Robot Vacuum 2 In 1

[Aleshia Ducharme]

Robotvacuums are feats of engineering. Even a basic bot can keep your floors tidy with little effort on your part, handling pet hair and dust adeptly. Top-tier models can map your home, schedule cleanings, take voice commands, and empty themselves.

In our cleaning tests, the basic Eufy RoboVac 11S Max outperformed even robots with fancy navigation, sucking up more debris than most, including along baseboards and close to walls. Its low height allows it to effortlessly glide under furniture to pick up dust bunnies and missed kitty treats.

For this guide, we interviewed representatives from companies that make robot vacuums, including iRobot, Roborock, and Ecovacs. We pored over owner reviews and talked to robot-vacuum owners. We also employed the AI tool FindOurView to identify important themes and issues in thousands of customer reviews.

Obstacle navigation: We noted whether the robot was able to climb the 0.75-inch threshold to the bathroom, how often it got tripped up by obstacles, and whether it elicited certain failure messages repeatedly.

In addition, we long-term test all of our picks in a variety of households, sometimes for years or more, to determine durability and performance. We also checked whether replacement parts, such as battery packs and brushes, are easily available and affordable.

It can avoid obstacles and cross (some) thresholds. In our tests, even when the Q5+ bumped into an object its lidar turret missed, it course-corrected faster and more accurately than other bots.

It has three cleaning modes and a decently long run time. The 11S Max has three cleaning modes: Standard, Maximum, and Boost IQ. The latter automatically switches from standard to maximum mode on carpets. Its battery lasts for 100 minutes (as measured on bare floors in Standard mode).

The Eureka E10S is almost ridiculously bad. Our review unit talked incessantly and cleaned shamefully, and we encountered a different type of problem with each run. At first it spoke only Russian, even though we had the country set to the United States (weirdly, the language function is hidden somewhere within the mapping feature). Then, after mapping the home, it failed to find its base. Lastly, it obsessed over an obstacle-free 4-square-foot area for 15 minutes straight. A company representative told us that several of these issues have been rectified, though we remain hesitant to recommend this model.

Roomba 694: Previously one of our budget picks, the 694 was outperformed by our new budget pick, the Eufy RoboVac 11S Max. The Roomba 694 collected only between a third to a half of the debris that the 11S Max managed to pick up, and its dustbin is considerably smaller than that of the 11S Max.

Under the right circumstances, the i4 is a great, relatively inexpensive cleaner. But the first i4 EVO unit we tried in this testing cycle fell short in its app functionality, especially when compared to the less expensive Roborock Q5+, which maps significantly faster and whose app offers more features. Both the i4 EVO and i4+ EVO initially struggled to connect to Wi-Fi, with the app crashing occasionally, and it took them more than three times as long to map than the Roborock Q5. Furthermore, the i4 repeatedly failed to save the map it had created.

Company representatives told us that they were not aware this was a common problem. But our analysis of Amazon reviews using FindOurView indicated that up to a third of reviewers complained of mapping issues, including the amount of time it takes to map, unsaved maps, and inaccurate mapping.

We faced multiple problems during testing. Initial Wi-Fi connectivity issues were followed by app crashes, and as with the i4 EVO and i4+EVO, the mapping process seemed endless, and its supposedly self-emptying dock consistently failed to fully empty the debris bin.

Though eventually operational, the i5+ mopped ineffectively, leaving behind stains that could easily be removed with a regular mop. The bot also repeatedly returned to its dock before it had finished cleaning, and its slanted tray leaked water onto the floor overnight.

The iRobot Combo i5+, the Shark Matrix Plus 2-in-1, and the Eureka E10S feature swappable bins (or integrated water reservoirs) and small microfiber pads that clip on for mopping. Dragging the moist pad across the floor, they gradually use up the clean water, and since no dirty water is collected, these bots seem to do little more than redistribute dirt. After mopping, you have to detach the pads and wash them by hand or in the machine. This, in addition to their limited cleaning capability, makes them a poor investment compared to traditional mops.

In our tests, the much pricier Roborock Q Revo and Ecovacs Deebot X2 Omni, with their rotating mop pads, large water tanks, and self-cleaning features, easily outperformed their Swiffer-like counterparts.

Before you start a cleaning session, you should pick up any laundry, charging cables, or lightweight mats. (Expect a few hiccups during the first handful of sessions until you figure out the pain points.)

