Robot vacuum where to buy

The stakes are much lower with a 9-pound robot blooping around your living room than they are with a 3,pound car hurtling down a highway. But both need to navigate their environments on the fly, with an unpredictable set of obstacles and hazards that can change constantly. The challenges are similar enough that several former robot-vacuum engineers—including Hexsel—have subsequently worked in the autonomous-vehicle industry.

Duane Gilbert, formerly of iRobot, has worked for a self-driving car company called Nio. Different flooring surfaces have different traction, whereas asphalt is pretty consistent. Higher-end models can have trouble in dim lighting if they have camera-based navigation and with chrome furniture legs or mirrors if they have LiDAR-based navigation.

Some homes have more of these traps than others; most homes have at least a few. Great bots work well around most of those hazards, and some struggle with several of them. Tons of design choices affect the way robot vacuums handle obstacles: the number and placement of bump sensors, whether the bot has any infrared or LiDAR or camera-based obstacle detection, the tuning of the drop sensors, the way the brushes spin, how the robot senses tangles or jams, the size of the wheels, the spring tension and pivot placement in the suspension, and the software that translates the sensory information into robot actions.

Some of the most expensive models are the most likely to get stuck, and some of the cheapest ones are the most nimble. Second, cover as much of your home as possible. If you have a bigger home, or simply would prefer something that looks smarter, moves predictably, and gives you more control, then you can spend more for a robot with a map-drawing nav system.

Bump bots are most consistent in smaller spaces, with a practical limit of about 1, square feet. Even then, they might semi-randomly miss a patch of ground or even an entire room in any given session. But if you run the bot at least a few days per week, your floors should stay pretty tidy.

You can try to shut a few doors, set up any barrier systems that might have come with the bot, experiment with different cleaning modes—or just upgrade to a robot with a smarter navigation system. Higher-end robots use navigation systems that follow a mostly predictable path through your home and are smart enough to make a map of the space as they work.

These bots can use a handful of different technologies to make their maps, but the most common options are ceiling-facing cameras, laser rangefinders, or gyroscopes.

They can get stuck in the same traps. Even with the best models, their complex nav systems can get confused and glitchy when they find themselves in an unexpected situation, like when they encounter an especially cluttered area. An example: I let half of my apartment get dirty for a few days, building up cat hair and toddler crumbs and other miscellany.

After an hour, it had picked up enough debris to fill the palm of my hand—mostly hair, some crumbs, some dust, a typical load. I repeated the experiment a few days later and got the same results. Durability and repairability: Some models can last for years, even if you barely maintain them, while others are likely to end up in a landfill within a couple of years, even if you want to repair them.

We scouted reviews and our comments section for hints about longevity. We also favored bots with easy-to-find replacement parts. Filters and brushes are almost always available, but it can be harder to find spare batteries, wheels, and, in particular, transmissions.

We also fully disassembled some popular bots to get a sense for the build quality and how straightforward they might be to repair. Most mapping-capable robot vacuums now let you draw invisible, software-based barriers throughout your home, using a smartphone app.

It can be incredibly convenient and is one of the most compelling reasons to spend extra money on a robot. One option is to set up do-not-cross lines or no-go zones, which is a great way to keep bots out of areas where they tend to get stuck or make a mess like around pet food bowls Another feature lets you divide the map of your home into rooms or even smaller subdivisions , so that you can command the vacuum to clean, for example, just the kitchen, or the living room and the dining room, without having to manually move the bot or set up physical barriers.

Other distinguishing smart-map features include: app interfaces and sub-menu systems; ease of editing the barriers; whether it can save multiple maps for multistory homes ; whether it needs to start from the dock, or if it can locate itself anywhere; whether cleaning a non-mapped area screws up your saved map; how many runs it takes for the bot to learn the floor plan laser-based navigators learn it in a single pass, while camera-based bots need multiple passes but arguably map more thoroughly and accurately ; and accuracy of the English translation in some of the apps.

The main downside with smart mapping is that, like anything that increases the complexity of a system, this feature adds more opportunities for something to go wrong, and more opportunities to disappoint the owner. Sometimes these problems appear after a bot gets a firmware update. But in the best bots, smart maps work properly almost all of the time for almost everyone who owns them—let that guide your decision.

Apps also make it easy to set a cleaning schedule, keep track of when you need to replace parts, or adjust certain cleaning settings. Bots without Wi-Fi usually come with a physical remote control instead, which is still handy. For example, a security firm figured out how to look directly through the camera on certain LG robot vacuums. And a minor panic broke out after a Reuters article misreported that iRobot had plans to sell owner data to third parties.

We sent a privacy and security questionnaire to the brands that make our picks and have compiled the key portions of their responses in the table below. If you decide to sell or give away a Wi-Fi robot, be sure to factory reset it to remove Wi-Fi credentials.

