For some of us, growing up, it filled our vision of the future with flying cars and robots that did our work for us. While the flying sedans of the Jetsons haven’t materialized yet, robot vacuum cleaners have. And while they may not look like George’s Rosie, these patty-shaped, dirt-sucking automatons have come of age. Ranging in price from just under $200 to over $1,000, they come with a wide range of features and technology. Since there’s a lot going on under the hood, so to speak, we tested the most promising of them to get a fair idea of their performance and determine the best.
What you need to know about robot vacuums
Keep your vacuum cleaner ordinary
First, let’s get one thing straight: You’re probably not going to get rid of your current vacuum cleaner. In most homes, there will always be places a robot can’t reach, like between the legs of closely spaced furniture. And some types of dirt/debris can overwhelm the vacuum’s filter - these small appliances predictably have small filters. Fine dust, fireplace ash, flour, cornstarch and powders, even in moderate amounts, can clog a filter and affect its performance. If you drop a bag of flour in the kitchen, it’s best to pick up most of it and let your processor finish the job. (For the record, we found that the most effective way to clean small filters was to use our industrial vacuum with a sharp crevice tool.)
A robot vacuum cleaner can absolutely make your life easier by reducing the time you spend cleaning. Set on a schedule. It can help your home look and feel cleaner every day. So when it’s time for you to take over, only a few touch-ups are needed. Of course, if there are no children or pets, this may not even be necessary.
Pet damage
When we tested these vacuums, colleagues and friends invariably asked if we had tested them with dog poop (there are many videos online showing the devastation that ensues when a robot vacuum goes over a pile). Except for one of these vacuums, we have not. Until recently, we hadn’t found a model that could identify accidents caused by pets. But the Roborock below now has such a pet damage avoidance system. Other companies have showed that they are developing this feature, but only Roborock has commercialized it so far.
Things to watch out for
When using a robot vacuum cleaner for the first time, stick around to watch what it does. There are a few things to watch out for. Shoelaces, strings, carpet fringe and thin or light clothing can all get caught in the brushes or rollers. The Roborock uses two cameras and artificial intelligence (AI) to identify many common “problematic obstacles” the vacuum may encounter and avoid them. Some units have sensors that stop them when the brushes encounter resistance, and others can even reverse and spit out what they’ve sucked up. But, to avoid damaging the vacuum and anything it might try to suck up, you need to keep the area clear. Also, be careful of water and pet food bowls, plant stands or other objects that might be “leaning” until you know how the vacuum will interact with them. Models that use jerk navigation, like the Eufy G30 Edge, can hit things a little harder, so it’s a good idea to set boundaries around those water bowls. Finally, if kids have toys with small parts, like Lego bricks, these can easily be picked up by a robot vacuum. Many models have features to create exclusion zones, so use them or employ your own strategy to avoid all those minor hazards that could block the vacuum.
Navigation
Navigation is a key element in the quality of a robot vacuum cleaner’s work. It doesn’t matter how well it sucks if it doesn’t go over every inch of the floor. Almost all models use three basic types of sensors to help them navigate. As the models we tested made their way through our corrals and into the living room of an editor we used as a control, we took stock of how well they move through the space.
Bump-and-Go: The vacuum cleaner goes in one direction and changes course when it hits something. Many vacuums are programmed to make their trajectory more efficient. By hitting a wall in multiple locations, they can verify the location of a wall and move parallel to it, making a 180-degree turn each time they encounter an end wall.
Simultaneous Visual Localization and Mapping (vSLAM): This feature tracks multiple points in a room, in successive camera images, to triangulate position. Roomba s9+ uses this method to navigate. Over time, it learns and becomes more efficient, based on points that remain constant and do not change.
Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR): This is a laser that locates features by sending out pulses of light and measuring the time it takes for them to return. LiDAR is useful for creating accurate maps and is the most powerful navigation tool for robot vacuums.
How we test
First, we set up three 8’ x 8’ enclosures, each with a different floor surface, where we could repeat cleaning scenarios for each robot vacuum model. The floor of one enclosure was low- to medium-pile carpet; the second was bare, polished concrete; and the third was a laminate floor. We placed a floor mat and a wooden stool on the concrete as barriers.
Then, in each corral, we dumped 5 grams of flour, 5 grams of sawdust, 15 grams of dry rice, and 15 grams of pinto beans to simulate fresh dirt and debris. (We should note that robot vacuums are maintenance cleaners, and for our stress test, this was a larger amount of material than a vacuum cleaner would regularly pick up.) On carpet, flour and sawdust are indicators of how well a vacuum cleaner’s brushes agitate the dirt, making it easier to vacuum. On laminate, where sawdust and flour can get deep into the seams, raw suction power is needed. Rice and dried beans are a challenge on concrete and laminate, as a vacuum’s brushes can quickly disperse them.
