Best Rated Robot Vacuum Cleaner
Robot vacuums are great to keep your floors clean but they are not a substitute for a regular vacuum. Even the most powerful robots have trouble getting deep into rugs and carpets, and they can become tangled in cords and socks.
Your robot will last longer if you perform regular maintenance. This includes replacing filters, cutting the tangled hairs from brushes, and emptying the dust bin.
Battery Life
The majority of robot vacuums can manage one or two cleaning sessions before needing to recharge. The Ecovacs Q30S Combo is the runner-up of our top picks. It comes with a battery that can last for up to 180 minutes (3,230 square foot) on a single charge. This amount of runtime will suffice for homes that have a mixture of hard floors and low pile carpets or larger homes with rooms that are about the same size.
A longer battery life means the robot will spend less time charging and can spend more time cleaning. It's worth opting for models that have a self-emptying dust bin, since these models are more efficient in picking up debris and returning to the dock for recharging. It is essential to clean or replace filters and clean the sensors and cameras regularly so that they can see clearly.
Smart mapping technology is a useful feature to look out for, as it allows you to program your robot to only clean specific rooms or areas that it's likely to bump into furniture or other obstacles. It's also useful for ensuring that your robot can get under and around sofas, beds and other furniture that is tall. A few robovacs are cheap and have boundaries that you can place on the floor to block off certain areas, and other models with higher-end features utilize sensors and cameras to achieve this goal.
Even the best robot vacuums aren't able to replace a traditional vacuum for heavy-duty, large-pile dirt and debris. It's recommended to have an electric vacuum in your home for these tasks and schedule robot vacs for light cleanings throughout the week.
Navigation
A robot must be able to navigate you home without getting stuck or crashing into things such as metal screws or loose pet hair or sand. In our tests, a tracking device is used to track the robot's movements through a multi-room lab. It then tracks its surroundings. We also examine how the robot can avoid obstacles such as power cords, furniture leg and pet waste.
The most advanced robots are able to map out multiple floors, and recognize landmarks such as windows and doors. The most advanced ones, like the Roborock S8 Pro Ultra, come with a dual-sensor navigation device which uses an LIDAR sensor to map the space and a structured light camera on the front of the bot to detect objects in real time. The S8 is able to avoid obstacles such as power cords as well as legs of furniture. It also has the capability to store up to four floor maps.
The majority of the models that are affordable use bump sensors, which aren't as accurate. In my testing they cut right through dog poop, cords, and even the shoes that were placed in the middle of the room. The most affordable choice the Dreametech D10+, is an exception to this. It has excellent carpet and hard floor pickup, good hair and tangle pickup and an almost perfect auto empty score.
Another feature worth mentioning is a large dust bin that doesn't require manually empty, and for models that mop, a water tank that can hold weeks worth of mopping sessions. The Karcher RCV 5 comes with this, and a large enough footprint to go under furniture but not so big that it doesn't fit into the space between your bathtub and toilet.
Apps
Robot vacuums are a lot like upright vacuums and require lots of technology to bring them up to speed. The result is a pretty mature market with plenty of options. Even the top models require interaction from their customers particularly when it comes time to schedule cleanings, create the floor plan of your home and install virtual barriers.
You might consider a model with its own app that can recognize the layout of your home and save these settings for future use. This will let the vacuum start where it left off in subsequent runs, rather than having to restart the mapping process each time.
It's also worth keeping an eye out for a model that offers spot or zone cleaning modes. They allow you to instruct the robot vacuum to concentrate on a specific spot like under the dining table following the family's big meal. best budget robot vacuum can do this by using the app or by voice commands.
Avoidance of objects is a different option that is available on numerous models. It allows the robot, when it comes across something that is in its path such as a box shoes or a crate containing dog toys, to guide itself around. This will keep it from crashing into objects that could damage its sensors or cause a jam.
Some of the more expensive models in our tests have this feature. They depend on bump sensor technology for this however they weren't always able to keep things out of my test home.
Pet Hair
Choose a vacuum cleaner that is specifically designed to collect pet hair. The best models will have a high suction, a brush which keeps hair from tangling and an automated emptying mechanism. Certain models can detect dirt levels to adjust the intensity of cleaning. They also can detect objects that aren't part your home flooring, like furniture, toys, and food bowls.
Certain robot vacuums come with features that are pet-friendly, such as a water dispenser that can be used for mopping floors and a HEPA filter that helps reduce allergens like pet dust. They may also have a quieter mode of operation to cut down on the amount of noise produced during cleaning sessions.
Robot vacuums with the ability to map are a great option for pet owners, as they're engineered to assess your home and develop a plan of attack in accordance with the layout and obstacles in every room. Shark Matrix Plus is a two-in-one robot vacuum that can create a map of a room, and navigate around furniture, and other obstacles by using accelerometers and gyroscope sensors.
Other advanced models allow you to set no-go zones, which are areas that the robot is expected to avoid, such as items that are fragile or pet feeding areas--by altering settings through an app. This feature is especially useful for households with busy schedules as it permits you to schedule cleaning time and make adjustments without having to be in the same space as the vacuum. Another great feature is spot cleaning which allows you to control the vacuum to clean an area that is particularly dirty or brimming with pet hair.
Dust Bin
If you don't want anything small, go for a model with a large bin, or even a self-emptying trash bin. We recommend picking the one with an enormous bin or a trash bin that self-empties. robot cleaner will let you keep up with emptying your bin frequently enough to ensure its efficiency. The second will save you time and effort by automatically dumping the contents into an inner container each time you clean it.
No matter the size of your home the majority of robots are able to get up to and around furniture, and almost all are able to detect and navigate around household obstacles such as shoes, loose cords and dog puke. Look for models with intelligent mapping capabilities, which allow them to "learn" the structure of your home and devise more efficient routes, and ones that can sense and avoid objects that may hinder their path (like shoelaces or tangled charging cables).
Some models also offer spot cleaning, which allows you to choose an area of your house for intensive cleaning. In our tests, we found that the best models can remove small particles like sand, baking soda, orzo, screws made of metal and pet hair, in addition to heavier debris like oatmeal orzo, and metal screws.
Depending on the brand, most robots can last for a long time and continue to perform well as long as you keep up with maintenance, like cleaning out hair that has become tangled from brushes, emptying the dust bin after each use and cleaning cameras and sensors when needed. The most reliable robots are more flexible. This allows you to replace or repair components like wheels and batteries when they wear out.