It learns your cleaning habits and suggests schedules to meet your needs, says the brand, and also recommends extra cleaning during allergy season. We rate each robot vacuum on how easy it was to empty, how loud it was in use, and how long the battery lasted between charges. The mop cleaning and drying process is efficient, and in theory, you don’t need to remove the pad after every run. But I recommend throwing it in the washing machine when emptying the dirty water tank.
However, these tend to be more expensive than robot vacuums that employ a random route when cleaning your floors. The Ecovacs Deebot Ozmo N8+ can vacuum and mop, ensuring your hard floors are left sparkling. Just like the Ecovacs Deebot Ozmo T8 AIVI it can also detect carpet, and when it does will stop mopping to ensure your floor coverings don’t end up sopping wet.
We found that though it was able to fit under most furniture easily, there were times when it got stuck and we had to reposition it. Low-furniture clearances aside, we were thrilled to discover that this vacuum got “smarter” each time we used it, which was even more encouragement to keep on letting it clean our carpets. The S series also includes linking technology that allows the Roomba to communicate wirelessly with other iRobot products, where the Braava Jet M6 can automatically be set to mop after the s9 has finished vacuuming. While robot vacuums don’t have crevice tools that work well down the side of your sofa or stairs, these machines usually have small brushes on the outside of their shells. The brushes do an excellent job of getting close to baseboards and ensuring that any crumbs or dirt on hard floors don’t escape the vacuum’s suction. We found the robot vacuum became stuck a few times and repeatedly banged into pet food bowls, as it doesn’t have the same level of sensors as found on Ecovac’s more expensive models.
If you run your bot a few times per week, or even every day, crumbs and pet hair will never get a chance to pile up; the mess is gone before it becomes a nuisance, with very little effort on your part required. Most robot vacuums can handle hardwood floors and carpets, though going from one to the other might be a challenge, since the edge of an area rug can trip some up. We spilled a pinch of wig hair, a tablespoon of Cheerios, and a tablespoon of sand onto a hard floor and rug and assessed how well each vacuum cleaned the mess in two minutes. For vacuums with mopping capabilities, we spilled a tablespoon of coffee and a drizzle of sticky syrup on the hard floor and again evaluated how well it cleaned the mess in two minutes. We also used a decibel meter to measure the noise level of each robot vacuum while running it in a small room with the door closed. Our best overall pick is the iRobot Roomba 694 Robot Vacuum, which impressed us with its ability to suck up all the hair, cereal, and sand we scattered across carpets.
This allows you to keep it away from rooms with toys, laundry, or cables on the floor that could potentially get sucked up. It also has an object sensor that allows it to avoid ramming into walls and furniture, so you’ll only need to keep small clutter out of this vacuum’s path. Hardwood floors in high-traffic areas can be especially tricky to keep clean since it’s easier for crumbs and debris to be pushed around by the vacuum instead of being sucked away. Whether you’re trying to keep an entryway free of dirt and dust or looking for a simple way to sweep up crumbs off the kitchen floor, we recommend enlisting the help of the Eufy RoboVac 30C. We found it to be a “lifesaver in sucking up dog hair” when we tested it at home. It’s a relatively quiet and fast operator as well, needing just 2 minutes 56 seconds to clean a 5′ x 5′ space.
With replacement rollers and edge brushes for the 400 and 500 series of floor cleaning robots, you’ll have near limitless ability to replace worn or damaged brushes at an incredible value. Also available are replacement rubber wheels for the pool-cleaning Scooba robot. IRobot’s robotic vacuum cleaners are definitely more than the sum of their parts and they have been designed with components that won’t break the bank when the time comes to replace them. IRobot parts are designed to be easily installed and to keep your Roomba in top working condition. Among Vacuum Direct’s vast array of iRobot replacement parts are several filters, such as Aerovac filters, designed to provide comprehensive filtration for your Roomba’s internal suction components.
We also like that it comes at a reasonable price, especially compared to similarly effective robot vacuums. Despite the advanced capabilities of this robot vacuum, it wasn’t hard to set up at all. The app does take a bit of getting used to, but we’re impressed by the array of features it offers. The initial mapping of our space took just an hour, though we suggest giving irobot vacuum cleaner your Deebot at least a week to really get a lay of the land for optimal performance. It makes quite a racket, though, when it’s running the self-empty function, but this is common among robot vacs with this capability. The best robot vacuums will not only make your life easier by cleaning your floors for you, but they’ll also be quiet enough not to disturb you.
This way, the machine continues to learn your home and adapt to temporary and permanent obstacles. Most are also compatible with in-home smart speakers like Alexa or Google Assistant. You can program almost all models to run on a cleaning schedule (such as Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at noon).
We also tested the Kyvol Cybovac S31, along with its auto-emptying dock, and it was perfectly decent (at least when new). The navigation (as of late 2020, at least) 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.
The Roomba S9+ is self-emptying and deposits the debris from each clean into the 14.9oz / 440ml replaceable dust bag in the charging and emptying station – meaning you won’t have to empty the robot vacuum regularly. Instead, you’ll get an alert on the app when it needs replacing, and the vacuum offers integration with Alexa and irobot vacuum cleaner Google Assistant. It doesn’t take the same logical path around the home when cleaning as other more expensive Eufy models do. Sometimes it’ll go in straight lines and sometimes seek out the edges of a room, while on occasion, it’ll travel in circles, which means it may take slightly longer to clean the whole room or floor.