Introduction

If you have two feet, they can’t get over your lap. If you’ve got lots of room, then they search around for your cat’s food bowl, blanket, and more. Maybe your carpets need so much cleaning that it is tripping up walls and using your stairs. Whether you are inevitably cleaning, rinsing, or sweeping your home at least once a weekend, there are some robots that will do the job, no matter how they get. They’ll have power, come with specialized rugs, or even just will look up for you, showing you where the bedding is and how it’s stored. What’s more, when you take the robot out to a clean home, you can set it on a schedule and it’ll keep at it until the vac is full. And what kind of vacuum do we mean? We like something a bit bigger and lower-cost as well. Many of those people living in apartment living situations (unless their apartment is located closer to the work/home) need a vacuum to give them a little more control over their vacuuming routine. Plugging in the multipurpose vacuum into a docking station offers good functionality (the base connects to your phone and home network), but a special power cord can be required in order to start using the vacuum on your regular power settings. As we’ve seen with high-priced robots like iRobot’s Roomba 980, using that power can certainly make cleaning your home easier. You can either send the robot back to the dock once it completes a cleaning run or, if you’re lucky enough, set it to automatically recharge automatically – either via your smartphone or a standard USB cable. If you’d rather leave your vacuum back on, though, you can get free extensions for up to 12 hours or more, per charge. That’s a pretty short time for any cleaning tool, so such an extra battery may be a better idea.

Design

According to TechRadar’s robot reviews service, the Powerglide – which looks very like a broomstick – should be quite cheap. In fact, it would be affordable for a regular cleaning. Handheld control panels around its body make it more of a chore for both hands than a personal assistant, though. This is probably not an issue if the machine struggles to clear up parts that are only usually a few steps up from the floor, such as stairs and pavement. The Timewise Servo-Lines’ app can tell you how to set the vacuum on a specific route, how to clean up toys on the carpet or gently brush pet hair off of your floors. With the overlapping cleaning wheels, you can push the thing about to do a total of one clean. But if you live in the areas that require a full cycle then it could be cheaper to simply get up and open the auto-wand and run into the side of the house.

Price and availability

In the US, a selection of the top models - including the Roomba S9 Pro - are available for $600. For the robot vacuums, such as the Roborock S4 Max, you’ll pay around $1,000. The RoboVac W700 is a similar product and comes with a powerful dustbin and is “eco-smart” so it can’t be programmed to clean or lock up your home when the vac is not in use. Other good vacuum Cleaners: the G30, the 30XE and the S1 Robot Cam. (Image credit: Ecovacs) Eufy Robot Vacuum is generally a popular robot vacuum, claiming to have around 100 IQs, with an ease of use and a 120Pa dust bin, which’s rated for 100 minutes of cleaning time. We found it to pick up stubborn dust and cereal on the stairs, most likely because it’s a lot smaller, and had clear vision at high volumes, so we couldn’t tell it where it was going to go. It also doesn’t support wall cleaning and can’t back out. As we said above, it isn’t much cheaper than Roomba. A cheaper V10 lacks the previously mentioned question marks about its noise suppression. Still, you get some important functionality that’s missing in some of the other budget models – including mapping, automatic-emptying dustbin’ capabilities, picture-in mode, smart navigation and mapping for your car’s interior. See our guide to buying the best robot vacuums for more details on which model you’re looking for. For more information on those and how the Vaibhoo D4 works and where we test its mapping features, head over to our product review. Want to know if you need to change between the m6 and the D7 models?

Floor mopping

All of these were excellent, particularly the cheap multipurpose version. When this robot won a competition (in which the mop came second), it was a surprise to see that it exceeded our expectations, finishing easy but not quite as good as the high-tech robo-mops that had just knocked us off our feet in the previous questions. This navigates a number of triggers to cascade water into each of the two wheels, lifting the handle, and starting from the bottom when it needs emptying or cleaning. We found our maps to be very detailed, just like the best floor-mopping apps. See our full RoboVac 912 Pro with Robot Roomba and 12 vacuums, including our top picks for the Roborock S4 Max for more on this. Plug in at home, position it on the stairs, or around the kitchen, try moving the robot to an open area that you want it to turn into, then turn it back again. From there, simply set it to clean a section of carpet around a working-height sink or coffee table. Over time, it comes to learn from your friends and neighbors as you clean the house. To make it particularly thorough, we liken this to a tool for dirty dishes or other household chores. Vacuuming is less expensive and won’t require the amount of tech you’ll find doing it, but you may prefer to do it yourself if you have the canister space. It also allows you to cycle through to get to areas that need some extra attention—you should still vacuum these areas prior to letting your vacuum go. In the app, you can see when your robot is getting close and how it’s doing with obstacles. Don’t forget to refill your water tank.

Bottom line

If you’re willing to invest in an appliance with an app for scheduling and scheduling, you’ll just be getting a sophisticated, inexpensive product in the shape of the self-emptying robot vacuum. While many manufacturers’ annual consumer reviews offer a detailed look at overall performance and robot functionality, we’ve had the courage to test these machines ourselves. Our lab tests have been thorough enough that we can truly say: Robot vacuums are like family members. We’ve come to trust those who can be counted on to perform their jobs with the right level of competence and ease – just as we trust them to keep our pet hair contained on a regular basis, and, accordingly, to pick up ash and dog hair when you put it in a kitty litter box for the holidays. Cheaper options will fill the gaps left behind by older models with robot-machined dust mops. There are still plenty of excellent machines on the market, but our testers have found that these models haven’t always performed well in our lab tests – and that’s because they’ve been designed to operate in cleaner environments and are less capable of picking up dust as well as they were in the past. If you don’t mind your vacuum vacuuming too often, then there are now a host of cheaper, better-suited models you could consider. But if you’re thinking about upgrading to a smart vacuum cleaner, you’ll have to make sure your budget is able to accommodate it - and you might be surprised to find models that just get along with your household without any extra features. To find out more about how our testing has fared, take a look at our round up of the best robot vacuum cleaners.