Battery life, noise, height, and boundary markers: These can all be moderately important, depending on your home and expectations. An hour of battery life is fine, but longer run times are never a bad thing, especially for bump-and-run bots.

Shorter bots get under more furniture, but that only matters if you have furniture that sits low to the ground in the first place. Boundary markers are obsolete if you get a bot with smart mapping but can still be useful with other models. Bot shape, extra cleaning modes, dustbin size: These are usually pretty unimportant. D-shaped robots are better at cleaning corners than round robots, but the round bots have side brushes that usually get the job done anyway.

Spot cleaning common and manual steering less common can be handy sometimes. But most people use the automatic, whole-house option almost all of the time and rarely bother with any others. Before you start a cleaning session, you should pick up any laundry, charging cables, or lightweight mats—most bots will get stuck on them. And you should expect a few hiccups during the first handful of sessions. But if it happens consistently, try moving the dock. For all bots, you need to leave a few feet open around and above the dock.

All robot vacuums need a little maintenance. In most homes, we think a bot will stay in good shape if you do about 15 minutes of maintenance per month, maybe a little more if the bot has a heavy workload. Duane Gilbert, former hardware engineer for iRobot, phone interview, March Bruno Hexsel, former software engineer for Neato Robotics, phone interview, March Vacuum Wars YouTube channel. Robot Reviews Robot Chat. Liam McCabe is a senior staff writer for Wirecutter, and has covered the wild world of appliances since After testing dozens of robot vacuums, he is neither worried about AI nor holding his breath for self-driving cars.

He enjoys visiting factories and learning about regulatory loopholes, and has flooded our testing area only three times. Our pick.

Budget pick. Upgrade pick. Roborock S4 Max Supersmart bot, great price This robot vacuum can quickly and gracefully navigate large spaces, and it offers a robust and flexible system for cleaning specific rooms or zones while ignoring others via smartphone app.

Everything we recommend. Why you should trust me Do robot vacuums really work? Who should get one? What about robots with AI obstacle recognition? What about vacuum-mop hybrids?

What makes a good robot vacuum Care and maintenance Sources. Why you should trust me. Do robot vacuums really work? Most robot vacuums will get snagged on charging cables, which jam the brush roll or sometimes pull the bots off course.

Video: Michael Hession. How we picked. How we tested. Our picks: iRobot Roomba and Roomba Flaws but not dealbreakers. Budget pick: Eufy RoboVac 11S. Photo: Michael Hession. Upgrade pick: Roborock S4 Max. It also has much more suction than the series bots, which helps its bare-floor pickup. What to look forward to. The competition. Roborock alternatives: Ecovacs, Proscenic, and an enemy of the state.

Other smart-map robots: Shark, Neato, and a bad Roomba. Cheaper, simpler robots: Mostly Eufy clones. What about self-emptying robots? What makes a good robot vacuum. Navigation is the hardest and most important thing. So what does a robot vacuum need to do in order to navigate a real home? Cleaning performance matters, but not as much as you think. Is video transmitted with end-to-end encryption? Does the company offer a bug bounty program? Care and maintenance. Shake off the filter every few sessions.

Replace the filter every few dozen sessions. You could save some money by using third-party filters , which are extremely unlikely to harm the bot, but you may void your warranty if you happen to send in your bot for repairs with one of them in the filter slot. Cut away any hair wrapped around the brush roll as necessary.

Most bots come with a tool that can cut and then brush away the fuzz. Clean the bearings on the brush roll, caster, and side brushes every few weeks. You might need a screwdriver for this job, but many bots let you pop out the parts with no tools. Keep a can of compressed air handy in case you need to blow dust out of gears or other hard-to-reach nooks in the bot.

Replace filters and side brushes a few times per year, the brush roll about once a year, and the battery as needed—probably every second year, though that depends on how often you use the bot. About your guide. It also cleaned up more dog hair, pet dander and allergens than any other vacuum in this test group. The S9 Plus can navigate and map multiple rooms and floors, while avoiding "keep-out zones" that you can designate.

The app also lets you use Alexa or Google Assistant commands to tell it to begin cleaning a room. You can link the S9 Plus to your home Wi-Fi as well. The robot zipped through our test room in a short average time of 25 minutes, too.

The dock both charges the robot's battery and empties its dustbin automatically, making cleaning even easier and keeping you from worrying about battery life.

Now that's convenient. Read our first impressions of the Roomba S9 Plus. With a competitive price, plus rock-solid performance and intelligent navigation, the Roborock S7 is our new favorite midrange robot vacuum.

