A robot that does all your cleaning and vacuuming sounds like fantasy, but it can actually be easily accomplished. The best robotic vacuums of 2020 are sophisticated and packed with smart features, electronic eyes, smart sensors, and even lasers that offer enhanced cleaning and computing power.
Fantasy comes at a cost and the cost of robot vacuums has skyrocketed; some are even four amazing figures. That’s certainly a quirky way, but you get a next-level vacuum with dirt and dust-removing power for the price, with features including multiple rooms and plant mapping, garbage cans that are emptied and turbo mode, more elegantly designed hardware.
However, even with all those conveniences, none of these guys can do the job of a mop.
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To focus on the best robot vacuum cleaner, I spent over 120 hours (that’s a long time) torturing tests on a group of 10 robotic cleaning vacuums for things like suction power, its ability to work on carpets and hard floors and how far well done during each cleaning cycle. These include recently launched new models, iconic models, as well as attractive options offered at numerous online retailers. I excluded older models that probably won’t sell for much longer. I update this list periodically.
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If someone were to give you a blank check and tell you to buy the best robot vacuum, this is the bot you should get. The iRobot Roomba S9 Plus costs a whopping $ 1,100. However, for that staggeringly high price tag, this bot offers powerful suction and excellent cleaning power to remove dirt and dust.
On hardwood floors, it collected an average of 93% of our test sand, the highest amount in our test group. The Roomba had trouble cleaning the sand from low-rise rugs and rugs a bit, achieving a low average dust and sand collection of 28%.
That said, the Roomba robot vacuum removed an average of 71% sand from our mid-pile carpet when vacuuming. Again, this is the best result we saw in this specific test. It also cleaned more pet hair, pet dander, and allergens than any vacuum in this test group, and the bot navigates and maps multiple rooms and floors. iRobot has also updated its app to allow you to designate “exclusion zones” to designate areas you want the S9 Plus to avoid when cleaning. The app also allows you to use voice commands to immediately clean a room using Alexa or Google Voice Assistant.
The robot also went through our test room in a short average time of 25 minutes. You can link the S9 Plus to the Roomba app and also to your home WiFi. Best of all, the Roomba S9 Plus CleanBase Docking Station. The charging base charges the robot’s battery and empties its dustbin automatically, making cleaning even easier and keeping you from worrying about battery life. Now that is convenient. Read our first impressions of the Roomba S9 Plus.
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For half the price of the Roomba S9 Plus, the $ 600 Neva’s Botvac D7 Connected almost sucks up dirt, dust, and grime as well, making it the best robot vacuum cleaner at average cost. On average, this cleaning robot collected a greater amount of sand (36%) through carpets and low pile rugs than the Roomba.
It also outperformed the S9 Plus for its cleaning power on bare hardwood floors, collecting an average of 95% of the sand we deposit. However, the vacuum cleaner cleaned dirt, dust, and sand from mid-pile rugs less effectively, reaching a collection average of 47 percent during cleaning.
While the Neato Botvac Connected can’t match Roomba’s dexterity for removing pet hair or emptying its own dust bin, the Botvac Connected navigates more efficiently around furniture, but covers more ground, thanks to mapping Built-in lidar laser navigation. You can also control the cleaning robot using the Neato app as a remote control, as well as link it to Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. The application allows you to designate areas of your home as also prohibited for cleaning.
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Here’s a cleaning machine that proves you don’t need to spend your budget to buy a solid robot vacuum. Although the Robovac 11S Max costs only $ 220, it cleans floors effectively. That is especially the case when cleaning bare wood floors.
It managed to remove an average of 71% of our test sand from this type of surface. The bot did not perform as well cleaning carpets, earning sand collection averages of 21 and 27% on low and medium piles, respectively.
And because of this vacuum’s basic navigation system, it took over an hour to negotiate our test room. As for time, that’s a lot. Still, the Eufy used her runtime wisely. The vacuum cleaner covered the space well, cleaning and leaving almost no stains intact. The Eufy also charges automatically, so, once again, there’s no need to worry about battery life or take general cleaning time into account. It is the best robot vacuum cleaner for its value. Read more.
How we test robotic vacuum cleaners
Our method of evaluating robot vacuum cleaners is simple, but exhausting. There are two types of tests that we run. The first test is to find out how well a robot covers the floor While Cleaning We build an industry standard test room, as specified by the International Electrotechnical Commission, only for this purpose. The IEC is an international standards body responsible for administering robot vacuum test procedures, among other things, for vacuum manufacturers.
The obstacles in our test room mimic what robot vacuum cleaners find in the real world.
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Inside this room are objects designed to simulate typical obstacles that a robot encounters to navigate while cleaning. These obstacles include wall edges, table and chair legs, sofas and other furniture, and more, plus bare hardwood and tile floors, as well as rugs.
Here’s a coverage photo of the iRobot Roomba S9 Plus as it moved through our test room. You can see that it covered the floor well, except for a small section in the center (left, bottom).
Gianmarco Chumbe / CNET
We mount LED lights on top of each vacuum. The dimensions of the lights correspond to the measured nozzle width of each particular vacuum robot we tested.
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As robots move around the room while cleaning, a camera captures a long-exposure image of the entire room in low light. That photo will have a light trail, created by the LEDs, that shows the exact areas the robot traveled to (and its nozzle position) during its runtime. We can also see areas of the floor that the vacuum cleaner may have lost or clogged.
This is the coverage pattern created by Neato Botvac D7 Connected. His movement through our evidence room was very orderly, logical, and effective.
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You can see the navigation results of all robot vacuums in our test group in the gallery below.
Some robot vacuums have a better sense of direction than others.
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The second type of test reveals exactly how much physical debris a vacuum cleaner can lift from the floor. To mimic small particle dirt, we use a mix of playground sand and yard sand. For larger particulate soils, we use raw black rice grains. The robots then run in a straight line across three types of floors (low pile carpet, medium pile carpet, and bare hardwood floors).
We tested robotic vacuums on three types of floor surfaces.
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We also control the specific nozzle width of each vacuum cleaner. We build an adjustable tool to dirty our test floors. It allows us to place a strip of precise land area to match the nozzle dimensions for each robot. The soil mass is also not chosen at random. We measure a proportional amount that is related to the floor material, the type of debris and the width of the nozzle of each vacuum cleaner.
Our custom tool allows us to match the floor area to the width of the robot vacuum cleaner nozzle.
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We perform three cleaning runs (minimum) on each type of floor. We also carry out cleaning tests with sand and rice separately. That involves at least 18 vacuum tests. Weigh the robot bin before and after each race. From there, we can calculate the percentage of debris collection for each cleaning cycle and the average amount of soil that a machine manages to remove. In addition, we perform anecdotal (visual) tests of pet hair for each robot, on all three floor types.
We run robot vacuums in a straight line during the debris collection tests.
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The table below shows the fine particle cleaning performance data for all the robot vacuums we tested. It should give you a pretty good idea of its cleaning performance on different types of floor surfaces. Our rice-based medium-sized particle test did not show enough differentiation between each cleaner, which says they can all handle larger particles without issue. For fur removal for pet owners, we anecdotally judge.
Percentage of soil removed
Neato Botvac D7 connected
Neato Botvac D4 connected
Neato Botvac D6 connected
Legend:
Low pile sand
Hardwood sand
Medium hair sand
Note:
Results listed are the average percentage of total material removed from the test surface.
Do you want more robot vacuum cleaner options? Here is a list of the other robot vacuums we tested in addition to the models listed above.
