After a long day you may not feel like cleaning up your house and that is where these robot vacuums come into play as they allow you to keep your floors clean without having to lift a single finger.

The Best Robot Vacuums

In this day and age, robot vacuums are more affordable and capable than they have ever been and in this article you’ll find some of the best models that will be able to help you lighten your home maintenance load. 

What Are Robot Vacuums

What Are Robot Vacuums

When it comes to your regular household vacuums, they’ve really come a long way as you no longer have to drag around a huge plastic hose that’s then connected to a canister on wheels. These awesome robot vacuums are able to help you dispose of things such as dust, pet hair and other unwanted debris that your home may have, with very minimal effort from you. 

What makes these devices able to do this is because they are autonomous and intelligent, unlike the traditional canister or stick models that you are probably already familiar with. The various robot vacuums that you will see on this list use things such as lasers, motherboards, sensors and even Wi-Fi in order to find its way around your home without any assistance. 

All you will need to do is choose a robot-accessible spot in your home where the vacuum will be able to charge and then the robot vacuum will return to this allocated location all by itself before it runs out of battery. Now, after it has managed to charge back up, it’ll then go back out of its charging dock and continue to vacuum from where it left off. A lot of the robot vacuums on the market will have a feature where you will be able to set schedules for them to tell them when to start a cleaning job, so that it can take care of it whilst you’re out of the house. This means that you’ll potentially be able to avoid any physical labour until you need to empty the robot vacuum canister, but you’ll actually be surprised that some models are able to do this by themselves as well. 

There are a lot of different robot vacuum models out there to choose from, which can definitely get quite overwhelming if it is your first robot vacuum you’ll be buying. So, in this article you’ll have some of the best models out there for you and hopefully you’ll find one that can meet your standards. 

Best Vacuum and Mop Hybrid

Ecovacs Deebot X1 Omni

Ecovacs Deebot X1 Omni

Price: $1,549.99

Pros

  • Self-emptying canister
  • AI-powered obstacle avoidance
  • Self-washing, drying and refilling mop

Cons

  • Expensive
  • Quite a big base

One of the things that push most people away from buying this robot vacuum is its price, and it is the most expensive vacuum on this list, however it is also the most advanced. This robot vacuum is not only able to vacuum but it can also mop, empty its own canister, wash and dry its own mop cloth and even refill its water tank, making it one of the most advanced robot vacuums on the market at the moment. Not only does it make sure to keep your home clean, but it can also double as a roaming security camera that has two-way audio as well as an integrated voice assistance, which you can use voice control with without the need for a separate smart speaker. 

This vacuum is capable of cleaning for up to 145 minutes in its Auto mode before it runs low on battery, which is definitely a great battery life. Thanks to its AI-powered obstacle avoidance, it’s able to avoid some of the common obstacles you may have around your home, such as power cords and long curtains. 

This robot vacuum is the best option out on the market for those who are looking for a top-of-the-line device and aren’t worried about the high price this product comes with. Thanks to this device’s long battery life, its strong suction power and also its AI-powered obstacle avoidance technology, it makes it an excellent purchase for those who have large homes and those with pets around the house. 

Best For Those With Accident-Prone Pets

iRobot Roomba j7+

iRobot Roomba j7+

Price: $849.99

Pros

  • Pet waste avoidance guarantee
  • Automatically empties its base
  • Allows for scheduled area cleanings

Cons

  • Expensive
  • Battery life isn’t that great

The iRobot Roomba j7+ is one of the best and smartest standalone robot vacuums that you’ll be able to get your hands on right now. Not only does it make use of an integrated camera but it also uses machine learning technology in order to recognize various obstacles that may be in its cleaning path and then automatically reroute itself around said objects. This robot vacuum by iRobot also has some very advanced learning algorithm that help it identify things like phones cords, power cables, headphones, pet waste, shoes, clothing as well as towels, that may be lying on your floor, by using millions of images crowdsourced from customers who have chosen to contribute to its database. 

If it does however manage to encounter an obstacle that it doesn’t recognise in its database, it’ll take photos and then ask you whether or not you want the robot vacuum to avoid these areas in the future. If this does ever happen, the process of reviewing the images is quick and only takes about a minute. This is definitely a useful feature as it allows you to easily create Kepp-Out Zones in your home, where a cheaper robot vacuum would just typically halt. 

