Photo-Illustration: Courtesy Retailer
In this article
- Best overall
- Best less-expensive
- Best for pets
- Best less-expensive for pets
- Best bare-bones
- Best vacuum mop combo
- Best smart vacuum mop combo
Unlike their hand-operated counterparts, robot vacuums can sweep up your house or apartment all with the press of a button, even when you’re not at home — no manual pushing and sweeping necessary. Using either a robust set of motion sensors, lasers, a camera, or some combination of the three, these vacuums create maps of your household that help it complete each job without running into furniture or falling down the stairs. Regardless of what type of robot you go with, you’ll want one that cleans your house efficiently with as little maintenance on your end as possible. Some have the ability to recognize stray objects like toys and socks, while others use more basic systems that don’t store any data about your home. You can find many robot vacuum brands offering models with similar-sounding specs, but this is a category in which it’s best to stick to reputable makers. I focused on vacuums from iRobot, Eufy, and Ecovacs, as they’re some of the most established brands in the space and make an array of vacuums that suit the needs of both small and large homes.
To find the best robot vacuum for every type of home and lifestyle, I tested several robot vacuums on a variety of floor types, assessing how well they clean, how effectively they navigated my home, and how much hands-on work they required. I also spoke with engineers and product managers at Dyson and iRobot to learn more about how robot vacuums work and what makes their cleaning techniques different from other types of vacuums.
What we’re looking for
Brushes
Brushes
Although suction power is one of the primary metrics flaunted by traditional vacuum manufacturers, things like the vacuum’s brushes are just as important when it comes to picking up debris. “All the suction in the world won’t pick up things deeply ingrained in your surface,” says Mike Aldred, senior principal engineer at Dyson.
A good robot vacuum will have a powerful brush (or multiple brushes) to create enough agitation to break up particles that weaker vacuums might miss. The more powerful the brush(es), the more likely your vacuum is to clean up things like dried-up mud or anything that’s caked onto the floor. Weak brushes will simply sweep over the top of your carpets and rugs, while a more thorough brush will dig deep into the fibers and kick up anything that’s stuck below the surface. Many robot vacuum cleaners even have side brushes that can help clear up corners and other tough-to-reach spots.
Better brushes don’t just make it easier to clean the floors, either; they make your vacuum last longer on each charge. “Anything you do takes energy, which comes down to battery size,” says Brent Hild, former director of product management for iRobot, “If you have a motor that’s running at absolute maximum, you’ll have great suction and deplete your battery, so it’s not as effective in the long run.” Meanwhile, a vacuum with a slightly weaker suction power but more effective brushes will clean up more debris and require fewer trips back to the charging station.
Battery run time
Battery run time
If a vacuum cleaner doesn’t have enough juice to clean your entire home on a single charge, it will need to run back to its base station to replenish itself before finishing the job. Most robot vacuums have batteries capable of cleaning long enough to cover a decent-size home, but larger homes may require multiple charges. Some robot vacuum cleaners, like the Roomba j7+, have software that calculates how much juice it needs to complete the job and only charges enough to cover that and return to the base, which will help it get back to cleaning and wrap things up sooner.
Smart navigation
Smart navigation
Aldred says robot vacuum cleaners should be viewed as vacuum cleaners first and robots second: “Once you start compromising on the cleaning portion, have you actually replaced the cleaning system or are you imitating it?” Part of effectively replacing that cleaning system is being able to trust that your robot vacuum won’t miss any spots in its cleaning cycles, and that your floors will be at least as clean as if you’d done the job yourself.
Robot vacuums accomplish this by creating a map of your home, complete with obstacle identification and no-go zones, so you can program it to only clean specific areas on a given day. More basic robot vacuums use an infrared sensor to identify obstacles and other objects to avoid, but fancier models take it a step further with a built-in camera you can use to pinpoint items that might only be there for one cleaning cycle, like a stray toy one of your kids left out.
In many cases, you can even connect your robot vacuum to your smart assistant of choice and say things like, “Hey, Google, vacuum my living room,” and watch as your little droid rolls off its docking station and heads to start its job.
Disposal method
Disposal method
If you’re splurging on a robot vacuum, you want one that offers more convenience than doing things yourself. Given their small design, these vacuums typically have pretty small chambers for holding dirt and debris, so you’ll have to clean them out more often than you may be used to with a more traditional vacuum cleaner.
