The Ultimate Guide to Top 3 Automatic Vacuum Cleaners
It's speedy as well, mapping the first floor of our home in a near record of 7 minutes, thanks to the Quick Mapping option. However, it was less impressive on carpet, with an average score of 86% — its downfall was its inability to pick up dog hair, collecting just 74%.
This robot vacuum cleaner from Wyze makes the list because of its exceptional performance on hard floors. When we put it to the test, it picked up cem% of pet fur and cereal — it just missed a perfect score, as it collected roughly 97% of kitty litter.
Not all robovacs can handle the Em excesso challenge posed by lots of pet hair, but one that really impressed on this front was the Dreame L40 Ultra. This bot was put through its paces in a home filled with furry, four-legged friends, and really rose to the occasion.
Also, it can’t be controlled from your smartphone, so you have to use the included remote control, and you can't connect it to Alexa or Google Assistant to turn it on or schedule cleanings.
While upright and canister vacuums are better at deep-cleaning hardwood and carpets, a robot vacuum—often controlled by a smartphone app—can be useful for regular touch-ups.
A new robot vacuum can be a significant investment, so to ensure you end up with the right one for you, each model here has been tested either on-team, or by one of our regular, experienced freelance reviewers.
Most uprights feature onboard hoses, wands and tools for vacuuming crevices and upholstery and cleaning above-the-floor spaces like door frames and crown moldings.
If you just want something that's shallow in profile for getting beneath furniture, look for a robovac without a raised central puck. This puck is generally used for robot vacuum navigation, but there are options that use different approaches – including all Roomba models, and some of Roborock's newest bots like the Qrevo Slim and Roborock Top 3 Automatic Vacuum Cleaners Saros 10R (both of which we rate very highly).
These are becoming standard now and coming down in price (thankfully). A self-empty dock turns the charging base for your robot into a motorized emptying station that sucks out the dirt from its bin. (Warning: this process can be loud!
Finally, there's the Freo X Plus, which is significantly cheaper and more basic than the others in the range. It has mopping capabilities but the dock is just a simple charge dock.
A big bin means you don’t need to empty it as often. The largest I’ve seen is 800ml, but anything over 500ml is decent. With many bots now pulling double duty as mopping robots, plus the popularity of self-empty dock / charging bases, it’s getting harder to find small robot vacs with big bins.
Like most stick vacuums, this Dyson converts to a hand vacuum, though at over seis pounds, it's heavier than others we've tested, and all this fancy technology comes at a bit of a steep price.
Some brands will address this by tapering their brushrolls or breaking them in the middle, with the aim of quickly directing hair towards the bin inlet. Dreame even has an alternative brushroll attachment that has little blades to chop up hair so it can be more easily managed.
Robot vacuums have a series of brushes on the underside of the machine that work together to collect dirt and dust that they come in contact with. The dirt is then sucked into the dust cup, which is fitted into the vacuum's body.