In practice it works pretty well, although the idea you won’t have to tidy up before the vacuum does its rounds remains farfetched. Our review unit occasionally got stuck on power cables and the odd child’s sock, but we received significantly fewer error/stuck messages than we did from the Dyson and the Miele. WIRED Recommends is your definitive guide to the best technology.
There are three key disadvantages of your typical robot vacuum cleaner. The first is that, obviously, it can’t tackle stairs and, similarly, can often have trouble dealing with certain raised floors and furniture. This is the most expensive robot vacuum cleaner we’ve reviewed. Cleaning power and performance may go some way towards justifying the cost, but there are alternatives that do a good job for a lot less. Thanks to its powerful motor, the Dyson 360 Heurist cleans as well as a regular vacuum cleaner, sucking mess out of carpet and hard floors with ease, cleaning right up to the edges of the room. Robot vacuums start in the $250 range for some of the Deebot models, and go up to near $1,000 for the latest Roomba or Samsung robot vacuums.
“Engineers are dreadful — they always have better ideas. I don’t mind that — I think it’s quite a good habit.” The point being, he continues, that his company spent a lot of money in 16 years “to make the right product.” The gap sensors that prevent it from taking a tumble down stairs work well, but unlike my Roomba, it doesn’t think the black portions of my area rug are pits into which it might tumble. With the Roomba, I was able to work around the issue by taping pieces of paper over the gap sensors and walling off the open stairwell to the basement with one of its virtual wall emitters. Its smaller footprint makes a difference in its ability to get in and around table and chair legs, and it takes up less space when sat on its dock, which makes it a lot easier to live with in cramped flats and terraces. Taking the bin out and emptying it is quick and easy, but it is a small bin and you might have to empty it mid-run if you have particularly dirty carpet. Of the dozen-plus autonomous floor cleaners we’ve tested to date, it holds its own alongside the best of the best.
The Micro is as compact as Dyson gets but its diminutive size is deceptive as it gets the job done over the course of its 20-minute battery life. The 0.2-litre capacity isn’t all that sizeable but should carry dyson robot vacuum you through in smaller living spaces or if used for single-room cleaning. The Roomba’s run time is 75 minutes, but charge time is only 90 minutes, so you can schedule it to clean up twice a day or more.
While long runtime and useful mop are great to have at this price too. On the top of the unit you’ll find the familiar dome housing a 360-degree camera. The robot uses this for navigation, as dyson robot vacuum opposed to LiDAR, used by much of the competition. No data is transmitted to the cloud, and there’s no option to view the live feed, so anyone worried about privacy or security can rest easy.