The Best Robot Vacuums to Keep Your Home Clean
No other product I’ve tested has advanced as quickly as the humble robot vacuum. Just a few short years ago, they were mostly annoying, overpriced devices that fell off steps and got stuck on rugs. Now you can find robot vacs at every price point with an incredible array of features, including self-emptying bins, mop washing, and more.
What Navigation System Do I Use?
Robot vacuum manufacturers will try to tell you that the most important spec is the level of suction. That is wrong—it’s the navigation system. It doesn’t matter how good a vacuum is at cleaning if it gets stuck every time it starts. A more complicated or expensive navigation system doesn’t guarantee that it won’t get stuck, but it is a good starting point. Many vacuums also combine systems.
- Sensor mapping: The most inexpensive vacuums use a combination of sensors along the exterior of the vacuum, like cliff detectors on the bottom and wall detectors on the bumper, to ping-pong around your home avoiding obstacles.
- Gyroscope: This is an affordable, but surprisingly effective method of mapping that has been used in ships for centuries. A spinning wheel or light helps the vacuum determine its position relative to other objects in your home.
- LiDAR: LiDAR stands for Light Detection and Ranging. The vacuum uses pulsed lasers to determine how far away each object is.
- Camera navigation: There’s a camera on it. Basically, the vacuum has little eyes that look around. While I’ve found this system to be extremely accurate and/or unintentionally hilarious, you must look for additional security protocols to make sure that said hilarious images of your home don’t end up on the internet.
- SLAM: With SLAM, or Simultaneous Localization and Mapping, navigation, the vacuum uses algorithms to process a bunch of data—for example, how many times the wheels have rotated, along with camera or sensor data—to calculate where and how far it should move. It’s usually used in combination with a few, or all, of these other navigation technologies.
- Machine learning: Many robot vacuum manufacturers now tout their own proprietary mapping system. For example, iRobot uses a system called Imprint Smart Mapping that learns as it cleans, as does Roborock’s SmartPlan. These also usually come in combination with a camera or lasers.
Each gear tester sets up the vacuum in their own home, according to the manufacturer instructions and in a spot with clear Wi-Fi signal. Over the course of two weeks, we run the vacuum every day, examining a number of factors: battery life; how well the app works; whether the map is accurate; if it consistently cleans around the edges of your home; and how well it picks up dirt of various sizes, which includes sand, lint, dog hair, Cheerios, wood chips, and flour.
We also look for mitigating factors, such as whether it’s incredibly loud or ugly, or if it fits into your kitchen at all. For a vacuum to be useful, you have to want to use it and have it around. We also noted a vacuum’s power via the manufacturer’s stated Pa, or pascals—the higher the number, the greater the suction.
Cleaning a dynamic environment like an ever-changing house is a complex task, and no robot vacuum is perfect. However, I have a two-story family home with elementary-school-aged kids and two active dogs, and as a working parent I find them absolutely indispensable. Whether you’re choking on cat hair, need to lighten your chore load, or just want to spend more time with your family, we have a pick that will help.
Looking for more cleaning solutions? Check out our Best Dyson Vacuums, Best Cordless Vacuums, and Best Air Purifiers guides for more. We also have a guide on How to Set Up Your Smart Home and How to Get the Most Out of (and Into) Your Robot Vacuum.
Updated September 2024: We added How We Test and Navigation System slides. We also added the Roborock Qrevo S and Qrevo Curv, the Shark PowerDetect 2-in-1, the Yeedi C12 Plus Pro and the M12+ Pro, the Dreame L40 Ultra, the Proscenic M9, the Eureka J20, the Narwal Freo X Ultra, and the Switchbot K10+, and added an honorable mentions slide. We also updated links and prices.
Power up with unlimited access to WIRED. Get best-in-class reporting that’s too important to ignore for just $2.50 $1 per month for 1 year. Includes unlimited digital access and exclusive subscriber-only content. Subscribe Today.
-
Best Overall
Roborock Qrevo S
Roborock makes a bewildering array of vacuums at a wide variety of price points. Happily, they all work well and age well. The Qrevo S is this year’s update to the midrange Qrevo line. It’s smaller than last year’s Qrevo, with slightly less suction, at 7,000 Pa versus the 10,000 or even 18,000 Pa that Roborock offers at its more higher-end vacs. However, I have found that to a certain extent, more suction doesn’t really matter if you’re cleaning regularly and may even bald your carpets. What’s important is that the Qrevo S has everything you need—multifunctional vacuuming and mopping, automatic bin emptying, and mop washing—for a not totally insane price.
The Qrevo S uses lidar, or pulsed laser, navigation to build maps and navigate around obstacles, instead of using a camera—which I appreciate, as I prefer to keep pictures of my house and possessions from floating around the internet, if possible. It also has a new AI-enabled feature called SmartPlan, where, instead of selecting which cleaning mode you want on which part of your house, the robot vacuum will select it for you. I was extremely skeptical, but SmartPlan does, in fact, work, vacuuming the carpeted rooms before vacuuming and then mopping the hardwood and tiled bathroom and kitchen. It can also save up to four different maps in the app, so you can carry it around to clean your whole house. Overall, I found the Qrevo S to be a reliable and not too expensive cleaning partner.
Specs Navigation type: Lidar (no cameras) Suction: 8,000 Pa Multifloor mapping: Yes Dual-function mop and vac: Yes -
Photograph: Adrienne So
The Best High-End Robot Vacuum Mop
Roborock Qrevo Curv
OK, I know I said that suction power doesn’t matter, but that’s until your husband decides that baking soda is a good alternative to actual carpet cleaner, sprinkles it all over your house, and you need to vacuum it all up. The Qrevo Curv debuted at IFA this year and is still on presale only in Western Europe, but I love it so much that I had to include it. Not only is it incredibly beautiful, it has a max suction power of 18,500 Pa (more than the 8,000 Pa in the Roborock Max line, which now seems like a misnomer). It has retrieved a lot of fine white baking soda from my thick, high-pile carpet that I would have otherwise been hard-pressed to eliminate. It also has a wild roller brush that divides in two to help it keep from getting hopelessly tangled, and it works on my long hair.
The QRevo Curv does use an RGB camera to navigate, and it takes photos for obstacle avoidance that are stored on your cleaning device and then passed through the server to your phone. You can disable that feature in the app if that bothers you. Other than that, it has every feature you could possibly think of. A flexible arm that comes out to scour corners? Yup! Hot water washing so that the mop gets dry and doesn’t stink? Sure thing! A lifting chassis that pops the vacuum over high ledges? OK, so this feature doesn’t work that well, but in every other way, this vacuum has made my life so much easier. Just push SmartPlan and watch it go. It will go on sale in the United States later this year.
★ Alternative: Eufy’s Mach S1 Pro ($1,500) is astoundingly beautiful and will be the centerpiece of your kitchen. The water chamber is see-through and lights up, and an ozone generator purportedly removes up to 99.99 percent of bacteria. It also has ultra-precise navigation and a self-cleaning roller mop that washes itself as it cleans. However, it only has 8,000 Pa suction, which is less than some of our other picks, and at 26.4 inches high, the dock is very tall and makes storage a little difficult.
Specs Navigation type: RBG camera Suction: 18,500 Pa Multifloor mapping: Yes Dual-function mop and vac: Yes
