The navigation was a little clumsier, and some of the details—including the translation in the app, manual, marketing materials, and even the voiceovers from the bot itself—lacked polish. In owner reviews, the main complaints about the bot included glitchiness, an unstable app, and poor customer service. While the iRobot Roomba i3 EVO is better at cleaning, the Roborock Q5 is smarter. Equipped with a superior mapping system that can store multiple maps for different levels of the home in both 2D and 3D, the Q5 also has an easy-to-use app and responds well to voice commands. It cleans admirably , moves fast, and steers clear of larger obstacles. The dustbin on the i3 EVO is smaller than those on some other bots at this price, but the upgraded Roomba i3+ EVO comes with a dock that automatically empties the bin when it’s full or at the end of a cleaning session.
The suction power doesn’t stand up to these larger devices, and the collected debris is pulled into a small internal bin with limited dustbin capacity. For a true hands-off cleaning experience, this bot can connect to select Roomba models to automatically trigger mopping after a vacuum cycle. The robot will dyson robot vacuum automatically adjust its cleaning cycles to whichever type pad is attached. Later models introduced several additional operating modes, such as “Spot”, which cleans an area of a few feet, and “Max”, which cleans endlessly until the battery is depleted, this mode was only available on older Roombas.
Or tell it to make sure to do extra cleaning with a bonus cycle to grab tracked-in grass and dirt in the foyer using a voice-activated cycle via the app. If you’re new to the world of robot vacuums and want to try one without spending a ton of money, the iLife A9 is a wise choice. If you have medium-pile carpeting in your home, it’s not the best option, but if you have hard floors and low-pile carpeting, it’s one of the best robot vacuums you can get in its price range. Like many robot vacuums at this price, the Roomba i3 EVO can thoroughly clean big spaces by following a logical, orderly path throughout a home. To do so, the i3 EVO uses floor sensors, bump sensors, gyroscopes, and infrared .
The main thing that makes the Roomba 694 stand out from other affordable robot vacuums is that it’s more durable and easier to repair . They generally don’t break, spare parts are always in stock, and you can swap in everything from a new filter to a new transmission with nothing more than a screwdriver. Usually you pay more for the Roomba 694 than for our other budget pick, the Eufy RoboVac 11S, or other super-cheap bots with random navigation. But the Roomba bot can easily pay off in the long run because it’ll last longer. In fact, several Wirecutter staff members have owned Roomba 600-series bots for several years and have found them to be sturdy and reliable.
First-generation models must be recharged from a wall power adapter, while all subsequent models have a self-charging homebase that the unit seeks out at the end of a cleaning session via infrared beacons. For more, see our lists of the best robot vacuums for pet hair and the best robot mops. If you have both carpet and hard flooring throughout your home, you might want to consider a hybrid that can do double duty as a vacuum and a mop, such as the Deebot Ozmo T8 AIVI or the Bissell SpinWave Wet and Dry. Standalone robot mops aren’t eligible for this list because they don’t suck up dirt and debris, but they can leave your hard floors nice and shiny. In our testing, it cleaned for up to 145 minutes in Auto mode before running low on juice—a good battery life result. It never got stuck on common obstacles like power cords and long curtains, and had no trouble sucking up dust, hair, and other debris.
Infrared “cliff sensors” on the bottom of Roombas similarly prevent them from falling off ledges such as stairways. These slow down the Roomba when nearing obstacles, to reduce its force of impact. It’s also used to clean alongside walls without bumping into the wall repeatedly. This technology is also able to distinguish between hard and soft obstacles. When it encounters potential obstacles that aren’t in its database, the j7+ snaps photos and asks you whether it should avoid those areas in the future. It only takes about a minute to review the obstacle images, and doing so can prove extremely useful.
We were surprised the first time the 11S disappeared under a bed—and then more surprised when it reemerged with an unholy amount of cat hair stuffed into its bin and wrapped about the brush roll. In early 2022, iRobot added several new features to the app, including smart mapping and integration with Siri voice commands. The Roomba i3 EVO has two counter-rotating “extractor” rolls, which we’ve found to be excellent for cleaning rugs and resisting tangles. It also has much more suction than Roomba 600-series bots, which helps its bare-floor pickup.