Some companies offer models that have self-emptying bases where the robot will dispose of all of the dirt once it’s finished a cleaning job (or its chamber is full and it needs to be emptied before resuming cleaning). They’re more expensive, but you’ll also spend less time clearing things out of your vacuum, and emptying the containers inside the base is easier than cleaning the robot itself. Fair warning, though: Those bases are often louder than the vacuums themselves. You may want to run it when no one is home, or just make sure you don’t schedule a cleaning during a work call.
Filtration
Filtration
Filtration is key to an effective vacuum cleaner, Aldred says. Without good filtration, you’ll end up with a lot of dust blown right back into the air and, ultimately, landing back on your floors to be cleaned up and tossed back out during your next cleaning cycle.
Most companies don’t list a ton of details about their filtration systems, but you should avoid any vacuum that doesn’t mention having filters at all. Usually, you can check by looking at the “What’s included in the box” section of the product’s page.
Whatever robot you buy, it should be able to last more than a few years: Even the cheapest options are still costly. “These are not inexpensive purchases, so the idea that you can go in and modularly repair things is really important,” Hild says. The more parts you can replace on your own, the less likely you are to need to buy a whole new vacuum when things go wrong. In the best cases, you can replace everything from the brushes and filters to the wheels and batteries.
Mopping
Mopping
Robot vacuums have been around since the mid-’90s, but robots that have built-in mopping capabilities are still fairly new. Companies like iRobot sell models that have this dual functionality, but even Hild says it’s a bit of a compromise, and having a separate mopping method (another robot or a trusty Swiffer) will yield better results.
Aldred agrees. “At the end of the day, it’s a mop and a vacuum,” he says. “Don’t lower your expectations because it’s a robot.” For those who care about having spotless floors, that may not be a compromise worth making, but if you’re fine with getting about 80 percent of the way there without having to do the job yourself, there are robot vacuums that’ll fit the bill.
If you do want to knock out both tasks with one device, Hild recommends looking for one that doesn’t require you to swap modules when switching between vacuuming and mopping. We only looked at models that could perform both functions at once without requiring you to do any additional tweaking or swapping of parts.
Best robot vacuum overall
$585
Brushes: Dual rubber brush system | Battery run time: 85 minutes | Smart navigation: Infrared sensors and camera, in-app object identification | Disposal method: Self-emptying base station| Filtration: Yes | Repairability: Replaceable wheels, batteries, brushes, dustbins, filters, and disposal bags| Mopping: None
iRobot’s Roomba j7+ is the first robot vacuum that I trust to clean my floors without much follow-up on my end. I tested it over the course of several weeks, running multiple map jobs of my home, using it for mopping jobs, and vacuuming every other day. In that time, it proved itself to be a capable substitute for my rigorous vacuuming schedule; my floors felt free of dirt and debris, with some small exceptions that only my Dyson V7 Motorhead vacuum could pick up.
It has two primary brushes on the bottom, both of which are made of a tough rubber, that rotate in opposite directions to create enough agitation to scrape up more than a single brush could. It also has an additional set of blades that rotate on the side of the vacuum to reach into corners and other spots the main brushes may miss.
While your robot is still in the “get to know you” stage of navigating your home, it can often look goofy as it figures out what not to bump into and how to get out of tricky spots. Of all the vacuums I tested, the Roomba j7+ made mapping look the easiest, and the additional input you can provide in the app for things like obstacle identification make it one of the smartest vacuums you can get. It uses infrared sensors and a front-facing camera to navigate around your home, and after every cleaning cycle you can go into the iRobot app and look at any obstacle the robot detected and tell it if it’s a permanent obstacle (like a new exercise bike) or if it’ll be gone by the next cleaning. For instance, whenever my dog left one of his toys in the kitchen, I’d tell the Roomba not to mind it, that way it doesn’t designate the middle of my kitchen a no-go zone.
Once the j7+ is finished with a cleaning cycle, it will find its way back to the docking station, where the base will automatically suck up whatever the Roomba picked up during its cleaning. You’ll still have to empty the station’s chamber, but not nearly as frequently as you’d have to empty the robot itself without the station (as is the case with some of our other recommendations). That part of the routine is particularly loud, though, so make sure you’re not on a call or recording anything when the robot is finishing up its job.
