Which robotic vacuum cleaner

The Roomba J7 performed relatively well on hardwood and low-pile carpets, removing Keeping a constant eye out for pet waste didn't seem to slow the Roomba J7 down. The robot successfully covered our test room in just 17 minutes. Pet hair on carpets wasn't much of an issue for the Roomba either.

Hair on hardwood was a problem, however. It left about half of the material on the floor during this test. The robot's CleanBase docking station both charges it and vacuums it free of debris automatically. The chart below shows fine-particle cleaning performance data for all of the robot vacuums we tested. It should give you a pretty good idea of their cleaning performance on different kinds of flooring surfaces, including hardwood floors, bare floors and low-pile carpet.

Our rice-based, medium-size particle test didn't show much differentiation between the robot cleaners because they can all handle larger particles without trouble. For fur removal for pet owners, we judged anecdotally. To learn about our cleaning power and navigation tests, read more about how we test robot vacuums.

Want more robot vacuum cleaner options? Here's a list of the other robot vacuums we tested besides the models listed above. Designed to navigate your home and clean your floors automatically, robot vacuum cleaners are made to tackle this chore so you don't have to.

They can clean on demand, on a schedule and even when you're not home. Powered by rechargable batteries, the robot typically sits on a charging dock to top off its energy supply. Premium models come with docking stations that can also empty the robot's dustbin when it's full. Robot vacuums are complex machines with more moving parts, electronics and software than ordinary vacuums.

Still, with regular maintenance and replacement parts such as batteries, brushes and filters, these devices can last just as long as traditional vacuums. This should translate to multiple years of use. Keep in mind that manufacturers typically cover their robots with one-year limited warranties that include parts and labor.

IRobot , Neato , and Samsung are examples. How well a robot vacuum cleans your home depends on many factors. Floors cluttered with obstacles like wires, charging cords, toys, shoes and clothing can stop robots in their tracks. The less overall clutter the better a robot will operate. Some robot vacuum models clean tile, wood flooring and different types of carpet better than others.

Be respectful, keep it civil and stay on topic. For a fraction of that amount, the Eufy 11S earns a Good rating in our carpet cleaning test and an Excellent rating on bare floors. Eufy robotic vacuums as a whole receive an Excellent rating for reliability in our members survey, as well as a Very Good owner satisfaction score. Eufy 30C. Although this is one of the cheaper models in our robotic vacuum ratings, it earns an Excellent score for cleaning bare floors. But because Eufy discloses very little information about its data privacy policies, its robotic vacuums earn only a Fair rating in our privacy tests.

Eufy RoboVac G30 Edge. Like the 30C and the 11S Max , this model earns an Excellent rating in our navigation tests. The model earns an Excellent rating in our bare floors test and a Very Good rating in our carpet cleaning test, though you might have a little difficulty cleaning pet hair out of the brush roller. Most mapping-capable robot vacuums now let you draw invisible, software-based barriers throughout your home, using a smartphone app. It can be incredibly convenient and is one of the most compelling reasons to spend extra money on a robot.

One option is to set up do-not-cross lines or no-go zones, which is a great way to keep bots out of areas where they tend to get stuck or make a mess like around pet food bowls Another feature lets you divide the map of your home into rooms or even smaller subdivisions , so that you can command the vacuum to clean, for example, just the kitchen, or the living room and the dining room, without having to manually move the bot or set up physical barriers.

Other distinguishing smart-map features include: app interfaces and sub-menu systems; ease of editing the barriers; whether it can save multiple maps for multistory homes ; whether it needs to start from the dock, or if it can locate itself anywhere; whether cleaning a non-mapped area screws up your saved map; how many runs it takes for the bot to learn the floor plan laser-based navigators learn it in a single pass, while camera-based bots need multiple passes but arguably map more thoroughly and accurately ; and accuracy of the English translation in some of the apps.

The main downside with smart mapping is that, like anything that increases the complexity of a system, this feature adds more opportunities for something to go wrong, and more opportunities to disappoint the owner. Sometimes these problems appear after a bot gets a firmware update. But in the best bots, smart maps work properly almost all of the time for almost everyone who owns them—let that guide your decision.

Apps also make it easy to set a cleaning schedule, keep track of when you need to replace parts, or adjust certain cleaning settings. Bots without Wi-Fi usually come with a physical remote control instead, which is still handy.

For example, a security firm figured out how to look directly through the camera on certain LG robot vacuums. And a minor panic broke out after a Reuters article misreported that iRobot had plans to sell owner data to third parties. We sent a privacy and security questionnaire to the brands that make our picks and have compiled the key portions of their responses in the table below.

If you decide to sell or give away a Wi-Fi robot, be sure to factory reset it to remove Wi-Fi credentials. Battery life, noise, height, and boundary markers: These can all be moderately important, depending on your home and expectations. An hour of battery life is fine, but longer run times are never a bad thing, especially for bump-and-run bots.

Shorter bots get under more furniture, but that only matters if you have furniture that sits low to the ground in the first place. Boundary markers are obsolete if you get a bot with smart mapping but can still be useful with other models. Bot shape, extra cleaning modes, dustbin size: These are usually pretty unimportant. D-shaped robots are better at cleaning corners than round robots, but the round bots have side brushes that usually get the job done anyway.