This robot vacuum is perfect for those looking for a standalone robot vacuum and have a cluttered home or have pets who are accident-prone. In fact, iRobot is actually so confident that their robot vacuum is able to always avoid poop, that they offer their product with a P.O.O.P (Pet Owner Official Promise) guarantee. This guarantee basically states that if their product should fail in avoiding solid pet waste, during the first year of owning this robot vacuum, they’ll give you a brand new one free of charge. 

Best Self-Emptying Robot Vacuum

Shark IQ Robot Self-Empty XL RV1001AE

Shark IQ Robot Self-Empty XL RV1001AE

Price: $599.99

Pros

  • Bagless self-emptying base and
  • self-cleaning brushroll
  • Works with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant
  • Supports scheduling and no-go zones

Cons

  • Can get relatively loud
  • Battery life isn’t the best

In today’s day and age, with the many advancements we’ve seen in the robot vacuum industry, automatic dustbin emptying has become a standard robot vacuum feature. Most of the self-emptying robot vacuums on the market will transfer their contents of their bin right into a bag, however with the Shark IQ Robot Self-Empty XL RV1001AE gives you a different type of solution to this problem. This robot vacuum houses two separate dustbins, the first one is located inside of the robot itself and then there is another larger one that is inside of the base station, which you’ll only need to empty about once a month. They even take it one step further as this auto-empty system is actually bagless, which means that you won’t have to worry about running out of bags. 

The Shark IQ Robot also comes with a self-cleaning brushroll, which prevents things such as hair from getting tangled up or wrapped around it, which is definitely a common problem that you will find with quite a few robot vacuums. Apart from these awesome features that you get with this robot vacuum it also has incredibly strong suction power that cleans dust, debris and pet hair very efficiently from any hard flooring and carpet. The Shark IQ Robot comes with a numerous of various smart features that are very useful, such as the home mapping  that allows you to target room cleaning as well as no-go zones. 

So if you are someone who is looking to upgrade from a simple low grade robot vacuum to one that has self-emptying features, then the Shark IQ Robot XL is an easy choice for you. This is one of the lowest maintenance robot vacuums not only on this list but also out of the whole market, which is thanks to its bagless self-emptying system as well as its self-cleaning brushroll. If you aren’t scared of spending more money to get double the bin capacity that the Shark IQ XL has, you can go for the Shark AI XL instead. 

Robot Vacuum With The Best Suction Power

Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra

Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra

Price: $1,399.99

Pros

  • Self-washing and refilling mop
  • Self-emptying dustbin
  • Carpet sensor and mop-lifting feature

Cons

  • Doesn’t come with hot-air mop-drying
  • Has smaller water tanks and dust bag than its main rival
  • Large base

Just like the best overall robot vacuum, the Ecovacs Deebot X1 Omni, the Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra is also one of the best hands-off floor-cleaning robot vacuums you can purchase. The Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra is quite similar to the Omni robot vacuum when it comes to all of its awesome features, as it is able to vacuum and mop your floors, then empty out its own dustbin, washes its own mopping cloth and even refills its water tank so that it is always ready for its next cleaning session. This robot vacuum is amongst some of the strongest models on the market when it comes to suction power, and has a maximum suction rating of 5,100 pascals. 

Another awesome feature that you get with this robot vacuum, called VibraRise mop-lifting technology, is when the vacuum prevents carpet wetting by fully retracting its mop. This model is also compatible with a hot air dryer attachment, which’ll cost $100, that’ll kill things like bacteria and odours that the mopping pad may collect during its sessions. You’ll actually get this feature standard on the X1 Omni. 

In the end, if you are someone who is interested in both the Roborock robot vacuum and the X1 Omni, have a lot of hard flooring and want to focus more on the mopping performance, then the Roborock model. This is because the Roborock robot vacuum uses sonic vibration technology in order to scrub your floors at 3,000 times per minute, whereas the X1 Omni has circular mopping pads that spin at only 180 revolutions per minute. Both of these robot vacuums are great and will do an excellent job at cleaning your floors, but the S7 MaxV Ultra will be a little bit better at deep cleaning. 

Final Words

When you purchase a robot vacuum you’ll usually be paying more than you would for a traditional vacuum, but unless you absolutely love to physically vacuum your home, the robot vacuum is a worthwhile investment. Having one of these devices setup in your home can save you anywhere from just minutes to hours of your time every week by taking care of your chores for you. So, hopefully one of these robot vacuums mentioned above have caught your interest and will fit right into your life. 

Check out the best Dyson vacuums.

Leo Beamers is an aspiring car collector born and raised just outside of the city in Cape Town and his interests include gaming, fast cars and enjoys cycling on the weekends.

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