A robotic vacuum cleaner that does all your work cleaning and vacuuming for you at home sounds like a fantasy. But with the sophistication of today’s robotic vacuum cleaners, which are equipped with intelligent functions, electronic eyes, intelligent sensors and even lasers that offer improved computing and cleaning performance, this fantasy can be your reality.
The prices have skyrocketed, so imagination has its price. Some robot vacuum models even reset you by an astonishing four numbers. Spending so much is extravagant, but it brings you the next level vacuum cleaner with dirt and dust impact power. These cleaning functions include Trash bins that empty themselves, Multiple rooms and Floor plan mapping, Turbo mode plus elegantly designed hardware.
To find the best robot vacuum cleaner, I spent over 120 hours (that’s a lot of time) torturing to test a group of 10 robot vacuum cleaners. These include brand new models recently launched, flagship models, and compelling options offered by numerous online retailers. I have ruled out older models that will probably not be sold for long.
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If someone gives you a blank check and tells you to buy the best robot vacuum, this is the bot you should get. The iRobot Roomba S9 Plus costs a whopping $ 1,399. For this astonishingly high price for stickers, this bot offers powerful suction and excellent cleaning power to remove dirt and dust.
On average, 93% of our test sand was absorbed on hardwood floors, the highest amount in our test group. The Roomba tried to remove a little sand from low-pile carpets and rugs, and earned a low average dust and sand pickup of 28%.
Nevertheless, the Roomba robot vacuum cleaner removed an average of 71% of the sand from our carpet when vacuuming. This is also the best result we saw in this particular test. In addition, more animal hair, dander and allergens were removed than any vacuum in this test group, and the bot navigated and mapped multiple rooms and floors. iRobot has also updated its app so you can set “Keep Zones Away” to set areas the S9 Plus should avoid when cleaning. With the app, you can also use voice commands to instantly clean a room with Alexa or Google Voice Assistant.
The robot also raced through our test room in a short average time of 25 minutes. You can also connect the S9 Plus to the Roomba app and your home WiFi. The best thing is the CleanBase docking station of the Roomba S9 Plus. The charging station automatically charges both the robot’s battery and the trash can, which makes cleaning even easier and you don’t have to worry about battery life. That is practical.
Read our first impressions of the Roomba S9 Plus.
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For half the price of the Roomba S9 Plus, the Botvac D7 Connected from the Neato, worth $ 647, sucks up dirt, dust, and dirt almost as well, making it the best robot vacuum at medium cost. On average, this robot cleaner picked up a larger amount of sand (36%) on low-pile carpets than the Roomba.
It also beat the S9 Plus when cleaning wooden floors and collected an average of 95% of the sand we deposited. The vacuum cleaner cleaned dirt, dust and sand from carpets less effectively and achieved an average intake of 47 percent when cleaning.
While the Neato Botvac Connected cannot keep up with Roomba’s ability to remove animal hair or empty its own dust container, the Botvac Connected navigates around furniture more efficiently thanks to integrated lidar laser navigation mapping and yet covers more floor space. You can also control the cleaning robot using the Neato app as a remote control and link it to Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. With the app you can also define areas of your home as not approved for cleaning.
Read our preview of Neato Botvac D7 Connected.
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Here’s a cleaning machine that proves that you don’t have to break your budget to buy a solid robotic vacuum cleaner. Although the Robovac 11S Max only costs $ 220, it effectively cleans the floors. This is particularly the case when cleaning hardwood floors.
We managed to remove an average of 71% of our test sand from this type of surface. The bot didn’t clean carpets as well and earned an average of 21% and 27% sand, respectively, on low and medium-sized piles.
Due to the basic navigation system of this vacuum, the negotiation of our test room took well over an hour. In terms of time, that’s a lot. Nevertheless, the Eufy used its runtime wisely. The vacuum covered and cleaned up the room well, leaving almost no stains untouched. The Eufy also charges itself so that you do not have to worry about the battery life or include it in the entire cleaning time. It is the best robot vacuum for value.
Continue reading.
How we test robot vacuum cleaners
Our method of evaluating robotic vacuum cleaners is straightforward, yet exhausting. We do two types of tests. The first try is to find out how well a robot covers the ground during cleaning. To this end, we have built an industry-standard test room specified by the International Electrotechnical Commission. The IEC is an international standards organization that is responsible, among other things, for the management of robot vacuum test procedures for vacuum manufacturers.
Obstacles in our test room mimic what robotic vacuum cleaners encounter in the real world.
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This room contains objects that are intended to simulate typical obstacles that a robot encounters while cleaning. These obstacles include wall edges, table and chair legs, sofas and other furniture, etc., as well as bare floors made of tiles and hardwood, and carpets.
Here is a photo of the iRobot Roomba S9 Plus that moved through our test room. You can see that it covers the ground well, except for a small section in the middle (left, below).
Gianmarco Chumbe / CNET
We mount LED lights on the top of every vacuum cleaner. The dimensions of the lights correspond to the measured nozzle width of each individual robot vacuum that we tested.
As robots move around the room while cleaning, a camera above them takes a long exposure image of the entire room in low light conditions. This photo then has a light trail created by the LEDs that shows the exact areas in which the robot has moved (and its nozzle position) during its runtime. We can also see areas of the floor that the vacuum may have missed or is stuck.
This is the coverage pattern created by the Neato Botvac D7 Connected. The movement through our test room was very neat, logical and effective.
Gianmarco Chumbe / CNET
You can see the navigation results of all robot vacuum cleaners in our test group in the gallery below.
The second type of test shows exactly how much physical dirt a vacuum can absorb from the floor. To mimic dirt of small particle size, we use a mixture of play sand and landscape sand. For larger particles, we use uncooked black rice grains. Robots then run in straight-line mode over three types of flooring (low-pile carpet, medium-pile carpet and bare hardwood floors).
We test robotic vacuum cleaners on three types of floor surfaces.
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We also control the specific nozzle width of each vacuum. We have designed an adjustable tool to contaminate our test floors. This way we can lay down a strip with an exact floor area that corresponds to the nozzle dimensions for each robot. The mass of the floor is also not chosen at random. We measure a proportional amount related to the soil material, the type of deposits and the nozzle width of each vacuum.
With our specially made tool, we can adapt the floor area to the nozzle width of a robot vacuum.
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We carry out at least three cleaning runs for each floor type. We also run sand and rice cleaning tests separately. That is at least 18 tests per vacuum. We weigh the robot’s dust container before and after each run. From there, we can calculate the percentage of dirt pickup for each cleaning run and the average amount of soil that a machine can remove. In addition, we perform anecdotal (visual) animal hair tests for all three floor types for each robot.
We run robotic vacuum cleaners in a straight line during the debris tests.
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The following table shows the data for fine particle cleaning for all robot vacuum cleaners that we tested. It should give you a pretty good idea of the cleaning performance on different types of flooring. Our medium-sized particle test based on rice did not show sufficient differentiation between the individual cleaners, which means that everyone can easily handle larger particles. We have anecdotally assessed the fur removal for pet owners.
Percent earth removed
Neato Botvac D7 connected
Neato Botvac D4 connected
Neato Botvac D6 connected
Legend:
Sand from low piles
Hardwood sand
Medium-pile sand
Note:
The results reported are the average percentage of all material removed from the test surface
Would you like more robot vacuum options? Here is a list of the other robotic vacuum cleaners we’ve tested alongside the models listed above.
More vacuum coverage at CNET
Originally released earlier this year.