Best Rated Robot Vacuum Cleaner

While robot vacuums are great in keeping your floors spotless, they can't replace a full-size vacuum. Even the best vacuums struggle to get into carpets or rugs and often get tangled in socks and cords.

Staying on top of routine maintenance (replacing filters cutting hair tangled from brushes, and emptying the dust bin) will make your robot last longer.

Battery Life

Most robot vacuums can handle just a few cleaning sessions before needing to recharge. The Ecovacs Q30S Combo is a close second in our overall picks. It has batteries that last for up to 180 minutes (3,230 square feet) on one charge. This will suffice for most small homes with a mixture of hard floors and carpets with low pile or larger homes with rooms that are similar in size.

A longer battery lifespan also means the robot can spend more time cleaning, and less time charging its dock. You should select a model that has an auto-emptying bin. These models are more efficient at collecting debris and then returning to docks to recharge. It's also important to empty or replace the filter and clean sensors and cameras on a regular basis to ensure they can see your home clearly.

Smart mapping technology is a useful feature to look for because it allows you to program your robot vacuum cleaner comparison to only clean certain rooms or avoid areas that it's likely to bump into furniture or other obstacles. This feature is also helpful for ensuring that your robot can reach under and around furniture such as sofas, beds and other tall items. Some cheap robovacs offer boundaries that you can put on the floor to block off certain areas, while others use cameras and sensors to accomplish this.

Even the best roborock vacuum robot vacs cannot replace a traditional vacuum for heavy-duty, large-pile dirt and debris. It's best to keep a power vacuum available for these tasks and schedule robot vacs to do light cleaning 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, loose pet hair, or sand. In our tests, we use a tracking device to track the robot as it travels through a multi-room lab and determine its surroundings. We also check how well the robot is able to avoid obstacles like power cords, furniture leg and pet waste.

The best robots are able to identify different floors and recognize landmarks like windows and doors. The most advanced models such as the Roborock S8 Pro Ultra, have a dual-sensor navigation system which uses the LIDAR sensor to map out the room, and a lighting camera in front of the robot to detect objects in real-time. This lets the S8 to avoid common obstacles such as furniture legs and power cords and can also store up to four different automatic floor vacuum maps in its internal memory.

Most affordable models rely on bump sensors which are not as accurate. In my tests they were able to rip through cords, dog poop, and even the shoes that were placed in the middle of the room. The Dreametech D10+ is the best value pick. It is a great carpet as well as a hard floor, tangle, and hair pickup. It also has an auto empty score that is near-perfect.

Another feature worth mentioning is a huge onboard dustbin that doesn't need to be manually emptied, and for the models that mop, a water tank which can store weeks of mopping. The Karcher RCV 5 comes with this feature and has a large enough footprint to be tucked away under furniture, but not so large that it can't fit into the nook between your toilet and bathtub.

Apps

Robot vacuums are a lot like their upright counterparts and require lots of technology to get them up and running at speed. The result is a mature market with plenty of options. But even the best models require some interaction with their users - particularly when cleaning schedules are being planned as well as establishing a home floor plan, and setting up virtual barriers.

Consider a model with its own app that can determine the layout of your house and save these settings for later use. This will let the vacuum begin where it left off in subsequent runs, without having to restart the mapping process every time.

It's also worth keeping an eye out for a model that has zones or spot cleaning modes. You can instruct the robot vacuum cleaner to focus on an area, like under the table after a huge family meal. You can use the app or by voice commands.

Many models also offer objects avoidance. It allows the robot to observe something in its path, like the shoe box or a crate filled with dog toys, and coach itself around it. This will keep it from crashing into things that could damage its sensors or cause a jam.

This feature is available on a few of the more expensive models we test. However, they tend to rely on bump sensors to accomplish this and weren't always able to avoid things in my test homes.

Pet Hair

When you're looking to remove pet hair, you should choose one that is specifically designed to handle this type of debris. The best models have powerful suction, a brush that avoids the tangling and an emptying mechanism that can automatically empty hair into the dust bin when needed. Some models can also determine dirt levels and adjust the cleaning intensity according to the amount of dirt. They are also able to detect objects that aren't part of your flooring in your home, such as furniture, toys and food bowls.

Certain robot vacuums have extra pet-friendly features. These include a water dispenser which is used to clean floors, and a HEPA filtering system that helps to reduce allergens like pet dander. They may also have a quieter mode of operation to reduce the amount noise generated during cleaning sessions.

Robot vacuums that have mapping capabilities are an excellent option for pet owners, as they are designed to analyze your home and devise a plan of attack in accordance with the layout and the obstacles in each room. For instance the Shark Matrix Plus 2-in-1 Robot Vacuum is a smart vacuum cleaner vacuum that has an amazing ability to map the room and navigate around furniture and other obstructions using gyroscope and accelerometer smart sensors which work in tandem to understand the layout of your home.

Apps let you create no-go zones. These are areas where the robot shouldn't be permitted, such as areas that contain fragile objects or pet feeding areas. This feature is particularly useful for a busy household because it allows you to plan your cleaning schedule and make adjustments without having to be in the same space as the vacuum. Spot cleaning is an additional great feature. You can direct the vacuum cleaner to clean a space that is particularly filthy or stuffed with pet hair.

Dust Bin

If you're not looking for something small it is recommended to select a robot capable of holding at least a complete bag of garbage from one cleaning session. We recommend choosing a model that has an enormous bin or a bin that self-empties. The first will let you keep up with emptying your bin often enough to keep it functioning. The latter will help you save time and effort by automatically dumping the contents into an inside container every few cleanings.

Look for models that have smart mapping capabilities, which allow them to "learn" the layout of your home and devise more efficient routes. They also detect and avoid objects that may block their paths (like shoelaces or tangled charging cables). Find models with smart mapping capabilities that enable them to "learn" the structure of your home and devise more efficient routes, and models that detect and avoid objects that could hinder their path (like shoelaces or strangling charging cables).

Some models also offer spot cleaning, which allows you to choose specific areas of your home for intense cleaning. In our tests, we discovered that the top models are able to take out small particles like baking soda, sand orzo, metal screws and pet hair, as well heavier debris like oatmeal orzo, and metal screws.

According to the manufacturer, robots can last years and continue to perform well, as long as they're maintained. For instance cleaning hair tangled of brushes and emptying dust bins after each use as well as wiping cameras and sensors down as needed. The best robots are also more flexible. This makes it easier to replace or repair parts such as wheels and batteries as they wear out.