations.
Pet owners and people with young kids in particular seem to gain a lot from bots, but many robot vacuum owners have told us that they are amazed at how clean their floors look and feel after they start using one regularly. If you run your bot a few times per week, or dyson robot vacuum even every day, crumbs and pet hair will never get a chance to pile up; the mess is gone before it becomes a nuisance, with very little effort on your part required. They’re more than a toy or a novelty item, and they can be a valuable floor-care tool in most homes.
The test house also has cats, kids, and other family members, all of whom leave plenty for each robot to pick up. Also consider the Eufy RoboVac 11S, which is so quiet and nimble that it blends into the background like no other robot (apart from the dozen or so clones from Eufy itself and other brands). This basic, bump-and-run bot sounds more like a desk fan than a vacuum—even if you’re home while it works, you’ll barely notice it running. It’s shorter than most bots, which lets it glide under more furniture, picking up plenty of hidden debris. The big downside is that the RoboVac 11S and other bots like it don’t seem to be built to last for more than a couple of years on average, and we’ve heard about plenty of unrepairable breakdowns that happen even sooner.
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.
IRobot said it had consent to collect this kind of data from inside homes—but participants say otherwise. The most intimate image we saw was the series of video stills featuring the young woman on the toilet, her face blocked in the lead image but unobscured in the grainy scroll of shots below. In another image, a boy who appears to be eight or nine years old, and whose face is clearly visible, is sprawled on his stomach across a hallway floor. A triangular flop of hair spills across his forehead as he stares, with apparent amusement, at the object recording him from just below eye level. Keep in mind that manufacturers typically cover their robots with one-year limited warranties that include parts and labor.
You don’t need all of these, and each will mean spending more than the most basic budget bots in this roundup. The physical design is also very similar under the hood, with two multi-surface rubber roller brushes to get more dirt up. These rubber brushes don’t get tangled by long hair the way bristle brushes can. Because there’s no option to add keep-out zones in the app, you’ll need to buy iRobot’s virtual walls if there are places you don’t want the robot to go. They cost $99 for two, so if you need more than a couple of keep-out zones, it’s worth going for the j7 instead.
However, as with most robot vacuums, you could also set a Schedule to accomplish these tasks. That’s where you’ll connect the vacuum to Wi-Fi so that you can schedule cleanings and unlock support for control by voice commands. The app is also where you can see the map of your apartment the robot is generating with its sensors, and obsessively track how much of your space it’s actually cleaned.
This small, practically silent robot is an ideal inexpensive option for a cozy apartment or to use as a second bot for an upstairs space or home office. Currently selling for $180, it lacks smart mapping features, has no smart obstacle avoidance, doesn’t have an auto-empty dock option, and only runs for 90 minutes. Some do, including a version of our top pick, the iRobot Roomba i3+ EVO, and our also-great pick, the Roborock Q5+. Self-emptying robot vacuums come with a big charging dock that sucks debris out of the robot through a trapdoor in the dustbin and stores it in a disposable bag or a bagless bin. You still have to toss the bag or empty the bin regularly, and the charging stations are big, noisy, and kind of ugly, but the system saves you from having to empty the dustbin on the robot every time you vacuum.
Ultimately, this robot vacuum comes at a steep price, but it leaves little room for improvement. If you want a hand with keeping your floors clean, one of the best robot vacuums can help. These appliances come in all shapes and sizes, with prices ranging substantially, but how can you tell you’re getting the best option for your home? Some clues about other methods of data collection come from Giese, the IoT hacker, whose office at Northeastern is piled high with robot vacuums that he has reverse-engineered, giving him access to their machine-learning models. Some are produced by Dreame, a relatively new Chinese company based in Shenzhen that sells affordable, feature-rich devices. Many of the latest models feature a Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) laser (the same technology self-driving cars use) to map your home and plan an efficient cleaning route.