How Much Can Best Rated Robot Vacuum Experts Earn

Best Rated Robot Vacuum Cleaner

While robot vacuums are great in keeping your floors clean, they can't replace a full-size vacuum. Even the best vacuums struggle to get deep into carpets or rugs and often get tangled in cords and socks.

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 are able to handle a couple of cleaning sessions without having to be charged. The runner-up in our top picks is the Ecovacs Deebot Q30S Combo, has a battery capable of lasting up to 180 minutes (3,230 square feet) of cleaning time on one charge. That amount of runtime is enough to clean smaller homes with a mix of hard floors and carpets with low pile, or a larger home with rooms that are roughly the same size.

A longer battery life means that the robot will spend more time cleaning and less time charging its dock. It's recommended to select an auto-emptying dust bin because they are more efficient in cleaning up debris and returning to the dock for charging. It's also important to clean or replace the filter and clean sensors and cameras on a regular basis to ensure they can clearly see your home.

Smart mapping technology is a useful feature to look for, as it allows you to program your robot to only clear certain rooms or areas where it's likely to crash into furniture or other obstacles. This feature is also useful for ensuring that your robot can reach under and around furniture such as beds, sofas and other high-height items. Some robovacs are inexpensive and have boundary strips that you can use to block off specific areas. Other models of higher quality depend on sensors and cameras.

Even the most powerful robot vacuums aren't able to replace a traditional vacuum when it comes to heavy-duty, large-pile dirt and debris. It is recommended to keep a traditional power vac in reserve for those tasks and to schedule robot vacs regularly for light cleanups throughout the week.

Navigation

A robot should be capable of traveling around your home and not being caught or running into objects like metal screws or pet hair, or sand. In our tests we used a tracking device used to track the robot cleaner through a multi-room lab. It then tracks its surroundings. We also test how the robot avoids obstacles such as power cords, furniture leg and pet waste.

The best robots can map out several floors and identify landmarks, like doors and windows. The most advanced models, like the Roborock S8 Pro Ultra, feature a dual-sensor navigation system that uses an LIDAR sensor to map the room, and a lighting camera in front of the robot to identify 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.

More affordable models don't have this kind of object detection and rely on bump sensors which aren't 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 Dreametech D10+ is the best robot vacuum for vinyl plank floors value pick. It is a great carpet and hard floor pickup, good hair and tangle pickup, and a near perfect auto empty score.

Another feature that is important is a large dust bin that doesn't require manually emptied, and for those models that mop, a water tank which can store weeks of cleaning sessions. The Karcher RCV 5 has this feature and has a large enough footprint to be tucked away under furniture, but not so large that it doesn't fit into the nook between your toilet and bathtub.

Apps

Robot vacuums are like their upright counterparts and require an enormous amount of technology to get them up and running at speed. The result is a pretty mature market that is brimming with options. Even the best models require input from their users especially when it comes to plan cleaning schedules, design an outline of your home and set up virtual barriers.

Think about a model that has its own app that can recognize the layout of your home and save the settings for future use. This will allow the robot vacuum robot to continue where it began when it runs again, instead of having the mapping process restarted each time.

It is also recommended to consider models that offer zone or spot cleaning. They let you tell the robot vacuum to focus on a specific spot for example, like under the dining table following the family's big meal. You can typically use the app or via voice commands.

Many models also offer object avoidance. It allows the robot when it comes across something in its way, like a box of shoe or a crate with dog toys, to guide itself around. This prevents it from crashing into things that could damage its sensors or cause jams.

Some of the most expensive models we've tested have this feature. However, they typically rely on bump sensors to accomplish this and didn't always manage to stay clear of things in my test homes.

Pet Hair

When you're looking to remove pet hair, choose a model that's designed specifically to handle this kind of debris. The most effective models will feature an extremely high suction, a brush that stops tangling, and an automatic emptying mechanism. Certain models can detect levels of dirt and adjust cleaning intensity. They can even spot items that aren't part of the flooring in your home like furniture and toys, food bowls cords, and much more.

Certain robot vacuums come with pet-friendly features, like small water dispensers that can be used to mop floors, and a HEPA filter that helps reduce allergens such as pet dust. They might also have a quieter mode of operation to minimize the amount of noise that is generated during cleaning.

Robot vacuums that include mapping capabilities are an excellent option for pet owners, as they're engineered to assess your home and create plans of attack in accordance with the layout and obstacles in every room. For instance the Shark Matrix Plus 2-in-1 Vacuum is a smart vacuum with an amazing ability to map rooms and navigate around furniture and other obstacles using accelerometer and gyroscope sensors that work together to learn the layout of your home.

Apps allow you to set up no-go zones. These are areas where the robot shouldn't be allowed, for instance, areas with fragile objects or pet feeding areas. This feature is especially useful for households with busy schedules, as it allows you to schedule cleaning sessions without having to be present in the room in which the vacuum is. Spot cleaning is another great feature. You can direct the vacuum cleaner to clean a spot that is particularly dirty or is brimming with pet hair.

Dust Bin

If you're not searching for a small size it is recommended to select a robot that can hold at least a complete bag of garbage from one cleaning session. We suggest choosing the one with a large bin, or even a dustbin that automatically emptys. The first will let you keep up with the process of emptying your bin regularly enough to ensure its efficiency. The latter will help you save time and effort by automatically dumping the contents into an internal container after every cleaning.

Find models that have smart mapping capabilities, which permit them to "learn" the layout of your home and devise more efficient routes. They also can detect and avoid objects that may hinder their routes (like shoelaces or tangled charging cables). Make sure you choose models with smart mapping capabilities. This lets them "learn the patterns of your house and design a more efficient route.

Some models also provide spot cleaning, which allows you to choose an area of your home for thorough cleaning. In our tests, we discovered that the top models can remove small particles like sand, baking soda, orzo, metal screws, and pet hair, as well heavier debris such as oatmeal, orzo, and screws made of metal.

According to the brand the manufacturer, robots last for a long time and continue to perform well, as long as they're maintained. For example cleaning hair tangled of brushes and emptying dust bins after each use and wiping sensors and cameras down as needed. The best robots are also more flexible. This makes it easier to repair or replace parts like batteries and wheels, when they wear out.