Best Rated Robot Vacuum 101: This Is The Ultimate Guide For Beginners

Best Rated robot hoover Vacuum Cleaner

Robot vacuums are great for keeping your floors tidy but they cannot replace the regular vacuum. Even the best robots can struggle to get into carpets or rugs and often get caught in cords and socks.

Your robot will last longer if you carry out regular maintenance. This includes replacing filters, cutting hairs that have become tangled off brushes and emptying the dustbin.

Battery Life

Most robot vacuums are equipped to handle a couple of cleaning sessions without having to be charged. The runner-up of our top rated robot vacuum picks, the Ecovacs Deebot Q30S Combo, has a battery that is designed to last for 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 carpets that are hard and low-pile carpets, or a larger home where the rooms are roughly the same size.

A longer battery life also means that the robot is able to spend more time cleaning and less charging on its dock. It's recommended to select models that have a self-emptying dust bin, as these models are more efficient when it comes to picking up debris and returning to the dock for charging. It's also important to empty or replace the filter and wipe down cameras and sensors on a regular basis to ensure they can see your home clearly.

Smart mapping technology is a beneficial feature, as you can program your robot so that it only cleans specific rooms or avoids areas where it's likely to crash into furniture or other obstacles. This feature is also helpful to ensure that your robot is able to get under and around furniture, such as sofas, beds and other tall items. Some robovacs that are inexpensive have boundary strips you can place on the floor to block off areas, and other models with higher-end features make use of sensors and cameras to achieve this goal.

Even the best robot vacuums aren't able to replace a conventional vac for heavy-duty dirt and debris. It's wise to keep a traditional power vac in reserve for those tasks, and to schedule robot vacuums regularly for cleaning up light chores throughout the week.

Navigation

A robot should be able to navigate your home without getting stuck or crashing into objects like screws made of metal or pet hair that is loose, or sand. In our tests the tracking device is used to follow the robot around a multi-room lab. It then tracks its surroundings. We also look for the extent to which it can avoid obstacles, including power cords, furniture legs and pet waste.

The most advanced robots can create several floors and recognize landmarks, such as doors and windows. The most advanced models, like the Roborock S8 Pro Ultra, have a dual-sensor navigation system that uses an LIDAR sensor to map the room and a structured light camera on the front of the robot to identify objects in real time. The S8 is able to avoid obstacles like power cords as well as legs of furniture. It also has the ability to store up to four floor maps.

Cheaper models don't come with this kind of detection and rely on bump sensors, which aren't as precise. In my tests, they were able to see through dog poop and cords as well as a pair of shoes placed in the middle. The Best Self Cleaning Vacuum (Click4R.Com) value pick, the Dreametech D10+, is an exception to this. It is a great carpet and hard floor pickup, great hair and tangle pickup and a near perfect auto empty score.

A large onboard dustbin, which doesn't have to be emptying manually is another feature that is essential. If you have models that mop the floor, this tank can hold enough water for several weeks of cleaning sessions. Karcher's RCV 5 is a great example of this. It has a wide enough footprint to fit under furniture but not too big that it cannot fit in the space between your toilet and tub.

Apps

Robot vacuums are a lot similar to upright models and require a lot of tech to bring them up to speed. The result is a mature market that is brimming with options. Even the top models require input from their users, especially when it comes to plan cleaning schedules, design the floor plan of your home and install virtual barriers.

You might consider a model with its own app that can determine the layout of your home and save these settings for future use. This will let the vacuum begin where it left off on subsequent runs, rather than having to start the mapping process every time.

It's important to look out for a vacuum that comes with spot or zone cleaning modes. You can tell the robot vacuum cleaner to concentrate on an area, like under the table after a big family meal. You can usually choose to do this using the app or via voice commands.

Object avoidance is another feature that's available with several models. It allows the robot, when it sees something in its way such as a box of shoes or a crate containing dog toys, to instruct itself around. This will keep it from running into things that could damage its sensors or cause a jam.

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

Pet Hair

Find the best vacuum cleaner designed to pick up hair from pets. The most effective models will have a high suction, a brush that stops tangling, and an automatic cleaning robot emptying mechanism. Some models can detect dirt levels to adjust the intensity of cleaning. They can also detect objects that aren't part your flooring in your home, such as furniture, toys and food bowls.

Some robot vacuums include extra pet-friendly features. They include a water dispenser that is used to mop floors and a HEPA filtration system that reduces allergens like pet dander. They could also feature an operation that is quieter to cut down on the amount of noise that is generated during cleaning.

Robot vacuums with the ability to map are a great option for pet owners, since they are designed to analyze your home and develop an action plan based on the layout and obstacles in each room. For instance, the Shark Matrix Plus 2-in-1 Robot Vacuum is a smart vacuum that has an impressive ability to map rooms and navigate around furniture and other obstructions with gyroscope and accelerometer smart sensors that work in conjunction to learn the layout of your home.

Apps allow you to create zones that are not allowed. These are areas that the robot should not be permitted, such as areas that contain fragile items or pet feeding areas. This feature is especially beneficial for busy households, as you can schedule cleaning sessions without needing to be in the space where the vacuum is. Spot cleaning is a great feature. You can instruct the vacuum cleaner to clean a spot that is particularly dirty or stuffed with pet hair.

Dust Bin

If you don't want something tiny, choose a robot with a large bin, or even a self-emptying dustbin. We suggest choosing one with an enormous bin or a trash bin that self-empties. The one will let you keep up with emptying your bin frequently enough to ensure its efficiency. The latter will help you save time and effort by automatically emptying the contents into an inner container every few cleanings.

No matter the size of your house, most robots can easily get up to and around furniture, and they can recognize and navigate around household obstacles such as shoes, cords that are loose, and dog poop. Find models with intelligent mapping capabilities. This lets them "learn the structure of your home and design a more efficient routes.

Some models provide spot cleaning. This lets you choose a specific area of your home to be targeted for thorough cleaning. In our tests, we found that the best models can remove small particles like sand, baking soda, orzo, screws made of metal and pet hair, as well as heavier debris like oatmeal, orzo, and metal screws.

Depending on the brand, most robots can last for years and will remain in good working order as long as you maintain them with regular maintenance tasks, such as cleaning hair that is tangled from brushes and dust bins, emptying them after every use, and cleaning cameras and sensors as required. The most efficient robots tend to be more modular which makes them simpler and less expensive to repair or replace components such as batteries and wheels when they get worn out.