Best Rated Robot Vacuum Cleaner
While robot vacuums are fantastic at keeping your floors clean, they can't substitute for a larger vacuum. Even the best robots can struggle to get into carpets and rugs. They also often get tangled in cords and socks.
Staying on top of routine maintenance (replacing filters, cutting tangled hair from brushes and emptying the dust bin) will help your robot last longer.
Battery Life
The majority of robot vacuums are able to handle a few cleaning sessions without having to be charged. The runner-up of our top picks, the Ecovacs Deebot Q30S Combo comes with a battery that is designed to last for up to 180 minutes (3,230 square feet) of cleaning time on a single charge. This should be more than enough for most small homes with the combination of hard floors and carpets with low pile or larger homes where the rooms are about the same size.
A longer battery life means the robot will spend less time charging and spend more time cleaning. It is recommended to choose a model that has an auto-emptying bin. These models are more efficient at picking up debris and returning to docks to recharge. automatic vacuum 's also important to empty or change the filter and wipe down sensors and cameras regularly so that they can clearly see your home.
Smart mapping technology is an important feature to be looking for, as it allows you to program your robot to clean certain rooms or avoid areas where it's more likely to bump into furniture or other obstacles. It's also useful for ensuring that your robot is able to go under and around beds, sofas and other tall furniture. Some cheap robovacs offer boundaries that you can place on the floor to block off certain areas, while others use cameras and sensors for this purpose.
Even the best robot vacs cannot replace a traditional vacuum when it comes to heavy-duty large-pile dirt and debris. It's advisable to keep a standard power vac in reserve for these tasks, and to schedule robot vacs regularly for light cleanups throughout the week.
Navigation
A robot should be able to navigate around your home without getting stuck or running into things like metal screws or loose pet hair or sand. In our tests we used a tracking device used to follow the robot around a multi-room lab. It then tracks its surroundings. We also check how well the robot can avoid obstacles such as power cords, furniture leg and pet waste.
The most advanced robots can map out several floors and recognize landmarks, like windows and doors. The most advanced robots like the Roborock S8 Pro Ultra have a dual sensor navigation system, that uses the LIDAR to draw a room's layout and a structured-light camera at the front to detect objects in real-time. The S8 can avoid obstacles like cables for power and legs of furniture. It can also store up to four floor maps.
The more affordable models don't have this kind of object detection and rely on bump sensors, which aren't as accurate. In my tests, they were able to see through dog poop and cords, as well as a pair shoes placed in the middle. The Dreametech D10+ is the most value-for-money option. It has excellent carpet and hard floor pickup, great hair and tangle pickup, and an auto empty score.
A large dust bin onboard, that doesn't need to be emptying manually is another feature that is essential. For models that mop the floor, this tank can provide enough water for several weeks of cleaning. Karcher's RCV 5 is a great illustration of this. It has a wide enough footprint to be able to be placed under furniture, but not so big that it cannot fit in the space between your toilet and bathtub.
Apps
Robot vacuums are like upright vacuums and require an enormous amount of technology to get them up to speed. The result is a pretty mature market full of options. Even the top models require interaction from their customers especially when it comes to schedule cleaning, make a an outline of your home and set up virtual barriers.
Consider a model with its own app that can recognize the layout of your house and save the settings for future use. This will allow the robot vacuum to continue where it began on subsequent runs rather than having the mapping process restarted every time.
Also, consider models that offer zone or spot cleaning. They let you tell the robot vacuum to focus on a specific spot, such as under the dining table after an enormous family meal. You can usually choose to do this using the app or by voice commands.
Avoidance of objects is a different feature that's included in numerous models. It allows the robot, when it spots something in its way such as a box shoes or a crate containing dog toys, to instruct itself around. This will keep it from running into things that could harm its sensors or cause a jam.
Some of the more expensive models in our tests come with this feature. However, they typically rely on bump sensors to accomplish this and didn't always manage to avoid obstacles in my test homes.
Pet Hair
Find an upright vacuum cleaner specifically designed to collect hair from pets. The top models feature powerful suction capabilities and a brush that prevents getting caught in a knot, and an emptying mechanism that will automatically dump hair into the bin when needed. Some can also detect dirt levels and adjust the intensity of cleaning according to the amount of dirt. They can even spot items that aren't part of your home's flooring, such as furniture, toys, food bowls cords, and so on.
Some robot vacuums include pet-friendly features, like a water dispenser that can be used to mop floors, and an HEPA filter that can reduce allergens like pet dust. They could also provide a quieter operation that can minimize the amount of noise generated during cleaning.
Robot vacuums that have mapping capabilities are an excellent option for pet owners, since they're designed to evaluate your home and develop an action plan in accordance with the layout and the obstacles in every room. For example, the Shark Matrix Plus 2-in-1 Vacuum is a smart vacuum that has the impressive ability to map the room and navigate around furniture and other obstructions with accelerometer and gyroscope sensors that work in conjunction to learn the layout of your space.
Other advanced models let you set no-go zones, which are areas that the robot is supposed to avoid--like fragile items or pet feeding spots. You can adjust these settings through an app. This feature is especially beneficial for busy households, as you can schedule cleaning sessions without having to be present in the room in which the vacuum is. Another feature that is extremely useful is spot cleaning which allows you to use the vacuum to clean a specific area that may be particularly dirty or full of pet hair.
Dust Bin
If you don't need something tiny, choose a robot with a large bin, or even a self-emptying trash bin. We suggest choosing the one with an enormous bin or a bin that self-empties. The first will let you keep up with the process of emptying your bin regularly enough to keep it functioning. The latter will save time and effort by automatically emptying the contents into an inner container every few cleanings.
Whatever the size of your home, most robots can easily climb up and around furniture, and most can detect and navigate around household obstacles such as shoes, loose cords and dog poop. Consider models that have smart mapping capabilities, which enable them to "learn" the structure of your home and plan more efficient routes, as well as ones that can sense and avoid objects that may hinder their path (like shoelaces or tangled charging cables).
Some models also provide spot cleaning, which lets users to select specific areas of your home for thorough cleaning. In our tests, we discovered that the top models can take out small particles like sand, baking soda, orzo, screws made of metal and pet hair, in addition to heavier debris like oatmeal, orzo, and screws made of metal.
Depending on the brand, most robots will last for a long time and remain in good working order so long as you keep up with maintenance tasks, such as cleaning tangled hair from brushes and dust bins, emptying them after every use, and wiping down cameras and sensors when needed. The top robots are more modular. This makes it easier to replace or repair components like batteries and wheels, as they wear out.