Once the vacuum applications were set up and matched, we dropped the models in, timed them, and examined their work.
Measuring suction
Water head, a common method of quantifying suction, is relatively easy to measure. So easy, in fact, that we built a simple gauge to assess the power of these robot vacuums. Here’s how it works: We set up the vacuums so that their suction could be applied, in a sealed system, to a tube containing water. The stronger the suction, the more water is lifted.
Vacuum manufacturers quote vacuum strength in Pascals (Pa), which can be converted to water height: 249.1 Pa equals 1 inch of water height. You notice our numbers are lower than those advertised by the manufacturers, which is normal because they do not tell us where and how they measure. They may measure at the wheel, or without going through the filter. It’s kind of like the way car manufacturers list horsepower on cars - as an engine specification. But the transmission, differential systems absorb some of that power, so the actual power available to the rear wheels is not the same as the specification. To get as close as possible to the actual amount of suction available under the vacuums, we removed the suction brushes and measured through the housing above them, with the suction filter in place.
1. Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra vacuum cleaner
Roborock’s S7 MaxV replaces the S6 MaxV we tested previously. This new generation improves on the previous model with more suction, faster processing speed to recognize obstacles, and a fully automated dock. Overall, the suction speed remained similar to the S6. In the laminate area, it vacuumed everything, leaving no trace of the debris we scattered. It finished our carpet area in just over 9 minutes, with barely a trace of sawdust. In our concrete area, with the rice we spread, the side brush scattered a few grains which remained behind. The small traces of debris missed, as with the other models tested, are largely a byproduct of the volume of detritus we used in testing.
Using both vSLAM and LiDAR to navigate, the S7 MaxV began with a diagonal zigzag path, presumably to scan the surroundings. It then quickly circled the perimeter of the corral, followed by a series of passes back and forth across the space. The vacuum then made a second pass around the perimeter, finishing with a last series of back-and-forth sweeps, crossing the previous passes, and then returned to the dock to recharge the battery. The more he vacuumed in the same space, the more precise and efficient the robot’s trajectory became.
While the vacuum cleaner was enough to clean up the muddy footprints we left during testing, it was the automated functions of the dock that really impressed us. Besides the robot’s vacuum cleaner automatically emptying into the dock, the dock automatically refilled the on-board mop tank. In addition, the docking station rinses and cleans the mop pad with an automatic rotating brush, and directs the waste water to its own tank. So with an empty dust pan and a tank full of clean water, the robot can run for up to eight weeks without help.
It also satisfied us with the S7 MaxV in our practical home tests. In the Roborock app, we saw the vacuum quickly create accurate maps of our rooms as it vacuumed in real time. It also recognized and avoided sneakers, a power bar, and a wooden dog poop we threw, leaving icons on the maps showing what the obstacles were and where they were encountered. The app allows you to view the saved maps in 2D or 3D, edit them, add virtual walls, no-go or no-mop areas, as well as create room-specific settings and cleaning schedules. It is also possible to view a live video of the robot while cleaning, and even make a video call to talk to anyone in your home.
Buy: Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra vacuum cleaner
2. Mop Station Pro robot vacuum cleaner
Yeedi’s Mop Station Pro is both a mop and a vacuum cleaner. With the large rear dust pan attached, it works like a vacuum cleaner, on a schedule you set to keep your home clean. When you want to mop the floor, replace the dustpan with the cleaning attachment with two rotating, replaceable brushes. Unlike other robotic cleaners, which require filling an on-board tank, it surprised us to find that the unit automatically refills from a tank in the docking station. We discovered that the docking station also has a reservoir to hold dirty water from rinsing the cloth washers after cleaning.
In our cleaning test, the Mop Station Pro performed well, cleaning the laminate floor of our muddy footprints. While the rotating scrubbing pads threw up some dried mud, our test pushed the limits of what we could expect from the robot. While the floor was well cleaned, when we inspected the bottom of the robot, we had to clean some mud off the wheels. At home, we normally take a towel and quickly wipe off the mud before letting the robot do its job. As a maintenance cleaner, the Mop Station Pro does a good job of cleaning up the drips, stains, and marks on the floor.
As a vacuum, it performed well in our tests on all surfaces. We observed no difficulty moving from a hard floor to a carpet or rug, and the Mop Station Pro moved through the test areas methodically. It did occasionally leave a few grains of rice or a stray kidney bean behind, mainly because the side brush threw them onto hard, smooth surfaces, which we regularly see on all vacuums with side brushes.