It demonstrated about the same power to remove sand from hardwood floors However, unlike the Neato D7, our previous midrange robot vacuum pick, the Roborock S7 was much more effective at pulling sand away from both medium-pile The Roborock couldn't match the Roomba S9 Plus' impressive ability to clean up pet hair, but it fared better than most. The S7 wiped hardwood floors completely free of hair and left only a few stray tufts on carpeting.

Aided by multiple sensors and lasers, efficient navigation is the S7's strong suit. It covered the entire floor of our test room in an average of just 16 minutes.

That's a full 9 minutes shorter than the Roomba S9 Plus required 25 minutes. Another feature that sets this robot apart is its advanced mopping capability. Just fill the machine's reservoir with water, then attach the included mopping pad.

The S7 will now mop the floor on command. It can even mop and vacuum carpets within the same cleaning run by raising and lowering its mopping pad. To do this it first performs a mapping run to locate where your carpets are.

The robot then uses sensors to confirm the presence of carpeting where it expects to find it. You might not expect sufficient cleaning power from a budget robot vacuum, but that's precisely what the Anker Eufy RoboVac 25C delivers.

Its ability to scour sand from hardwood floors The Eufy RoboVac 25C's sand performance across low-pile This robot also wasn't too bad at dealing with pet hair.

It pulled all save one tuft from our hardwood test floor. Multiple small tufts of hair remained after vacuuming low-pile carpeting. Medium-pile carpets proved to be the most challenging for the Eufy. Many more and larger clumps of hair stayed behind after the vacuum travelled over this surface.

One area where Anker cut down on costs is the RoboVac's navigation system. The machine bumps around the floor like a slow-motion ping-pong ball, changing direction when it encounters an object or obstacle. As a result it took a long 91 minutes to finish its cleaning cycle in our test room.

Solid pet waste and robot vacuums don't mix. If they do, the results have typically been catastrophic. This robot's software is designed to enable it to recognize solid pet waste on the floor and steer clear of it. Anecdotal lab tests confirmed the J7's waste avoidance capabilities. The robot smoothly cleaned open areas within the confines of a test pen and never touched any of our solid pet waste facsimiles.

Other manufacturers have attempted to make self-emptying bins, but this iRobot bin is the only one that consistently works right out of the box. And the bin is a game changer. But it still has iRobot's easy-to-clean rubber roller and Dirt Detect systems to sniff out trouble spots on your carpet.

And it is incredibly satisfying to see it trundle back to the Clean Base and empty itself with a tremendous whoooosh after a mere 10 minutes.

Because iRobot has been around since , it's also pretty easy to find replacement parts. I've found its customer service line to be responsive and helpful. The future has come to pass, and Ecovacs , Shark , and Yeedi all make them. Roborock will release its soon. While I love the concept of a self-emptying bin, iRobot is the only manufacturer whose self-emptying bin works reliably out of the box. I've tried almost every self-emptying bin available.

While they do work, every other self-emptying bin takes some tinkering. If you purchase the bin as an accessory, the robot sometimes has trouble settling itself properly on the base station's air ports when it docks. I also perform regular maintenance to make sure that the self-emptying chutes on both the station and the robot vacuum itself aren't clogged.

They're worth it, but they do require some extra work here and there. Over the years, their navigation abilities have consistently improved and the app has gotten cleaner and easier to use.

If you want the most bang for your buck, a midrange Roborock like the S4 Max that we're currently testing is probably the best bet. The Wi-Fi-enabled S4 Max has features that I've previously seen only on much pricier robot vacuums, like mapping, virtual barriers, and problem spot detection. This is one of the only robot vacuums that doesn't get tripped up on my kitchen step, and it gets up to three hours of battery life on a charge, which is insane.

The dust bin is also slightly larger than average. Upgrade pick? Roborock also recently introduced the new S7 , but I don't think that it justifies the higher price tag. The S7 has a new multidirectional rubber roller that is just not as effective as the S4 Max's original brush at lifting dirt from our low-pile carpet. I have to follow it around afterward and pick up smallish clumps of dog hair. In my years of testing, I've consistently found that iRobot offers the best navigational features.

If all you want is a budget vacuum that will use bounce navigation to ping-pong around your kitchen after dinner, there are plenty of great budget options. The Eufy 11S is very short, to fit under the lowest cabinets. The Dser 21T also has great battery life and doesn't get stuck. So far, though, the Yeedi K is the most effective, and the most affordable, of the ones that I've tried.

The battery lasts a really long time for a budget vac—more than minutes—and it navigates adroitly around the most common vacuum traps in my house, like my kitchen step. It's expensive, but the Roborock S6 MaxV is great for pet hair. It's designed specifically for pet owners, with ReactiveAI that uses two stereoscopic cameras in the front of the vacuum to identify and avoid the most feared robot vacuum obstacles, like pedestals, power strips, and … dog poop.