Best Rated Robot Vacuum Cleaner

While robot vacuums are excellent in keeping your floors spotless, they can't substitute for a larger vacuum. Even the best vacuums struggle to get into carpets or rugs, and can often get tangled in socks and cords.

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

Most robot vacuums can handle just a few cleaning sessions before requiring a charge. The runner-up in our overall selections, the Ecovacs Deebot Q30S Combo comes with a battery rated to last up to 180 minutes (3,230 square feet) of cleaning time on a single charge. This should be more than enough for homes that have the combination of hard floors and low pile carpets or larger homes with rooms that are similar in size.

A longer battery life means that the robot is able to spend more time cleaning and less time charging on its dock. It's worth opting for a model with a self-emptying dust bin, since those models are more efficient in picking up debris and returning to the dock to recharge. It is also essential to empty or replace the filter and clean sensors and cameras regularly so that they can see your home clearly.

Smart mapping technology is a great feature to look out for, as it allows you to program your robot to only clean certain rooms or avoid areas where it's likely to crash into furniture or other obstacles. This feature is also useful for ensuring that your robot is able to get under and around furniture like sofas, beds and other tall items. A few robovacs that are cheap have boundary strips that you can use to block off specific areas. Other models of higher quality rely on sensors and cameras.

Even the top robot vacuums aren't able to replace a conventional vac for heavy-duty dirt and debris. It is recommended to keep a power vacuum available to tackle these tasks, and also schedule robot vacuums for light cleaning throughout the week.

Navigation

A robot must be able to navigate around your home without getting stuck or crashing into things like screws made of metal or loose pet hair or sand. In our tests the tracking device is used to track the robot through the multi-room lab. It then tracks its surroundings. We also check the way it manages to avoid obstacles like power cords, furniture legs, and pet waste.

The best robots are able to create multiple floors and recognize landmarks like windows and doors. The most advanced robots like the Roborock S8 Pro Ultra have a dual sensor navigation system, which uses a LIDAR to draw a room's layout and a structured-light camera mounted on the front to spot objects in real-time. This allows the S8 to stay clear of common obstacles such as furniture legs and power cords, and it can store up to four different floor maps within its internal memory.

The majority of the models that are affordable depend on bump sensors that are not as accurate. In my tests they were able to detect dog poop and cords, as well as a pair of shoes placed in the middle. The most cost-effective choice Dreametech D10+, is an exception to this. It is a great carpet and hard floor, tangle and hair pickup. It also has a near-perfect auto empty score.

A large onboard dustbin, that doesn't need to be emptying manually, is also a aspect that's crucial. For models that mop the floor, this water tank will hold enough water for several weeks of cleaning. The Karcher RCV 5 has this feature and has a large enough footprint that it can be placed under furniture, but not so large that it doesn't fit into the nook between your toilet and bathtub.

Apps

Robot vacuums are a lot like upright vacuums and require an enormous amount of technology to get them up and running at speed. There are plenty of options in a market that is maturing. Even the top models require input from their users especially when it comes time to schedule cleanings, create the floor plan of your home and install virtual barriers.

You might consider a model with its own app that can determine the layout of your house and save the settings for future use. This will allow the robot vacuum cleaner vacuum to continue where it started in subsequent runs, rather than having the mapping process restarted each time.

It's worth looking out for a vacuum that comes with spot or zone cleaning modes. They allow you to instruct the robot remote vacuum to concentrate on a specific area for example, like under the dining room table after the family's big meal. You can do this using the app or by voice commands.

The ability to avoid objects is another feature that's included in many models. It lets the robot vacuum cleaner on sale see something in its path, for instance a box of shoes or a crate of dog toys, and guide itself around it. This will keep it from running into things that could damage its sensors or cause a jam.

Some of the more expensive models we've tested have this feature. They depend on the technology of bump sensors for this, but they didn't always keep things out of my test home.

Pet Hair

Look for an upright vacuum cleaner specifically designed to remove hair from pets. The most effective models will have an extremely high suction, a brush which stops tangling, and an automatic emptying mechanism. Some models can detect dirt levels to alter the level of cleaning. They can even spot items that aren't part of your home's flooring, such as furniture and toys, food bowls cords, and much more.

Some robot vacuums come with additional features that are pet-friendly. They include a water dispenser that is used to mop floors, and an HEPA filtration system that reduces allergens such as pet dust. They could also feature a quieter mode of operation to reduce the amount noise produced during cleaning sessions.

Robot vacuums that have mapping capabilities are a great option for pet owners. They are designed to analyze your home, and create an strategy based on the layout of each room as well as obstacles. Shark Matrix Plus is a two-in-one robot vacuum that can create a map of a room, and navigate around furniture and other obstacles using accelerometer and gyroscope smart sensors.

Other models that are more advanced let you define no-go zones that are areas that the robot is expected to avoid--like fragile items or pet feeding spots. You can adjust these settings via an app. This feature is especially useful for families with busy schedules, since you can schedule cleaning times without having to be present in the space where the vacuum is. Another great feature is spot cleaning which gives you the option to control the vacuum to clean a particular area that is dirty or brimming with pet hair.

Dust Bin

Unless you're looking for a small size, you'll want to choose an item capable of holding at least a complete bag of garbage from one cleaning session. We recommend choosing one with a large bin or a trash bin that self-empties. The former will enable you to keep track of emptying the bin frequently enough to keep track of its performance, while the latter will save you time and effort by automatically dumping the contents into an internal container every few cleanings.

Look for models that have smart mapping capabilities that enable them to "learn" the layout of your home and devise more efficient routes. They also can detect and avoid objects that could 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 devise more efficient routes, and ones that can sense and avoid objects that could hinder their path (like shoelaces or strangling charging cables).

Some models also offer spot cleaning. This allows you to choose a specific area of your home to be targeted for thorough cleaning. We've observed that the majority of the top performers in our tests can pick up fine particles like baking soda and sand together with larger particles like oatmeal, orzo pasta, metal screws, and pet hair.

According to the company the manufacturer, robots last for a long time and still perform well as long as they're maintained. For instance cleaning hair that is tangled out of brushes, emptying dust bins after each use, as well as wiping cameras and sensors down as required. The best-performing robots also tend to be more modular, which makes them easier and cheaper to repair or replace components such as wheels and batteries as they wear out.