Many manufacturers now offer the option of robot vacuums with and without self-emptying docks. Self-emptying robot vacuums come with a big charging dock that sucks debris out of the robot through a trapdoor in the dustbin and stores it in a disposable bag or a bagless bin. You still have to toss the bag or empty the bin regularly.

Sabine Heinlein is a senior staff writer at Wirecutter. Her work has been published by The New York Times, The Guardian, Psychology Today, and other publications. She is the author of Among Murderers: Life After Prison. When she is not following her dream of an immaculate home and a flood-proof basement, she is taking care of her menagerie and creating magical animal quilts.

The Eureka E10s is fairly affordable in the face of other robot mop-vacs; our recommendation for an affordable option is $800, while the E10s is $600. You might think to yourself, why buy a more expensive model then? Why spend more if I don't have to?

It's not a bad vacuum. If you can find it on sale and mostly want it for carpet cleaning, you'll likely be satisfied. I was plenty happy with how it vacuumed my carpet. But the mopping and built-in smarts left something to be desired.

The difference is in the mopping job. Most robot vacuum-mops today have rotating scrubbers or refillable water tanks or self-cleaning tools. Not the E10s, which has the same system as robot mops of yore where you pour water into a canteen in the vacuum that's above the single mop pad. Then the vacuum drags the lightly damp pad around your house to mop your home.

It claims it can rise up, but it was such a minimal rise that the damp mop pad dragged on my rug. It didn't feel soaking wet, but my husband said he could tell it was a little damp. My linoleum floor didn't feel freshly mopped after the damp mop pad swiped over it, either.

The little robot also struggled with floor transitions. The spot where my kitchen linoleum turns into the dining room carpet is my least favorite feature in my current apartment. It's now full of cat food and dried rice that the vacuum pushed there instead of cleaning up. It also got stuck five times in a row on the edge of my rug and carpet where there was an awkward space before the bookshelf began. I finally blocked it off with my toddler's chair.

But even when I leave the base in the same spot, the vacuum forgets my maps over and over again. The E10s also gets upset if I ever dare to move it, which is silly, since I have to clean hair off the brush, put water in the tank, and sometimes help it when it gets itself stuck or lost in my house.

You can save maps in the app, but I often forget, don't resave, and end up paying the price. Since I can't casually remap, it feels like a waste to reclean just to try to get a new map for the next round.

It got stuck more often than seems normal. Some of it was user error, when I forget to clear up some cords, but other times the E10s would be on a mission to clean a spot and get itself stuck in the process. Usually on a transition of some kind, almost always my rug.

Even when it wasn't stuck, it bumped around my home like a blind pet looking for its food bowl, or a moth trying to reach a lightbulb encased in glass. It was kind of cute to watch it try and get between the spokes of my husband's office chair, but annoying to get a notification during every single cleaning that the robot was stuck again, somewhere in my house.

I was relieved to find the Find My Robot feature in the app, so that the E10s would make a noise and help me find it when I would get a notification that the robot was stuck yet again. I knew its trouble spots, but it was easier to find it with the sound alerts.

I have mostly carpet, which I think is what made me still mostly like this vacuum, since it could quietly vacuum my whole home to a pretty satisfying level. I also liked the bagless empty bin, which has a Dyson-like design to it, and the small form factor of the base. But if I bought it because I was expecting to mop, I'd be sorely disappointed. And if I'm not buying it for the mopping, I should have just gotten a cheaper vac-only robot.

Updated April 2024: We added the Eufy S1 Pro and X10 Pro Omni, the Dyson 360 Vis Nav, the TP-Link Tapo RV30C Plus, and the Dreame X30. We also added more information on the iRobot and Amazon acquisition and noted a new Samsung robot. We also updated prices and links throughout.

After almost a year of operation, I do find it a little annoying that there's no automatic dustbin detection; it will leave the occasional dog hair dustball when cleaning a room. However, given the problems I've had with other robot vacuums, this seems negligible. This is the best robot vacuum if you, like me, have a large house with multiple surfaces and you need a capable, reliable robot helper.

It has a fairly powerful battery life and mapped and cleaned fairly well, although mirrored and glass doors confused it a little bit. Reviewer Nena Farrell tried it on Cheerios, cat food, and cat litter, but it never got 100 percent of the dirt, which is a little disappointing with at this price. Still, if you have a larger home with a variety of surfaces to clean, this could be a good choice.

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