The ideal cleaner will make easy work of finding its way from room to room and automatically avoiding obstacles along the way, all of which makes for proper, low-maintenance automated cleaning. These overhead long exposure shots each show the trail of a Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra as it cleans our test room. We attach glow sticks to the top of the cleaner directly above the vacuum intake to get a sense of how much coverage the vacuum offers and how intelligently it navigates. In this case, the S7 MaxV Ultra is as thorough and consistent as robot vacuums get. In response to the growing interest of hackers in their product, the company developed the iRobot Create. In this model the vacuum cleaner motor is replaced by a “cargo bay” for mounting devices like TV cameras, lasers and other robotic parts.
Judging from our experience, it can be useful in spaces as large as 1,000 square feet, as long as you run it most days of the week as a habit and can forgive that it might not thoroughly clean every room every time that it runs. But some people don’t want to deal with unpredictable coverage, and that’s understandable. If you want a smarter robot, take a look at our top pick, the iRobot Roomba i3 EVO, and our also-great pick, the Roborock Q5. You can connect the Roomba i3 EVO to your Wi-Fi so that you can use a smartphone app to tell it to start or stop, instruct it to return to its dock, or create a cleaning schedule, if you’d like, though doing so is totally optional.
We watched it stubbornly try to shove itself into spaces where it obviously couldn’t fit, roughing up some furniture in the process. This behavior would be annoying from a $400 robot, but it’s especially frustrating from a robot that can sometimes cost more than our favorite dishwasher. IRobot representatives told us that the company fixed the navigation problems via a software update following the robot’s launch, so we plan to reevaluate it in future testing. IRobot’s Roomba j7 is the best of the best right now, offering excellent cleaning power, an impressive app, plenty of extra features, and a really nice design for around $600. While it’s a steep price tag, this is the first Roomba with AI obstacle avoidance, which means it uses both a camera and some processor-powered smarts to see and avoid potential obstacles such as power cables, shoes, socks, and pet waste.
The scrubbing action, combined with Shark’s proprietary cleaning solution (only use water if you don’t want to buy the solution separately, cautions Shark), ensures that your hardwood floors are getting thoroughly cleaned. It never got the carpets wet, and, yes, the vacuum function worked well too. My only quibble is that washing the reusable mop pads by hand can get gross pretty quickly. After five years of testing shark cordless robot vacuums, there are all sorts of inconveniences that I have grown to accept as part of owning and using one. But all those hassles fell away with Roborock’s midrange Q5+ (9/10, WIRED Recommends), which for over half a year has been the most reliable cleaning partner in my house. From its companion app, you can move the robot around and view a live video stream of what’s happening inside your home.
But Williams recommends regularly cleaning and replacing air filters, inspecting and cleaning the rollers and occasionally wiping down the sensors on the bottom of each robot. “The goal of this is to limit noise output when it isn’t actively running,” said Williams. By looking at best practices for choosing a robot vacuum and the different features Roomba offers, it can be easier to figure out which one fits your needs, space and budget.