With the Yeedi app, setup, navigation, and mapping were simple. We could create no-go zones, set automatic carpet detection to increase suction on carpets, and schedule cleanings. For $800, the Mop Station Pro offers a lot of features. And as the name suggests, this vacuum is more mop-oriented than most.
Buy: Mop Station Pro robot vacuum cleaner
3. AI Ultra Robot Vacuum
Shark’s AI Ultra robot vacuum is a maintenance-free vacuum with a HEPA filter, making it a great option for pet owners. The AI Ultra can run unattended for up to 60 days because the docking station empties the robot at the end of each cleaning cycle. After each stage of the test, we examined the vacuum’s on-board dust bin after it emptied and found it to be free of debris. However, we noted that there was still a small amount of dust residue stuck inside because of static electricity. When the dock needs to be emptied, we found it best to do so in a large trash can in the garage or outside, as the dust can become airborne, somewhat negating the benefits of the device’s built-in HEPA filter if used indoors.
On our various test surfaces, the AI Ultra performed equally well on hard surfaces and carpets. It occasionally left a few grains of rice or a stray kidney bean in the debris that was deposited, but only other models. Initially, the app asks you to do an exploration/mapping pass the first time you set it up in an extra space. This allowed us to change the map, add no-go areas, mats, and high-traffic areas where suction can be increased. We could also assign areas to be cleaned on an ad hoc basis or have the Ultra AI make two passes instead of one.
We also tested the obstacle avoidance features while navigating our space. As long as the obstacle was that high (higher than the vacuum cleaner), the robot would stop and go around it. When we put a roll of tape on the floor, the vacuum cleaner pushed it. Thus, the vacuum cleaner will pick up individual Lego bricks, but it will avoid your child’s Lego castle. If these types of items are common in your home, it’s best to create no-go zones for children’s play areas.
The AI Ultra can also double as a robot broom if you replace its dust pan with water tanks and a mop. Our muddy footprints were a bit of a challenge, but the AI Ultra did an excellent job cleaning the area, with only a few crumbs of dirt left behind. We had to purge the mop pad after the test, as they covered it in mud, but our test went beyond a normal cleaning scenario.
4. Roomba s9 Robot Vacuum
The s9+ took the longest to finish the carpeted area, leaving only a trace of sawdust after 9 minutes. In the concrete area, it took longer to get around the wooden stool, but it was thoughtful in thoroughly clean the legs. Like the others, he left some rice on the edge of the floor mat. In the laminate corral, we found no debris, except for a dusting of flour in one spot. Keep in mind that the s9+ has ridges and flexible paddles instead of bristles. It seems to be a little less effective with very fine particles on the smooth, hard surface.
We had the hardest time discerning what the s9+ was actually doing. What initially appeared to be some sort of random path, we realized, was a series of localization exercises using vSLAM. It first moved from left to right, hitting both sides in multiple places, and then headed for the corners, making a wide curve before moving in and out. It then went around the perimeter, then headed for the corners again. After all that, he moved to make passes to the left and right to cover the central area. Finally, it vacuumed to the left and right of the docking station.
The design of this Roomba differs slightly from most other robot vacuums, because it has a flat front and square corners. We found two advantages to this, the first being that it fits in the corners better, and the second that it allows for wider brushes - about 30%.
5. RoboVac G30 Edge Robot Vacuum
The G30 Edge is the least expensive model in our test, but you wouldn’t know it by how well it cleaned our test corrals. It was slightly slower than the others, sure, but it efficiently and methodically vacuumed every area. It barely left a trace of debris on the carpet and laminate floor and missed a little rice when transitioning from floor to carpet in the concrete area. We noticed that the G30 Edge bangs a little harder than other vacuums - not surprising, since its navigation system is an improved version of bump-and-go.
Despite this low-tech navigation system, this Eufy seemed remarkably efficient. As it left the dock, it immediately moved back and forth in a straight line, moving to the left of the wall with each pass. He then hit the wall in a few places, confirming his position, before returning to the center. He continued to move back and forth to the right wall, where he circled the perimeter of the lower left corner. It then moved from left to right, front to back, and then around the perimeter, ending in the lower right corner.
During testing at our house, we used the app to track the progress in real time. While we could see completed vacuums and maps in the cleaning history, we could not save or edit them. To define no-go areas, we laid down the provided magnetic tape to create physical barriers. While this worked well, we had to remember to put the tape in place every time the vacuum was scheduled to clean.
Buy: RoboVac G30 Edge Robot Vacuum
