Re: Best Robot Vacuum
Hercules Montero
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.
If all you want is a robot vacuum for under $200 that will ping-pong around your kitchen after dinner, there is no shortage of options. You can generally find a slim Eufy 11S for under $200, which can fit under the lowest cabinets. In my testing, I have found that Yeedi vacuums have trouble making it back to the dock, but otherwise the battery life and room navigation are pretty great. The earlier iterations of the Roborock S Series also go on sale often; I have a Roborock S6 that is still going strong.
Unlike almost every other model here, this Eufy robot vacuum utilizes twin turbines. Each turbine generates up to 2,000 Pa of suction energy, meaning that it can suck up twice as much dirt in one pass. In my testing, the X8 Hybrid's maps were way too wonky for me to trust it to lug a full 250-milliliter tank of water around my house. However, it was the perfect vacuum to deep-clean all the dog hair and kid detritus in the basement. If you have an enclosed area that needs regular deep cleaning, this will do the trick.
I'm very sensitive to smells, and I was expecting to find the air freshener to be a horrible, extraneous addition. I was surprised to find that I loved that faint, refreshing aroma as the vacuum quickly and efficiently cleaned my house. Unlike other mopping robot vacuums here, you swap out the vacuuming base for the mopping base. This is a little extra work, but it does prevent your robot from dragging a damp mop over your carpeted floors on the way back to the dock.
Samsung's Jet Bot AI+ was not my favorite by any means. It looks like it was designed by someone who has never seen a robot vacuum before. It's enormous. The vacuum is 5 inches high, tall enough to get stuck under our sofa, and the tower is a whopping 21 inches high. You'll definitely notice it parked in the corner.
I had to include it, however, because it's quiet, fast, and powerful, and its navigational system is even better than iRobot's. It left about 4 inches of clearance around all obstacles, which might not work for you if you need a lot of edge cleaning. But I watched in amazement as it skillfully navigated around a sleeping 80-pound dog, even vacuuming around her face without trembling a single whisker. It was phenomenal. Samsung will shortly be releasing a new AI-enabled cleaning robot, so if you're considering this vacuum, you may want to hold off for a bit.
Robot vacuums have a complicated task. Your home is ever-changing, and no robot vacuum will be perfect. We have a few starting points here, but if you're still having trouble, you should check out our guide to getting the most into your robot vacuum.
If you think your robot vacuum isn't working, the first thing I'd suggest you try is emptying the bin more regularly. If it's dragging dust balls around your house instead of picking them up, it probably just doesn't have enough room in the bin. When I reviewed the Roomba S9+, I predicted that within a few years, most robot vacuums would have a self-emptying bin. The future has come to pass, and now almost every manufacturer makes one.
I've tried almost every self-emptying bin available. I think the convenience is worth it, but they may require some tinkering. If you purchase the bin as an accessory rather than bundled, the robot may have trouble settling itself properly on the base station's ports when it docks. You also have to check occasionally to make sure the self-emptying chutes on both the station and the robot vacuum itself aren't clogged.
Robot vacuums 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.
d3342ee215