Introduction
Cleaning up from the carpet on a vinyl floor or getting those last bits back into a proper dustbin is one of the most arduous tasks a person will undertake. Vacuuming your entire home can be tricky for a human; especially if the vac isn’t made to be particularly gentle on carpet, hardwood, and linoleum. That’s why we put Roomba vacuum cleaners through an exhaustive series of rigorous tests to bring you high scoring results. We’ve tested five vacuum cleaner brands to find which ones offer good cleaning across every floor type. Each model has its own patented technology, which aims to make automated cleanups easy. From cleaning your pets, children, pets and kitchen cabinets, including your food spills, up to your car seats, fine dust and pet hair, hoses and filters, these anti-corrosion models are intended to clean both as well as hard floors at the same time. Brands such as Miele, Gtech, Shark, Neato and JBL offer different versions of their cleaning robots. You can choose one of these vacuum cleaners based around the type of room in your home and the cleaning features you need. For example, if you want a vacuum cleaner for carpets but you are more likely to vacuum your bathroom, you may want to consider a robot vacuum along with a hand-cleaning tool to get that job done. We’ve also compared all the few robot vacs we’ve tested to each other to see which have excelled at cleaning in our tough testing lab. If you’re struggling to find a straight pick from the JBL SteamBot+, then you’d be better off checking out our Amazon Best Buy Bristle TP-650, a self-emptying vacuum and floor mop for half the price. See which of the 11 models we recommend you buy right now.
Design
The Zebra and Zara-X000 face shape a familiar theme as two cylinder, semi-mobile robots that roam around your house. The Maxx Ultra Vacuum is made of polymer, with an outer shell, a floor mat, heat gun and mopping brush. A first floor cup completes the robot body, adding an extra three inches to the end of the vacuum, and is powered by an inline motor. Inside the vac is an equally familiar black plastic touch sensor and two bristles on the brush head. Vacuum edges are rounded up slightly, requiring clearance in the area you want the cat to avoid, but with this raised edge we should see a solid vacuum cleaner a fair amount less likely to go off-peak while in contact with a crowd of pets, pet hair or matted carpet. With a 7.5-hour battery life, you can expect to vacuum daily with ease when on low-power mode and when the mic is turned off. It’s also available to buy separately with the remote or an adapter (both available separately, separately). The LG V30 Robovac (£299), on the other hand, also had an integrated remote to navigate around your home and use Google Assistant, an essential feature for robot vacuum owners. You have the option of using the own customised map or mapping option to enable different rooms with floor surfaces from the same floor plan. A one-button, single-door button, switch, a 2.0-megapixel camera, and a microphone (which has sensors for mics) for controlling each vacuum are included. The dustbin is cleverly concealed in a mesh design, so you can’t see where you’re emptying it by just unfolding the whole circular thing. On the bottom of the unit is a large power button. There’s also a small shutter release, which opens the lid, when times are critical.
Setup and usage
The first time you set your robot vacuum up on the charging dock, you’ll need to find a way to detach one of the battery packs – something you find on a lot of devices. After connecting the vacuum to the dock and plugging it in – as its name implies – the robot will need charge. The main thing to do is plug it back in to your power supply. Once the sensor buzzes, the bot will try to continue cleaning, or will pause to recharge its battery. Some models detect that you’re cleaning and continue on; some machines just stop and let you continue to clean. On most bots, they’ll pause when the on/off switch is holding down “Home” and charge all of their batteries in a little room until you decide to send them back out to start again. Check the manufacturer’s online manual for exactly how to make the robot vacuum turn off and recharge. You may need to do this once the vacuum is plugged into the power source. If you can’t find them wherever you are, make sure to run the dock on top of the house. It’ll be close to full. Or you might run it for several hours, until it’s full and almost ready for me to come down and start cleaning. One helpful side benefit is that if you run your vacuum for some time, you won’t get any tracked-in dirt. We were able to empty our Botvac M82 using the Robot Base’s auto-clean option. This is relatively easy—it’s connected to the two-way communication platform, and the box holds a map of your area. To find actual mopping areas and give it a deeper clean, bring the Clean Base to a kitchen countertop or set it on the table.
Design and build
The Lidar V7 Pro and V8 Hybrid Pro are generally built from the same premium materials as the Roomba i7+, which offers a semi-stylish white shell, or the $400 Eufy RoboVac 930. Since the robot vacuum was designed to match its cheaper sibling, there’s no reason the two could’t fit together. Designed specifically for different environments, Roborock devices come with a special nozzle that enables anyone to vacuum a larger room at once in one hit. The robot mother unit weighs 4.1 ounces (about 13.9 pounds) and measures 10.6 inches (23.0 centimeters) in diameter. Like a full-sized pet dander, the bot’s three-row dustbin features a hard plastic shell on the front and sides for easy cleaning in tight spaces. In this phase of vacuum-master life, it can only be replaced after a five-day waiting period on a single power charge. It’s not the lowest-end model with the protruding battery and nearly every other attachment on hand—the Bixby 10s and Kuri’s flagship model, Currys’ Roomba S9+, both sport a longer-lasting battery—but it gives it a slightly less premium look, with a rose gold color and fherding accents. The Edge rotary and suction powered pickup are fairly basic—each side has four side brushes and two side cyclones that move air by dragging it around the floor. One brush pulls more fluids and debris into the bin, which is good for quickly detangling and blowing the dust out. A filter the size of US postage stamp is also built on top of the vacuum and sits at the base of a plastic ‘hub that houses extra dirt, debris and dust—all charged directly through the motor. Around the edge is a wiry plastic arm that can traverse vertical or horizontal space. There are two spinning and spinning brushes on opposite sides for holding the Edge’s side brush, as well as a toothbrush wiggle-wheel mode.
Pick the perfect vacuum cleaner with which? reviews
We’ve tested well over 2,000 robot vacuum cleaners from different brands such as Shark, Dyson, Hoover and Shark to find the best deals and we’re here to tell you what to expect when you buy. We’ve had to pick our pick from more than 300 models we’ve put through our extensive research and you can find out which ones to buy by taking a look at our Which?