Robot vacuums can be great for keeping your floors clean but they cannot replace a traditional vacuum. Even the best vacuums struggle to get into carpets or rugs and often get caught in socks and cords.Maintaining a regular schedule of maintenance (replacing filters cutting hair tangled from brushes, and emptying the dust bin) can help your robot last longer.
Battery Life
The majority of robot vacuums are able to handle a couple of cleaning sessions without needing to be charged. The Ecovacs Q30S Combo is a close second in our top selections. It has batteries that last up to 180 minutes (3,230 square foot) on one charge. The runtime is enough to clean most smaller homes with a mix of hard floors and carpets with low pile, or a larger home in which the rooms are about the same size.
A longer battery life means the robot will be able to spend less time charging and spend more time cleaning. It's worth opting for models that have a self-emptying dust bin, since those models are more efficient when it comes to cleaning up debris and returning to the dock for recharging. It's also important to empty or change the filter and clean cameras and sensors regularly so that they can see your home clearly.
Smart mapping technology is an important feature to look out for, as it allows you to program your robot to clear certain rooms or areas where it's more likely to hit furniture or other obstacles. This feature is also helpful for ensuring that your robot is able to get under and around furniture, such as sofas, beds and other high-height items. 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 make use of sensors and cameras to accomplish this.
Even the best robot vacuums can't substitute a traditional vac for heavy-duty dirt and debris. It's recommended to have a power vacuum on hand for these tasks and schedule robot vacs for light cleanings throughout the week.
Navigation
A robot should be capable of navigating your home without getting caught or running into objects like metal screws or pet hair, or sand. In our tests, a tracking device is used to follow the robot around a multi-room lab. It then analyzes its surroundings. We also look for the way it manages to avoid obstacles like power cords, furniture legs and pet waste.
The top robots can map out several floors, and recognize landmarks such as doors and windows. The most advanced robots, like the Roborock S8 Pro Ultra have a dual sensor navigation system that uses an LIDAR to draw a room's layout and a structured-light camera mounted on the front to spot objects in real-time. This lets the S8 to stay clear of common obstacles such as power cords and furniture legs and can store up to four floor maps in its internal memory.
Most affordable models rely on bump sensors which are not as accurate. In my testing, they plowed right through cords, dog poop and even the shoes that were placed in the middle of the room. The best value pick, the Dreametech D10+, is an exception to this. It has excellent carpet and hard floor pickup, great tangle and hair pickup, and an almost perfect auto empty score.
A large onboard dustbin, which does not need to be empty manually, is also a aspect that's crucial. For models that mop the floor, this tank can hold enough water to last for several weeks of cleaning sessions. Karcher's RCV 5 is a good illustration of this. It has a big enough footprint to be able to be placed under furniture, but not so large that it can't fit into the space between your toilet and tub.
Apps
Robot vacuums are a lot like upright vacuums, and it takes a lot of tech to get them up to speed. The result is a pretty mature market full of options. However, even the most advanced models require some interaction with their users - particularly when cleaning schedules are being planned as well as establishing a home floor plan and setting up virtual barriers.
To help reduce the impact of this interaction, you should look for a model that uses its own app to recognize the layout of your home and save those settings for the future. This will let the vacuum start where it left off on subsequent runs, rather than having to restart the mapping process every time.
Also, consider models that offer zones or spot cleaning. They allow you to instruct the robot vacuum to concentrate 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 voice commands.
Many models also offer objects-avoidance. It allows the robot to detect objects in its path, like the shoe box or a crate of dog toys, and coach itself around it. This will keep it from crashing 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 depend on bump sensor technology for this however they did not always avoid things in my test home.
Pet Hair
Choose a vacuum cleaner that is specifically designed to remove pet hair. The most effective models come with powerful suction, a brush that avoids getting caught in a knot, and an emptying mechanism that can automatically dump hair into the bin when necessary. Some models are able to detect dirt levels to alter the level of cleaning. They can even spot objects that aren't a part of your home's flooring, such as furniture, toys, food bowls cords, and much more.
Some robot vacuums have extra features that are pet-friendly, such as a small water dispenser that can be used to mop floors and a HEPA filter that can reduce allergens like pet dander. They may also have a quieter mode of operation to cut down on the amount of noise generated during cleaning sessions.
Robot vacuums that have mapping capabilities are an excellent option for pet owners, as they're engineered to assess your home and develop plans of attack according to the layout and obstructions in each room. For example, the Shark Matrix Plus 2-in-1 Robot Vacuum is a smart vacuum that has the amazing ability to map rooms and navigate around furniture and other obstacles using gyroscope and accelerometer smart sensors that work together to learn the layout of your room.
Other advanced models let you set no-go zones, which are areas that the robot is meant to avoid--like fragile items or pet feeding areas--by altering settings via an app. This feature is particularly useful for busy households, as you can schedule cleaning sessions without needing to be in the space where the vacuum is. Spot cleaning is an additional great feature. You can instruct the vacuum cleaner to clean a spot that is particularly dirty or stuffed with pet hair.
Dust Bin
If you don't need something tiny, choose a robot with a big bin or even a self-emptying bin. We recommend choosing one with a large bin or a trash bin that automatically emptys. The former will allow you to keep up with emptying your bin often enough to keep it functioning. The latter will save time and effort by automatically dropping the contents into an inside container after every cleaning.
Look for models with smart mapping capabilities that enable them to "learn" the layout of your home and devise more efficient routes. They can also sense and avoid objects that may hinder their travel (like shoelaces or tangled charging cables). Find models with smart mapping capabilities, which enable them to "learn" the structure of your home and design more efficient routes, as well as ones that can sense and avoid objects that could block their paths (like shoelaces or strangling charging cables).
Some models also offer spot cleaning, which lets users to select an area of your home for thorough cleaning. In our tests, we found that the top models can remove small particles like baking soda, sand, orzo, screws made of metal and pet hair, as well as heavier debris like oatmeal orzo, and metal screws.
According to the manufacturer the company, robots can last for years and still perform well as long as they are maintained. For instance, cleaning tangled hair out of brushes, emptying dust bins after each use, and wiping cameras and sensors down as needed. The best-performing robots also tend to be more modular and therefore easier and cheaper to replace or repair parts such as wheels and batteries when they get worn out.
