Even setting aside the smart maps, the Roborock S4 Max is still one of the best navigators we’ve used. It rarely misses any accessible areas of your home, like random-navigation robots sometimes do, and it’s not susceptible to the same low-light navigation errors as robots that rely on cameras . Even when it does bump into an object its LiDAR turret didn’t detect, we’ve found that it course-corrects faster and more accurately than other bots. Many of these laser-navigation bots have similar specs, designs, and behaviors, and there’s no clear evidence to suggest that some are more reliable or durable than the others. Brian Bennett is a senior writer for the home and outdoor section at CNET. These include everything from cordless and robot vacuum cleaners to fire pits, grills and coffee makers.
The affordable Wyze Robot Vacuum methodically zips around your home sucking up dust and pet hair from hard flooring and carpet thanks to top-notch laser mapping and efficient route planning. The Roomba i3+ EVO is a top choice for anyone looking to upgrade from a standard robot vacuum to one with self-emptying abilities. If you’re tired of manually emptying your irobot vacuum cleaner current bot’s bursting dustbin on the daily, the Roomba i3+ EVO will eliminate that chore. It’s a particularly compelling option if you suffer from allergies, because it also uses a high-efficiency filter to capture allergens as it cleans. In our testing, it cleaned for up to 145 minutes in Auto mode before running low on juice, a good battery life result.
It’s got a built-in camera designed to help it ‘see’ around your home, although in our testing, it still struggled with avoiding small obstacles such as a sock and a charging cable and attempted to suck them up instead. When the vacuum isn’t cleaning, you can get it to act as a security guard for your home, letting you see and speak to anyone in the house through the app. It works with both Alexa and Google Assistant, so you can use your voice to start it cleaning. However, in our experience, it can’t avoid obstacles, such as cables and shoes, so you’ll need to pick these up yourself, and on full power, it’s louder than most of its competitors, coming in at around 70db.
It vacuums in neat rows using floor-tracking sensors to navigate and dirt-detecting sensors to clean up dust and debris. To accomplish this, the Roomba uses Adapt 2.0 Navigation with visual localization. Some models will work more effectively with darker floors, most likely due to the cliff sensors mistaking the dark for a drop-off. For hard surfaces, the company also manufactures mopping robots that also include smart features to work in conjunction with their vacuuming counterparts.
It is super easy to edit, reschedule, on/off the cleaning routine whenever you want. Get personalized cleaning recommendations based on what’s happening in your home, and even tell your robots to clean while you’re away with smart home integration. Turn cleaning from something you do to something that happens around your life. Like a Roomba, a Braava mop will clean your floors for you, using a spray-and-wipe method that goes deeper than a simple vacuum. I haven’t had a chance to try any robot mops myself yet, but they’ve received some good reviews, despite being less popular than their vacuum cousins.
Roborock’s bot uses sonic vibration technology to scrub your floors 3,000 times per minute, while the X1 Omni’s circular mopping pads spin at 180 revolutions per minute. Both robots left our test floors streak-free and shiny, but the S7 MaxV Ultra is slightly better at deep cleaning. The j7+ leaves behind neat rows of just-vacuumed carpeting and the powerful suction of the unit was able to pick up cat litter and pet hair in my bedroom carpeting.
We also tried the opposite, running the i3 EVO before the Roborock S4 Max, and found that the S4 did not come back with much debris in its bin, likely because the Roomba i3 EVO grabbed it all first. By our count, more than 100 robot vacuums are available as of November 2021, and we’ve tested more than 30 of the most noteworthy ones. This affordable robot vacuum is quieter and fits under more furniture than any other model we’ve tested. While it works best in small spaces, it rarely gets stuck and does a good job on bare floors and short-pile rugs. Here’s a list of the other robot vacuums we tested besides the models listed above. We also note whether the robot cleans in a random or methodical pattern.