If the dock is in a cluttered area or under a piece of furniture, there’s a good chance the bot will not re-dock. Before you start a cleaning session, you should pick up any laundry, charging cables, or lightweight mats—most bots will get stuck on them. And you should expect a few hiccups during the first handful of sessions. But then you’ll figure out the pain points and get into a routine, and it won’t seem like a big deal. The biggest problem with the RoboVac series is that these bots don’t last as long as Roomba models do.
Turn cleaning from something you do to something that happens around your life. If that stain-clearing capability is important to you, it’s hard to go wrong with the basic Roborock S7. It features the same ultrasonic mopping system as the flagship S7 MaxV to scrub away dried-on stains. Unlike the more powerful S7 MaxV or Ecovacs, it doesn’t have a secondary set of camera sensors that would allow it to spot and react dyson robot vacuum to low-lying hazards in real-time, instead relying only on a LIDAR sensor to map out its coverage area. Every Wi-Fi-connected robot vacuum worth its salt today works with Alexa or Google smart speakers for voice control, although some are limited to just stop / start and pause, whereas others can be told to go clean specific areas. The S7 is the best option for a bot that can actually mop at a semi-accessible price.
Mediocre suction capability, random navigation and difficulty finding its base made this a nonstarter for us. While the vacuum has features such as voice control and in-app scheduling, it didn’t function half as well as the similarly priced Eufy 11S. If you live in a home without high-pile carpets and find yourself constantly vacuuming up pet hair or dirt, irobot vacuum cleaner and don’t need the ability to map your home and create virtual walls or no-go zones, the Eufy 11S is a top choice. Liam McCabe is a former senior staff writer for Wirecutter, and has covered the wild world of appliances since 2011. After testing dozens of robot vacuums, he is neither worried about AI nor holding his breath for self-driving cars.
Self-emptying or not, most robot vacuums also equip small HEPA filters that capture allergens as they run. Most self-emptying models transfer the contents of their bin into a bag, which can hold around 30 to 60 days’ worth of debris, depending on how often you vacuum and how dirty your home is. The nice thing is that you never have to come into contact with dust and debris. The downside is that you eventually have to buy more bags when you run out.
And then you could tell the bot to clean those rooms at a time of day when nobody is around. Another option is to set up do-not-cross lines or no-go zones, which is a great way to keep bots out of areas where they tend to get stuck or make a mess . The biggest difference from our top picks is that the Roomba 600 series doesn’t have smart mapping and navigates semi-randomly rather than following an orderly, predictable path. This was the norm for robot vacuums until a few years ago, and a lot of people were happy with that approach. But as of 2022, smart robots are much more common and affordable—and much better at cleaning large spaces consistently and efficiently. Even so, the semi-random bots still have a place in the world, and we’ve concluded that the Roomba 600 series is a great option if you want a simple, sturdy bot for a fair price.
We’ve also discovered that, as of late 2021, several other brands are selling near-copies of the Eufy bots. Senior staff writer Rachel Cericola first started testing smart-home devices more than 20 years ago, when the only smart-home devices were X10. She has been covering smart-home gear for Wirecutter since 2016, and she has had her hands on everything from in-wall light switches, LED bulbs, and water-leak detectors to video doorbells, outdoor security cameras, and security systems.
The S7 MaxV Ultra has the same sonic, vibra-rising mopping action of the S7, so it mops very well. But it also has AI-powered obstacle recognition, so it won’t get caught out by clutter and can avoid stepping in dog poop. There’s also the option of using the onboard camera as a security camera, with two-way talk built-in.
If you want to further minimize the spread of allergens, it’s fully compatible with a self-emptying dock that can suck debris from its internal dustbin into an external dirtbag without manual intervention. It beat out all the others in mapping, creating virtual boundaries and detecting and avoiding obstacles, which means it’s the best “set it and forget it” smart robot vacuum — and it even empties itself. More importantly, it picks up dust and debris and cat litter from hardwood floors and low-pile carpeting better than the others we tested.
However, it has a shorter battery life than the Roborock and tends to get stuck a little more frequently. With just a 75-minute runtime, this is another iRobot model that would be better in a smaller space, said Williams, though it is a step up from the 600 series. The Roomba i series are equipped with tracking sensors, so instead of random navigation around your home, the i series can clean bare floors and carpeting in neat, straight lines, says the brand.