Best Rated Robot Vacuum Cleaner
Robot vacuums can be great for keeping your floors clean but they cannot replace the regular vacuum. Even the best vacuums struggle to get deep into carpets and rugs. They also often get tangled in cords and socks.
Your robot will last longer if you perform routine maintenance. This includes replacing filters, cutting hairs that have become tangled off brushes and emptying the dustbin.
Battery Life
The majority of robot vacuums are able to handle a couple of cleaning sessions without needing to be charged. The runner-up of our overall picks, 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 suffice for most small homes with the combination of 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 spend less time charging and spend more time cleaning. It's recommended to select models that have a self-emptying dust bin because they are more efficient in collecting debris and returning to the dock for charging. It is important to clean or replace the filters and wipe down the sensors and cameras regularly so they can see clearly.
Smart mapping technology is a great feature to look out for, as it allows you to program your robot to clean certain rooms or avoid areas where it's more likely to hit furniture or other obstacles. This feature is also beneficial to ensure that your robot is able to get under and around furniture, such as sofas, beds and other tall items. A few robovacs are cheap and have boundary strips you can place on the floor to block off certain areas, while others use cameras and sensors to achieve this goal.
Even the best robot vacuums aren't able to replace a traditional vacuum when it comes heavy-duty dirt and debris. It's advisable to keep a traditional power vac in reserve to handle these chores and to schedule robot vacs regularly for light cleanups throughout the week.
Navigation
A robot should be able to navigate your home without getting stuck or running into things like screws made of metal or loose pet hair or sand. In our tests, a tracking device is used to track the robot's movements through the multi-room lab. It then analyzes its surroundings. We also check how well the robot avoids obstacles such as power cords, furniture leg and pet waste.
The most advanced robots can map out several floors and can recognize landmarks like windows and doors. The most advanced ones, like the Roborock S8 Pro Ultra, feature a dual-sensor navigation system that utilizes a LIDAR sensor to map the space and a structured light camera at the front of the bot to detect objects in real time. The S8 can avoid obstacles like power cords and legs of furniture. It also has the ability to store up to four floor maps.
Cheaper models don't come with this kind of detection and rely on bump sensors, which aren't as precise. In my tests they were able detect dog poop and cords as well as a pair shoes placed in the middle. The best value pick the Dreametech D10+, is one exception to this. It is a great carpet and hard floor pickup, excellent tangle and hair pickup, and a near perfect auto empty score.
Another important feature is a huge onboard dustbin that doesn't require manually emptied, and for those models that mop, a tank of water that can hold weeks worth of cleaning sessions. Karcher's RCV 5 is a great example of this. It has a big enough footprint to fit under furniture, but not so big that it can't fit into the space between your toilet and tub.
Apps
Robot vacuums are similar to their upright counterparts and require an array of technologies to keep them up to date. The result is a mature market full of options. However, even the most advanced models require interaction with their users, particularly when it comes to scheduling cleanings and establishing a floor plan and establishing virtual barriers.
Think about a model that has its own app that can determine the layout of your home and save these settings for later use. This will let the robot vacuum begin where it left off in subsequent runs, without having to start the mapping process each time.
It's also worth keeping an eye out for a vacuum that comes with zones or spot cleaning modes. They allow you to instruct the robot vacuum to concentrate on a particular area, such as under the dining table following an enormous family meal. You can typically use the app or by voice commands.
Avoidance of objects is a different feature that's available with numerous models. It permits the robot, when it sees something in its way such as a box of shoes or a crate containing dog toys, to instruct itself around. This prevents it from crashing into objects that could harm its sensors or cause a jam.
This feature is offered on some of the more expensive models we test. However, they tend to rely on bump sensors to accomplish this and didn't always manage to avoid things in my test homes.
Pet Hair
When you're looking to remove pet hair, choose the right model designed to handle this kind of debris. The best models will have the highest suction, a brush that keeps hair from tangling and an automated emptying mechanism. Some models can also determine dirt levels and adjust the intensity of cleaning according to the amount of dirt. They can also detect items that aren't a part of your flooring in your home, such as furniture, toys and food bowls.
Some robot vacuums include features that are pet-friendly, such as small water dispensers that can be used to mop floors, and a HEPA filter that can help reduce allergens like pet dander. They could also feature a quieter mode of operation to cut down on the amount of noise produced during cleaning sessions.
Robot vacuums with mapping capabilities are an excellent option for pet owners since they're designed to evaluate your home and create plans of attack in accordance with the layout and obstructions in every room. For example, the Shark Matrix Plus 2-in-1 Vacuum is a smart vacuum that has the impressive ability to map rooms and navigate around furniture and other obstacles using accelerometer and gyroscope smart sensors which work in tandem to understand the layout of your room.
Other advanced models allow you to define no-go zones that are areas that the robot is expected to avoid--like fragile items or pet feeding areas--by altering settings through an app. This feature can be especially useful for a busy household, as it allows you to schedule cleaning time and adjust settings without having to be in the same room with the vacuum. self vacuum is another great feature. You can direct the vacuum cleaner to clean an area that is particularly filthy or filled with pet hair.
Dust Bin
If you're not looking for something tiny, you'll want to choose a robot that can hold at least a large bag of trash from one cleaning session. We recommend choosing the one with a large bin, or even a dustbin that self-empties. The first will let you keep up with emptying your bin frequently enough to ensure its efficiency. The latter will save time and effort by automatically dumping the contents into an internal container each time you clean it.
Regardless of the size of your home Most robots are able to move around and up to furniture, and almost all can detect and navigate around household obstacles such as shoes, loose cords and dog puke. Consider models that have smart mapping capabilities that allow them to "learn" the patterns of your house and design more efficient routes, as well as ones that can sense and avoid objects that could hinder their routes (like shoelaces or tangled charging cables).
Some models also offer spot cleaning, which lets you to manually target a particular area of your home for intense cleaning. In our tests, we discovered that the best models can remove small particles like sand, baking soda, orzo, screws made of metal and pet hair, as well heavier debris like oatmeal orzo, and screws made of metal.
Based on the manufacturer, most robots can last for a long time and continue to perform well as long as you are on top of maintenance, like cleaning out hair that is tangled from brushes and emptying the dust bin after each use, and wiping down cameras and sensors when needed. The best-performing robots also tend to be more modular which makes them simpler and cheaper to replace or repair parts such as batteries and wheels when they wear out.