This robot’s software is designed to enable it to recognize solid pet waste on the floor and steer clear of it. With a competitive price, plus rock-solid performance and intelligent navigation, the Roborock S7 is our new favorite midrange robot vacuum. It demonstrated about the same power to remove sand from hardwood floors (92.8%) as the Roomba S9 Plus (93%) and Neato D7 (95%). Reflects the average time it took the robotic vacuum on its max-clean setting to clean our greater than 600 square foot test room over 3 test runs. This system looks silly, and some people simply can’t stand to watch it.
IRobot is one of the most respected names in the robot vacuum market, and the Roomba i3+ EVO is its most affordable model with a self-emptying dustbin. Beyond offering greater convenience than their more manual counterparts, self-emptying robot vacuums significantly limit your exposure to dust, a big plus if you suffer from allergies. The S7 MaxV Ultra stole the spotlight in 2022, but the year-old Roborock S7+ is still a strong choice. Like its more expensive irobot vacuum cleaner sibling, the S7+ boasts Roborock’s VibraRise technology, which allows it to both mop your hard floors and vacuum your carpeting in the same cleaning run. Whereas other hybrid cleaners avoid carpet completely while mopping, the S7+ automatically lifts its mop cloth out of the way and goes on vacuuming, allowing it to complete both tasks more efficiently. Some robot vacuums are more proficient at removing pet hair and some can even detect and avoid pet waste.
It will also link up with a Braava Jet M6 robot mop and tell it to go mop once it’s done vacuuming. Roombas before the seventh-generation models do not map out the rooms they are cleaning. Instead, iRobot developed a technology called iAdapt Responsive Cleaning Technology. This relies on a few simple algorithms, such as spiraling, room crossing, wall following, and random walk angle changing after bumping into an object or wall. This design is based on MIT researcher and iRobot CTO Rodney Brooks’s philosophy that robots should be like insects, equipped with simple control mechanisms tuned to their environments.
Unlike more traditional canister or stick models, robot vacuums are autonomous and intelligent. The vacuums we’ve tested are equipped with lasers, motherboards, sensors, and even Wi-Fi to navigate around your home without assistance. While pricey, iRobot’s Roomba j7+ robot vacuum has smarts to spare, with a guarantee to avoid pet waste and a self-emptying base that means you rarely have to lift a finger. Here’s a list of the other robot vacuums we tested besides the models listed above.
Most robot vacuums are equipped with multiroom cleaning features, which allow the device to clean in zones versus one room at a time. An “edge cleaning” mode makes sure dust and debris are picked up along the perimeter and around furniture. Some machines will also include app-controlled custom cleaning preferences, which allow the user to adjust cleaning modes, power settings, number of cleaning passes, and edge cleaning.