If you don’t want smart features like mapping, don’t need a self-emptying dustbin and don’t mind picking up before you start the vacuum, the Eufy 11S is the budget robot vacuum we recommend. It’s a basic and affordable vacuum with a slim profile, good suction and quiet operation, shark cordless and should work well for anyone who wants to maintain their floors in between manual vacuuming. The j7+ leaves behind neat rows of just-vacuumed carpeting and the powerful suction of the unit was able to pick up cat litter and pet hair in my bedroom carpeting.
You do need to tidy up a bit before you set it free, but it does better with large cables and rug tassels than many other robots. (iRobot has an anti-tangle tech that makes the bot reverse course if it starts to get tangled.) This works pretty well for bigger items but, sadly, not phone charging cords. It costs extra and, with a small 180ml reservoir, it’s not an effective substitute for a proper mop. But it will help get up any fine dust the robot’s suction action missed. Aided by multiple sensors and lasers, efficient navigation is the S7’s other strong suit.
We’ve decided to make this a significant factor in our recommendations. We scout reviews for hints about longevity, and we favor bots with easy-to-find replacement parts such as filters and brushes but also batteries, wheels, and transmissions. We also fully disassemble some popular bots to get a sense for the build quality and how straightforward they might be to repair.
If you’re choosing between the two most premium robot vacuums money can buy, the S7 MaxV Ultra and the X1 Omni, go with the former if you have a lot of hard flooring and you’re mainly concerned with mopping performance. Roborock’s bot uses sonic vibration technology to scrub your floors 3,000 times per minute, while the X1 Omni’s circular mopping pads spin at 180 revolutions per minute. Both irobot vacuum cleaner robots left our test floors streak-free and shiny, but the S7 MaxV Ultra is slightly better at deep cleaning. The iRobot Roomba j7+ might induce sticker shock, but it’s one of the smartest standalone robot vacuums you can buy. It uses a built-in camera and machine learning technology to recognize obstacles in its cleaning path in real time, and automatically reroute itself around them.
When it finds an especially dirty area, it automatically goes into Dirt Detect mode and moves over the offending spot multiple times until it’s sufficiently clean. IRobot recently updated this model with smart mapping capabilities, so you can send it right to specific rooms by phone or voice for targeted area cleanings. If you don’t mind picking up toys and lamp cords and anything else that might get in the way or get snarled in the roller brush, then you can get one of the more affordable robot vacuums. We tackled this question in our budget robot vacuum guide and the answer is yes, especially if vacuuming is one of your least favorite chores. Robots take the hard work out of cleaning your floors – just turn the thing on and watch it go. Any robot vacuum cleaner worth buying is semi-autonomous in that it will suck up dirt around your home until its battery is low and then make its way back to its charging dock.
The Roborock Q5 has a single brush roll , which we found to be less effective on carpets than Roomba’s dual-roll design. Finally, we sprinkle a 2-ounce mixture of cat litter and coffee grounds in a space with a mix of bare wood and a low-pile rug. We run each bot for 25 minutes shark cordless or until it stops on its own, whichever comes first. When the bot is done, we weigh how much debris it managed to pick up. For cleaning that fits in perfectly with your life and your home, iRobot OS delivers unique intelligence to your robot so it works the way you want it to.