All models have a patented design using pair of brushes or rollers, rotating in opposite directions, to pick up debris from the floor. In some models, the brushes are followed by a squeegee vacuum, which directs the airflow through a narrow slit to increase its speed in order to collect fine dust. A horizontally mounted “side spinner” brush on the right side of the unit sweeps against walls to reach debris not accessible by the main brushes and vacuum. In the first generation, the dirty air passes through the fan before reaching the filter, while later models use a fan-bypass vacuum. The Roombas’ bumper allows them to sense when they have bumped into an obstacle, after which they will reverse or change paths.
With an impressive battery life, big bin, and some navigational smarts, the Roborock E4 is a great budget bot. While most mapping robots allow you to create virtual keep-out zones — areas the robot shouldn’t venture into — in the app, this Roomba uses its AI smarts to suggest trouble spots, so you can create a keep-out zone with just a tap. The Roomba j7 is a mapping robot that can learn your home’s floor plan and identify the furniture and appliances in it. This lets you ask the robot to clean specific areas, such as in front of the fridge or behind the couch. Just watch the above GIF, which shows what happened when we put the iRobot Roomba J7 Plus to the test — specifically, its promise of identifying and avoiding pet waste. With a variety of dog poop scattered about a small, enclosed test floor, the Roomba did its best to vacuum the area without touching any of them.
The Shark produced a pretty accurate floorplan of my two-bedroom apartment, and I was happy to see a “re-explore” option that I could use if the map wasn’t up to my standards. With a completed map, you’re then asked to label rooms in your home. That way, you can send the Shark to only the bedroom for more direct cleaning jobs, select “no-go” zones and more. In most homes, a bot is likely to stay in good shape if you do about 15 minutes of maintenance per month, maybe a bit more if the bot has a heavy workload. For all bots, be sure to leave a few feet open around and above the dock.
The Roomba 694, on the other hand, was easy for us to strip down and then reassemble with just a screwdriver. The Roborock app has tons of features and customizations, and it gives you more control over navigation than you can find on other robot vacs. It also provides a better user experience and works more reliably than its closest competitors’ apps. The dust- and crumb-pickup stress tests are meant only to give us an idea of each bot’s cleaning power—they don’t tell the whole story.
This means you can let the robot roam without fear it will smear a wet mop on your white mohair rug but still get your floors a little cleaner than vacuuming alone. However, its mopping action isn’t as effective as the mop on the Roborock S7. This makes the added expense harder to justify unless you have a lot of high-pile rugs, which this vacuums more efficiently than the S7. It costs $1,099, including the auto-empty base, although it’s on sale for $899 for Black Friday/Cyber Monday.
Since we know that laser-nav bots are all fairly similar to one another, this Shark model could be a good choice if you see it on sale. 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 dyson robot vacuum 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.
If you have a mapping robot vacuum, it usually uses an optical sensor, which means it requires a little light to navigate. However, I had to include it, because it’s quiet, fast, and powerful, and its navigational system is even better than iRobot’s. It left about 4 inches of clearance around all obstacles, which might not work for you if you need a lot of edge cleaning.
To find the best bots for your buck, we’ve spent the last several years torture-testing the top robotic vacuums in our lab and in our homes. With a variety of controlled tests at our disposal, we evaluate them for their suction power, navigation smarts, ease of use and their ability to clean different kinds of messes from carpets and hardwood floors alike. In late May 2019, iRobot introduced the Roomba s9 and s9+ as the “smartest, most powerful robot vacuum yet”. The S series features a newly designed “D” shape and corner brush for optimized edge cleaning deep into corners and along edges. Other new features include an anti-allergen system that traps 99% of pollen, mold and allergens, 40 times the suction compared to the 600 series, 30% wider rubber brushes, and the most advanced navigation system to date.
Some robot vacuums are more proficient at removing pet hair and some can even detect and avoid pet waste. Note the type of flooring you have as some robot vacuums perform better on hardwood floors while others are optimized for carpet. From the earliest models on, Roomba vacuum cleaning robots have been hacked to extend their functionality. The first adaptations were based on a microcontroller that was directly connected to the motor drivers and sensors.