The Roborock S7 is a mapping robot that uses lidar sensors to map your home in minutes. It also gives you the option of room-specific cleaning commands and allows you to set keep-out zones. This is essential as it doesn’t have AI obstacle avoidance, so will get stuck in regular robot traps such as clusters of cables.
Most robot vacuums will get snagged on charging cables, which jam the brush roll or sometimes pull the bots off course. We actually recommended the semi-random style for most people up until fall 2021, but it became clear from bissell crosswave cordless analyzing user reviews that the zeitgeist has shifted. Now that prices have dropped, most would-be robot owners expect their robot to look like it knows what it’s doing, instead of cruising around randomly, bumping into stuff.
In addition, it’s a self-emptying model, so you don’t need to empty the robot vacuum’s dust box. However, there is an ongoing in the form of the replaceable dirtbags the robovac empties the debris into. We weren’t able to test any of them before the 2021 holiday season, but we’re confident that the Shark and lower-end Samsung will work similarly to all the other laser-nav robots described in the previous few paragraphs. The “everyday” prices are a bit high, but we’ve seen some pretty good deals on the version of the Shark that comes with the self-emptying dock. Since we know laser-nav bots are all pretty similar to one another, this Shark could be a good choice if you see it on sale. Wyze is known for selling good-enough and implausibly affordable smart-home gear like security cameras, locks, thermostats—and the laser-nav Wyze Robot Vacuum too.
So with very little effort on your part, your floors can stay constantly tidy. We’ve tested dozens of robots, from cheap models that bump around randomly to fancy machines that empty themselves and steer around dog poop. First, consider the strong, durable, smart-enough iRobot Roomba i3 EVO. Floors cluttered with obstacles like wires, charging cords, toys, shoes and clothing can stop robots in their tracks. Some robot vacuum models clean tile, wood flooring and different types of carpet better than others.
It’s not designed for cleaning high-pile rugs, and may struggle greatly on shag carpeting. The onboard bin is fairly shallow, and may need to be emptied before a cleaning cycle is completed. If you do not empty the bin or check for tangled hairs regularly, it will affect the performance of the robot vacuum. In fact, a full shark cordless bin will result in it dragging any mess around the floors rather than picking it up. The Neato D9 provides a solid cleaning performance, scoring a respectable 92.79 overall on our tests. It picked up almost 93% of kitty litter carpet, which ranks it above the Eufy RoboVac X8 Hybrid, and its predecessor, the Neato D4.
The battery life will generally range from 60 minutes with more basic versions to about 120 minutes at the higher end. Those who want their Roomba to cover more square footage may prefer a model with a longer battery life, or perhaps two robots to cover different zones or floors. For our hard floor straight-line pickup tests, large and small debris is deposited onto a marked area of the floor (based on the width of the opening of the robot vacuum’s nozzle). Then each robot vacuum is allowed 10 minutes to pick up the debris from the floor and the weight of the dustbin is taken to find how much debris is picked up by each. Straight-line pickup tests on carpet are done in an enclosed area where we deposit mixed debris including potting soil, sand and rayon fibers meant to mimic hair. Each robot vacuum is allowed to clean the carpet for a specified length of time, and the weight of the dustbin is taken to find out how much debris each robot can pick up.