As with any gadget with moving parts, the j7+ is subject to wear and tear as it goes through more cleaning cycles. Thankfully, many of the parts, like the brushes and filters, are totally user-replaceable, so you won’t need to send it back to iRobot for anything other than serious damage or malfunctions. You can also replace the cleaning bin where the j7+ holds dirt and debris, as well as the wheels and battery, and you can even replace the base station without needing to buy an entirely new unit.
You can get cheaper vacuums from iRobot, but they all require some sacrifices that dampen the experience overall; the j7+ best juggles price and features, resulting in an all-around capable robot that you won’t have to spend a year saving for. Its dual-brush system and camera-based mapping make it an excellent cleaner that knows your home well enough to reach every nook and cranny.
For thorough mopping from a robot, you’ll get better results from a regular hand-pushed mop or a dedicated mopping robot, as the whole device is packed with gizmos meant strictly for wiping floors rather than being added onto an already packed machine. iRobot sells a version of this vacuum called the Combo j7+ that also mops, but it’s not quite as good as the Ecovacs Deebot X2 Omni, which you can read more about below.
One caveat: After adding a few rugs to my home, I tried having the j7+ vacuum the rugs, but I ran into some trouble. When trying to get onto carpets without any mats underneath them, the rugs started to bunch up as the vacuum tried to roll over them. That happens even with a traditional vacuum cleaner, however, and thankfully, it can be solved by putting a rug mat underneath them (or for a cheaper solution, using sticky rug pads).
Best less-expensive robot vacuum
$190
Brushes: Single brush | Battery run time: 208 minutes | Smart navigation: Infrared | Disposal method: On-unit dirt chamber, requires manual emptying | Filtration: Yes | Repairability: Replaceable wheels, batteries, brushes, dustbins, and filters | Mopping: None
Although I prefer a robot vacuum with object identification, the Robovac X8 gets the job done without slacking on the basics. Unlike the j7+, it only has infrared sensors for obstacle detection, but that’s enough to have an understanding of where it can and can’t clean. It looks goofier in its execution than the Roomba and tends to get stuck or bump into things slightly more often — it got caught on the wheel of my bike and I had to plop it back on the ground before it could resume cleaning. That said, once it figures out those obstacles, it isn’t much of an issue.
Despite having weaker navigation, in my testing, the X8 still kept my floors fairly clean. It requires you to be a little more proactive in setting things up, and you’ll have to spend more time cleaning its dustbin than with the Roomba, but that’s a small inconvenience to save some money if you’re not all in on the robot-vacuum life. You might be able to make it through a couple cleaning sessions before needing to empty it, but it’s best to do it after every cycle just to be safe. If you don’t, you may have to rush to empty it mid-cycle (as I did), which takes away some of the convenience.
For those who want the Roomba’s repairability without the hefty price tag, eufy has made the X8 just as repairable, with nearly all the same replaceable parts as the Roomba. Whenever you need to replace a wheel, brush, filter, or battery, eufy has a dedicated page where you can order what you need.
If you want a brand new X8, you’ll have to buy it directly from eufy’s website, as Amazon has only refurbished models, albeit at half the price.
Best robot vacuum for pet owners
$800
Brushes: Dual rubber brush system | Battery run time: 85 minutes | Smart navigation: Infrared sensors and camera, in-app object identification | Disposal method: Self-emptying base station | Filtration: Yes | Repairability: Replaceable wheels, batteries, brushes, dustbins, filters, and disposal bags | Mopping: Yes
My pups and their dirty post-walk paws tend to make my floors pretty gunky if I’m not diligent about cleaning. I try to stay on top of it, but during busy weeks, the j7+ Combo (an upgraded version of our best robot vacuum overall) has helped keep my floors adequately tidy. The j7+ Combo has every feature that makes the j7+ great, plus the ability to mop your floors. After it sweeps things up on the front end, water will spray out the back, and the j7+ Combo will swing down an arm that has a mopping pad to brush over your floors and give them a nice clean. As it approaches a surface that can’t be mopped, like a rug, the mopping arm will swing and go back up until it’s back on a hard surface.