Spot cleaning common and manual steering less common can be handy sometimes. But most people use the automatic, whole-house option almost all of the time and rarely bother with any others. Before you start a cleaning session, you should pick up any laundry, charging cables, or lightweight mats—most bots will get stuck on them. And you should expect a few hiccups during the first handful of sessions. But if it happens consistently, try moving the dock. For all bots, you need to leave a few feet open around and above the dock.

All robot vacuums need a little maintenance. In most homes, we think a bot will stay in good shape if you do about 15 minutes of maintenance per month, maybe a little more if the bot has a heavy workload.

Duane Gilbert, former hardware engineer for iRobot, phone interview, March Bruno Hexsel, former software engineer for Neato Robotics, phone interview, March Vacuum Wars YouTube channel. Robot Reviews Robot Chat. Liam McCabe is a senior staff writer for Wirecutter, and has covered the wild world of appliances since After testing dozens of robot vacuums, he is neither worried about AI nor holding his breath for self-driving cars.

He enjoys visiting factories and learning about regulatory loopholes, and has flooded our testing area only three times. Our pick. Budget pick. Upgrade pick. Roborock S4 Max Supersmart bot, great price This robot vacuum can quickly and gracefully navigate large spaces, and it offers a robust and flexible system for cleaning specific rooms or zones while ignoring others via smartphone app.

Everything we recommend. Why you should trust me Do robot vacuums really work? Who should get one? What about robots with AI obstacle recognition? What about vacuum-mop hybrids? What makes a good robot vacuum Care and maintenance Sources. Why you should trust me.

Do robot vacuums really work? Most robot vacuums will get snagged on charging cables, which jam the brush roll or sometimes pull the bots off course.

Video: Michael Hession. How we picked. How we tested. Our picks: iRobot Roomba and Roomba Flaws but not dealbreakers. Budget pick: Eufy RoboVac 11S. Photo: Michael Hession. Upgrade pick: Roborock S4 Max. It also has much more suction than the series bots, which helps its bare-floor pickup. What to look forward to.

The competition. Roborock alternatives: Ecovacs, Proscenic, and an enemy of the state. Other smart-map robots: Shark, Neato, and a bad Roomba. Cheaper, simpler robots: Mostly Eufy clones. What about self-emptying robots? What makes a good robot vacuum. Navigation is the hardest and most important thing. So what does a robot vacuum need to do in order to navigate a real home?

Cleaning performance matters, but not as much as you think. Is video transmitted with end-to-end encryption? Does the company offer a bug bounty program? Care and maintenance. Shake off the filter every few sessions. Replace the filter every few dozen sessions. You could save some money by using third-party filters , which are extremely unlikely to harm the bot, but you may void your warranty if you happen to send in your bot for repairs with one of them in the filter slot.

Cut away any hair wrapped around the brush roll as necessary. Most bots come with a tool that can cut and then brush away the fuzz. Clean the bearings on the brush roll, caster, and side brushes every few weeks. You might need a screwdriver for this job, but many bots let you pop out the parts with no tools. Keep a can of compressed air handy in case you need to blow dust out of gears or other hard-to-reach nooks in the bot.

Replace filters and side brushes a few times per year, the brush roll about once a year, and the battery as needed—probably every second year, though that depends on how often you use the bot.

About your guide. Liam McCabe. If that small onboard bin gets full during a run, the vacuum just drags excess dirt all over your house. Other manufacturers have attempted to make self-emptying bins, but this iRobot bin is the only one that consistently works right out of the box.

And the bin is a game changer. But it still has iRobot's easy-to-clean rubber roller and Dirt Detect systems to sniff out trouble spots on your carpet. And it is incredibly satisfying to see it trundle back to the Clean Base and empty itself with a tremendous whoooosh after a mere 10 minutes.

Because iRobot has been around since , it's also pretty easy to find replacement parts. I've found its customer service line to be responsive and helpful. The future has come to pass, and Ecovacs , Shark , and Yeedi all make them.

Roborock will release its soon. While I love the concept of a self-emptying bin, iRobot is the only manufacturer whose self-emptying bin works reliably out of the box. I've tried almost every self-emptying bin available. While they do work, every other self-emptying bin takes some tinkering. If you purchase the bin as an accessory, the robot sometimes has trouble settling itself properly on the base station's air ports when it docks.

I also perform regular maintenance to make sure that the self-emptying chutes on both the station and the robot vacuum itself aren't clogged. They're worth it, but they do require some extra work here and there.

Over the years, their navigation abilities have consistently improved and the app has gotten cleaner and easier to use. If you want the most bang for your buck, a midrange Roborock like the S4 Max that we're currently testing is probably the best bet. The Wi-Fi-enabled S4 Max has features that I've previously seen only on much pricier robot vacuums, like mapping, virtual barriers, and problem spot detection. This is one of the only robot vacuums that doesn't get tripped up on my kitchen step, and it gets up to three hours of battery life on a charge, which is insane.

The dust bin is also slightly larger than average. Upgrade pick? Roborock also recently introduced the new S7 , but I don't think that it justifies the higher price tag. The S7 has a new multidirectional rubber roller that is just not as effective as the S4 Max's original brush at lifting dirt from our low-pile carpet.