Best Rated Robot Vacuum Cleaner
Robot vacuums are great for keeping your floors clean but they cannot replace a traditional vacuum. Even the most advanced robots have difficulty getting deep into carpets and rugs and they may get caught up in cords and socks.
Your robot will last longer if you carry out routine maintenance. This includes replacing filters, cutting hairs that have become tangled off brushes and emptying the dust bin.
Battery Life
Most robot vacuums can handle just a few cleaning sessions before requiring a charge. The Ecovacs Q30S Combo is the runner-up of our top picks. It has a battery that can last for up to 180 minutes (3,230 square feet) on a single charge. This will suffice for the majority of small homes with a mixture of hard floors and carpets with low pile or larger homes where the rooms are roughly the same size.
A longer battery life means the robot can spend more time cleaning, and less time charging on its dock. It's worth opting for a model with a self-emptying dust bin, as those models are more efficient in collecting debris and returning to the dock for recharging. It is important to clean or replace filters and clean the sensors and cameras regularly so that they can be seen clearly.
Smart mapping technology is an important feature to look out for because it allows you to program your robot to only clean specific rooms or areas where it's more likely to crash into furniture or other obstacles. It's also helpful for ensuring your robot can get under and around beds, sofas and other furniture with a high height. A few robovacs are cheap and have boundaries that you can put on the floor to block off areas, and other models with higher-end features utilize sensors and cameras to accomplish this.
Even the most powerful robot vacuums can't substitute a traditional vac for heavy-duty dirt and debris. It's advisable to keep a standard power vac in reserve for these tasks and to schedule robot vacuums regularly for light cleaning throughout the week.
Navigation
A robot should be able to navigate you home without getting stuck or running into things like screws made of metal, loose pet hair, or sand. In our tests, a tracking device is used to follow the robot around a multi-room lab. It then tracks its surroundings. We also look for how well it avoids obstacles, including furniture legs, power cords, and pet waste.
The best robots can map out several floors, and recognize landmarks such as windows and doors. The most advanced models, like the Roborock S8 Pro Ultra, come with a dual-sensor navigation device that uses a LIDAR sensor to map the space and a structured lighting camera in front of the robot to identify objects in real time. The S8 can evade obstacles such as cables for power and legs of furniture. It also has the ability to store up to four floor maps.
More affordable models don't have this type of object detection and rely on bump sensors which aren't as accurate. In my tests, they plowed right through cords, dog poop, and even the shoes that were placed in the middle of the room. The most cost-effective choice the Dreametech D10+, is an exception to this. It is a great carpet and hard floor pickup, good hair and tangle pickup, and an almost perfect auto empty score.
Another feature that is important is a large dust bin which doesn't have to be manually emptied, and for those models that mop, a water tank that can hold weeks worth of mopping. The Karcher RCV 5 has this feature and has a large enough footprint to be placed under furniture but not so big that it doesn't fit into the space between your toilet and bathtub.
Apps
Robot vacuums are a lot like upright vacuums, and it takes lots of technology to bring them up to speed. The result is a pretty mature market with plenty of options. However, even the most advanced models still require some interaction with their users - particularly when it comes to scheduling cleanings and establishing a floor plan and setting up virtual barriers.
Think about a model that has its own app that can determine the layout of your home and save these settings for later use. This will allow the robot vacuum to continue where it left off when it runs again, instead of having the mapping process restarted every time.
You should also consider models that offer zones or spot cleaning. You can tell the robot vacuum cleaner to focus on a specific area, for example, under the table after a huge family meal. You can typically use the app or by voice commands.
Many models also provide object avoidance. It lets the robot detect objects in its path, such as the shoe box or a crate filled with dog toys, and guide itself around it. This prevents it from running into objects that could damage its sensors or cause jams.
This feature is available on a few of the more expensive models we test. They rely on the technology of bump sensors for this, but they didn't always avoid things in my test home.
Pet Hair
Look for an upright vacuum cleaner designed to pick up hair from pets. The best models have high suction power and a brush that is free of getting caught in a knot, and an emptying mechanism that can automatically dump hair into the bin when needed. Some are also able to detect dirt levels and adjust the cleaning intensity in line with the level of dirt. They can also detect items that aren't part of your flooring, such as furniture toys, food bowls, toys cords, and much more.
Some robot vacuums come with additional features that are pet-friendly. They include the water dispenser that can be used to mop floors, and a HEPA filtering system that helps to reduce allergens, such as pet dander. They could also provide a quieter operation that can reduce the amount of noise generated during cleaning.
Robot vacuums with maps are an excellent option for pet owners. auto vacuum cleaner are designed to analyze your home and devise an strategy based on the arrangement of each room and obstacles. Shark Matrix Plus is a dual-purpose robot vacuum that can map a room, and navigate through furniture, and over other obstacles using accelerometer and gyroscope smart sensors.
Other advanced models let you create no-go zones, which are areas that the robot is meant to avoid--like fragile items or pet feeding spots. You can adjust these settings via an app. This feature is especially beneficial for families with a lot of activity because it allows you to schedule cleaning sessions and make adjustments without having to be in the same space as the vacuum. Another great feature is spot cleaning, which gives you the option to use the vacuum to clean an area that is dirty or brimming with pet hair.
Dust Bin
If you don't want something small, go for a model with a big bin or even a self-emptying dustbin. We recommend going for a model that has an enormous bin or self-emptying bins. The former will allow you to keep up with emptying the bin often enough to keep track of its performance while the latter will help you save time and effort by automatically dumping the contents into an internal bin every few cleanings.
No matter the size of your house the majority of robots are able to move around and up to furniture, and most can recognize and navigate around household obstacles like shoes, cords that are loose, and dog puke. Consider models that have smart mapping capabilities that allow them to "learn" the patterns of your house and devise more efficient routes, and ones that are able to detect and avoid objects that could hinder their routes (like shoelaces or tangled charging cables).
Some models also offer spot cleaning, which lets users to select an area of your home for intense cleaning. In our tests, we discovered that the best models can take out small particles like sand, baking soda, orzo, metal screws and pet hair, as well as heavier debris like oatmeal, orzo, and metal screws.
The brand you choose will determine the longevity of the robot. most robots will last for a long time and continue to perform so long as you keep up with maintenance, such as cleaning tangled hair from brushes and dust bins, emptying them after each use, and cleaning cameras and sensors whenever required. The most reliable robots are more flexible. This allows you to replace or repair parts like wheels and batteries when they wear out.