In my experience, the j7+’s mopping is about 80 percent as effective as doing the job myself with my trusty Swiffer. That said, I’m picky about the cleanliness of my floors and usually mop at least once per week, so if you’re used to only doing it periodically, this gets close, and you can always run it a second time for good measure.
One caveat: unlike the Ecovacs Deebot X2 Omni, the Roomba’s mopping pads have to be manually cleaned as there isn’t a built-in cleaning function. That’ll save water compared to the liquid-heavy Omni, since you can just toss the mopping pad in the washer, but it requires more maintenance than the Deebot.
Best less-expensive robot vacuum for pet owners
iRobot Roomba i3+ EVO (3550) Robot Vacuum
$550
$550
Brushes: Dual rubber brush system | Battery run time: 75 minutes | Smart navigation: Infrared sensors, in-app object identification | Disposal method: Self-emptying base station| Filtration: Yes | Repairability: Replaceable wheels, batteries, brushes, dust bins, filters, and disposal bags | Mopping: None
The Roomba i3+ has the same brush technology as the fancier j7+; its parts are just as replaceable; and it has the same in-app floor mapping, albeit to a weaker degree. It also has a self-emptying base station like the j7+, and both can hold up to 60 days’ worth of dirt depending on how often you clean, although the i3+’s station is taller, while the j7+’s is wider. The latter also looks a bit fancier, with a sleeker design that doesn’t stand out as much wherever it’s posted.
Kadi Dulude, owner of the cleaning service Wizard of Homes, says it’s the one she’s used to keep her floors free of the hair her Labrador sheds. “I love that I just press the button, check to make sure there are no obstacles on the floor, and forget about it,” she says. “I have a large floor surface in my home, so it goes back to the base several times to empty and sometimes even recharge, but it gets the entire floor done every day.”
The i3+ lacks a front-facing camera, meaning you won’t be able to go into the app and look at pictures of objects your robot runs into, so the overall experience may be a little clunkier. It also means you won’t be able to set designated no-go zones the same way you can with the higher-end models.
Best bare-bones robot vacuum
$140
Brushes: Single brush | Battery run time: 100 minutes | Smart navigation: No | Disposal method: On-unit dirt chamber, requires manual emptying| Filtration: Yes | Repairability: Replaceable wheels, batteries, brushes, dustbins, filters, and disposal bags | Mopping: None
For a vacuum without any cameras, the Eufy 11s has impressed me with its ability to navigate a home (though it does get stuck more than iRobot’s models). Unlike the other robot vacuums we recommend, the 11S doesn’t have any sort of smart navigation, relying instead on what eufy calls bump detection. Essentially, it just reorients itself if it bumps into something like your sofa, bike, or trash can. It doesn’t allow for as much granular tweaking for convenience, and it’ll require you to be more hands-on with cleaning and keeping it on track, but it’ll save you a good deal of money while still getting the job done.
Strategist senior writerLiza Corsillo loves the 11S, which she’s been using since 2019. “It’s super-quiet, so I can run it while I work or watch TV without getting distracted by noise,” she says, “It’s easy to use and slim enough to fit underneath almost every piece of furniture I own.”
Best robot vacuum-mop combo
$1,100
Brushes: Single brush | Battery runtime: 210 minutes | Smart navigation:Yes | Disposal method: Self-emptying docking station for dirt and liquid | Filtration: Yes | Repairability: Replaceable brushes, dust bins, filters, and disposal bags | Mopping: Yes; hot-water cleaning
I like to mop my floors once a week to keep them extra clean, but it’s tedious work. Since moving into my new home, I’ve been testing the Deebot X2 Omni as both a primary vacuum and mop, and no robot vacuum has mopped my floors as well as this one. The floor wasn’t exactly spotless upon move-in, and this robot has kept my floors clean enough that I haven’t felt the need to mop myself.
