Best Rated Robot Vacuum Cleaner

While robot vacuums are excellent in keeping your floors spotless but they aren't able to replace a full-size vacuum. Even the most advanced robots aren't able to get deep into carpets and rugs and they may get caught with cords and socks.

Being on top of routine maintenance (replacing filters cutting hair tangled from brushes and emptying the dust bin) can help your robot last longer.

Battery Life

Most robot vacuums can handle one or two cleaning sessions before needing a charge. The runner-up of our overall selections, the Ecovacs Deebot Q30S Combo comes with a battery rated to last up to 180 minutes (3,230 square feet) of cleaning time on one charge. This should be more than enough for most small homes with carpets, hard flooring and carpets with low pile or larger homes with rooms that are about the same size.

A longer battery life means the robot will be able to spend less time charging and can spend more time cleaning. You should choose one with a self-emptying bin. These models are more efficient in picking up debris and returning to docks to recharge. It's also important to empty or change the filter and clean sensors and cameras on a regular basis to ensure they can clearly see your home.

Smart mapping technology is a useful feature to be looking for because it allows you to program your robot to only clean certain rooms or avoid areas that it's likely to crash into furniture or other obstacles. This feature is also beneficial for ensuring that your robot can reach under and around furniture such as beds, sofas and other large objects. Some cheap robovacs offer boundary strips you can place on the floor to block off areas while other high-end models use cameras and sensors to accomplish this.

Even the best robot vacuums cannot replace a conventional vac for heavy-duty dirt and debris. It's recommended to have an electric vacuum in your home to tackle these tasks, and also schedule robot vacuums for light cleaning throughout the week.

Navigation

A robot should be capable of navigating your home without getting caught or running into things like metal screws pet hair, sand or. In our tests, we use a tracking device to track the robot as it travels through a multiroom lab and determine its surroundings. We also examine the way it manages to avoid obstacles, including power cords, furniture legs and pet waste.

The best robots can map out multiple floors and can recognize landmarks such as doors and windows. The most advanced robots, like the Roborock S8 Pro Ultra have a dual sensor navigation system which utilizes a LIDAR to create a floor plan and a structured-light camera mounted on the front to identify objects in real-time. This allows the S8 to avoid common obstacles such as furniture legs and power cords and can store up to four floor maps in its internal memory.

More affordable models don't have this kind of object detection and rely on bump sensors which aren't as precise. In my tests, they plowed 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 one exception to this. It is a great carpet and hard floor, tangle and hair pickup. It also has an auto empty score that is near-perfect.

A large onboard dustbin, which doesn't have to be manually empty is another feature that is essential. For models that mop the floor, this tank can hold enough water to last for several weeks of cleaning sessions. Karcher's RCV 5 is an excellent example of this. It has a wide enough footprint to fit under furniture but not so large that it can't fit into the space between your toilet and bathtub.

Apps

Robot vacuums are a lot like upright vacuums and require lots of technology to bring them up to speed. The result is a mature market that is brimming with options. Even the best self cleaning vacuum models require interaction from their customers, especially when it comes to schedule cleaning, make a an outline of your home and set up virtual barriers.

Think about a model that has its own app that can recognize the layout of your home and save these settings for later use. This will let the robot broom vacuum begin where it left off on subsequent runs, instead of having to restart the mapping process every time.

Also, consider models that offer zone or spot cleaning. These allow you to tell the robot vacuum to concentrate on a specific spot for example, like under the dining room table after a big family meal. You can choose to do this by using the app or voice commands.

Many models also offer objects-avoidance. It permits the robot, when it sees objects in its path such as a box of shoe or a crate with dog toys, to guide itself around. This prevents it from running into things that might damage its sensors or cause a jam.

Some of the more expensive models in our tests have this feature. However, they typically rely on bump sensors for this and weren't always able to avoid obstacles in my test homes.

Pet Hair

Look for an upright vacuum cleaner specifically designed to remove hair from pets. The most effective models will feature an extremely high suction, a brush which stops tangling, and an automatic floor cleaners emptying mechanism. Some models are able to detect dirt levels and adjust cleaning intensity. They also can detect items that aren't a part of your home flooring, like furniture, toys and food bowls.

Some robot vacuums have extra pet-friendly features, like small water dispensers that can be used for mopping floors, and a HEPA filter that helps reduce allergens, such as pet dander. They could also provide an operation that is quieter, which can reduce the amount of sound that's produced during cleaning sessions.

Robot vacuums with the ability to map are a great option for pet owners. They're designed to assess your home and devise an attack plan based on the arrangement of each room and obstacles. For instance the Shark Matrix Plus 2-in-1 Vacuum is a smart vacuum that has the impressive capability to map the room and navigate around furniture and other obstructions with gyroscope and accelerometer smart sensors that work in conjunction to learn the layout of your space.

Other models that are more advanced let you define no-go zones that are areas that the robot is meant to avoid--like fragile items or pet feeding spots--by adjusting settings through an app. This feature can be especially useful for a busy household as it permits you to schedule cleaning time and make adjustments without having be in the same room with the vacuum. Spot cleaning is another fantastic feature. You can use the vacuum cleaner to clean a spot that is especially dirty or is brimming with pet hair.

Dust Bin

If you don't want anything tiny, choose a robot with a big bin or even a self-emptying bin. This is why we suggest opting for a model that has an enormous bin or self-emptying bins. The one will let you keep up with emptying your bin frequently enough to maintain its performance. The second will save you time and effort by automatically dropping the contents into an internal container after every cleaning.

Whatever the size of your house the majority of robots are able to get up to and around furniture, and most can recognize and navigate around household obstacles like shoes, cords that are loose and dog poop. Consider models that have smart mapping capabilities that permit them to "learn" the structure of your home and devise more efficient routes, as well as models that detect and avoid objects that could block their paths (like shoelaces or tangled charging cables).

Some models offer spot cleaning. This allows you to select an area of your house for thorough cleaning. We've observed that the majority of the top performers in our tests can pick up fine particles like baking soda and sand, as well as heavier particles like oatmeal orzo pasta screws, and pet hair.

Depending on the brand, most robots will last for years and will remain in good working order as long as you are on top 5 robot vacuum of maintenance, such as cleaning hair that has become tangled from brushes and dust bins, emptying them after every use and wiping down cameras and sensors when required. The most efficient robots tend to be more modular which makes them simpler and cheaper to replace or repair parts such as batteries and wheels as they wear out.