That’s largely because unlike iRobot’s mopping mechanism (found on both the Combo j7+ and Combo j9+), which uses a retractable arm and applies pressure to mop your floors, the Deebot uses two rotating mopping pads paired with cleaning fluid. During mopping jobs, which you can tweak to be more thorough or just standard, less battery-intensive cleaning, the pads spin as the robot rolls through the home. Based on the time interval you set within the app, the robot will roll back to the station to clean its pads with the station’shot water cleaning feature. Depending on how often you set the pads to be cleaned (10, 15, 25 minutes, or by room), you’ll use significantly more water than with the j7+ or j9+ Combo, but it also works shockingly well. If you want, you can set the X2 to an energy-efficient cleaning mode, or just opt out of not cleaning the pads at all.
Like iRobot’s higher-end vacuums, the X2 Omni uses a combination of lasers and a camera to create a map of your home. The time it takes to create a map of your home will depend on the size of it, but in my testing it didn’t take an excruciating amount of time, and the end result is thorough. From within the Ecovacs app, you can look at a blueprint of your home, as well as a 3-D rendering that’s fun to poke around in.
Vacuuming is similarly impressive: I’ve done a few manual cleanup jobs with my Dyson cordless stick after doing some quick repairs, but for general cleanup, the Deebot has done the job well for a couple weeks. It’s louder than the less-expensive j7+ Combo, which is equally successful at sweeping up dirt and other junk. If you just need a good vacuum, I’d suggest going with the j7+, but for the best mopping and vacuuming combo, the Deebot has yet to disappoint me.
Best smart robot vacuum-mop combo
$1,380
$1,380
Brushes: Dual brush | Battery runtime: 120 minutes | Smart navigation: Yes | Disposal method: Self-emptying docking station for dirt and liquid | Filtration: Yes | Repairability: Replaceable wheels, batteries, brushes, dust bins, filters, and disposal bags | Mopping: Yes
iRobot’s latest robot vacuum-mop combo has persuaded me that most people can get by without needing to do a manual twice-over after the robot does its thing. The j9+ is basically an upgraded version of the Combo j7+ (which has the same functionality as our best overall pick, the Roomba j7+, with the addition of mopping capability), with a larger-capacity dustbin in the docking station, which also now refills the mopping portion of the Roomba for added convenience. Since it doesn’t have a cleaning mechanism to rinse the pads throughout a cleaning job, it’s not as effective at wiping floors as the X2 Omni, so you may still have some dirt to mop up after the iRobot is done with its job.
The Combo j9+ is just as efficient as the j7+ for simple vacuuming, and it managed to pick up a week’s worth of dirt and debris courtesy of my dogs and my bike without much fuss or mess left behind. The initial setup was impressively quick, as I watched the little puck bounce from room to room, scoping out obstacles and mapping out the most effective cleaning route, which all took about 30 minutes for my one-bedroom home.
The Combo j9+’s docking station can hold about 60 days’ worth of debris, and up to 30 days’ worth of water, depending on how frequently you run it. Even for those who run a vacuum multiple times per week, that’s enough to keep this robot vacuum fairly low-maintenance. The X2 Omni used multiple tanks of water through its first mopping job in my home, so the j9+ is a much more ecofriendly option. As an added touch, the docking station now opens from the side, rather than the top, which the folks at iRobot told me makes the docking station more useful as a place to rest a plant or some magazines, and also makes it a bit more decorative than other docking stations.
As for its mopping capabilities, the Combo j9+ also has more efficient mopping than the j7+, thanks to a new mode that applies double the force when mopping to scrub out tougher messes. I tested this by spilling a sugary drink on the floor and letting it dry, then running the Combo j9+ for a full mopping job. It cleaned up nearly all the residue, leaving just a bit for me to wipe up myself. That mode will use up the battery faster, but like other Roombas, this one can pause a job and go back to charge enough to finish up, all without losing its place. It’s not quite as efficient as the X2 Omni, but the Combo j9+ hardly makes any noise while mopping, which is a welcome change compared to the Ecovacs’s consistent humming. It doesn’t have a self-cleaning function for the mop pads like the Ecovacs, but if you’re planning on running the vacuum while you’re at home, the j9+ is nearly as good at mopping, and you can just clean the mopping pads while you’re doing your laundry.
The Roomba J9+ Combo on Jordan’s floor. Photo: Jordan McMahon
Our experts
- Mike Aldred, senior principal engineer at Dyson
- Liza Corsillo, Strategist senior writer
- Kadi Dulude, owner of the cleaning service Wizard of Homes
- Brent Hild, former director of product management for iRobot
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