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Best robot vacuums for smarter, speedier cleaning - including Black Friday 2023 deals
Do these gadgets live up to the hype?
Vacuuming is one of those Marmite chores, but even the keenest of cleaners struggle to get the stick out after a long and tiring day.
Enter robot vacs. These smart appliances can gobble up dust, breadcrumbs and pet hair with one click of 'go' on your smartphone or remote control.
If that still sounds like too much effort (hey, no judgement here), every model in our roundup is compatible with Alexa or Google Home.
How do robot vacuums work?
These compact, increasingly advanced gadgets connect to your smart home. Once instructed to start cleaning, they use sensors to navigate your floor plan, avoiding furniture. It's also easy to create no-go zones, either through the accompanying app or by using magnetic strips.
Many models map out where they clean, ensuring they cover every nook and cranny. They can sense dirt, allowing them to focus on particularly grubby patches.
The iRobot Roomba Series j7+ goes one step further, taking pictures of areas it couldn’t tackle fully. These then appear in the app, ready for you to return to with a standard vac.
Are robot vacuums worth it?
Though not yet a replacement for more powerful regular models, robot vacs are impressively convenient machines. Their ever-improving capabilities make them handy for speeding up your cleaning regime – use them for mid-weekly refreshes and your fuller Sunday vacuums will be quicker.
Unsurprisingly, robot vacs tend to have small dust canisters, so be prepared to empty yours regularly.
That said, high-end cleaners like the iRobot Roomba s9+ come with docking stations that allow the vac to auto-empty into a disposable bag during or after cleaning. iRobot claims that theirs can store up to 60 days' worth of dust. Just note that auto-emptying is a quick but noisy process, so keep your Roomba turned off during Zoom calls.
How we test robot vacuums
Our expert homes tester put a range of robot vacuums to work on hard floors and carpets. Firstly, they assessed each model's cleaning performance by measuring how much dust it picked up in a set number of sweeps.
Next, they ground pet hair from Battersea Dogs and Cats Home (yes, really!) into the carpet and judged how well it coped with this worst-case scenario.
They let the vac loose in a test room full of obstacles, corners and crevices to see how well it navigated, mapped and cleaned. They also timed how long it took.
Finally, they tested its compatible app and voice control capabilities, assessing how easy they were to set up and how responsive they were to use.
These gadgets came out on top:
Nothing stood in the way of this mini but mighty cleaner. It showcased outstanding pick-up on everything from large crumbs to pesky pet hair. It self-emptied its dust canister effectively and the app lets you know when the docking station needs emptying (not for up to 60 days, according to iRobot).
It's not as fast as a standard vac – it took an average of 31 minutes to clean our test room – but it sends pictures of tricky areas to clean to the app, ready for you to address later. It consistently smashed our smart home connectivity tests, too.
Key specs
Number of cleaning modes: Auto and spot clean
Mapping technology:Yes
Charging time: 3 hours
Running time: 1 hour 15 minutes
Canister capacity: 1.7 litres (docking station storage capacity)
Variable power: No
Instead of mapping out your home, this device comes with boundary strips for you to physically demark any no-go areas. Our tester found these effective, and thought it rivalled a standard vac's performance. It gobbled up chunky debris from carpet and left the test room looking noticeably cleaner.
Its brushes proved adept at cleaning out crevices, but corners got the better of them and pet hair got tangled up. On the plus side, this more affordable gadget is helpfully accessible – you can control it using the app, remote or voice control.
Key specs
Number of cleaning modes: Auto, spot, edge and quick clean
Mapping technology: Yes – boundary strips
Charging time: 5 to 6 hours
Running time: 100 minutes
Canister capacity: 0.6 litres
Variable power: Yes
This top-of-the-range vac doesn't only map out your home once. Every time it cleans, it continues to learn and develop the most efficient way to navigate. It returns to the docking station halfway through a clean to empty itself, before picking up where it left off. It aced all our cleaning tests, even laughing in the face of pet hair.
Like the j7, it's on the slow side (for something super speedy, consider the Eufy by Anker X8), but it too will alert you to any spots it couldn't manage through the app.
Said app is designed in such a user-friendly way that everything is straightforward, from creating no-go zones to setting cleaning schedules.
Key specs
Number of cleaning modes: Auto and spot clean
Mapping technology: Yes
Charging time: 3 hours
Running time: 2 hours
Canister capacity: 1.7 litres (docking station storage capacity)
Variable power: No
Dead set on a Roomba, but can't stretch your budget to afford our top two models? Firstly, join the club, and secondly, this is your best bet at just shy of £270.
It boasted similarly powerful pick-up on carpet and tackled pet hair with aplomb, but it felt a tad lacklustre on hard floors. You also can't map out a room or set no-go zones. In practice, this meant it wasn't systematic in its cleaning path, skipping the edges and corners. Our tester rated its app, though, and it reacted reliably to voice control.
Key specs
Number of cleaning modes: Auto and spot clean
Mapping technology: Yes
Charging time: 3 hours
Running time: 90 minutes
Canister capacity: 0.6 litres
Variable power: No
The Sonic of robot vacs freshened up our test room in a blistering 17 minutes and 51 seconds. Its speed didn't impact its pick-up power, either – it hungrily gobbled up both fine and large crumbs while cleaning right to the edges. It lifted pet hair too, but this tangled a bit on the brushes.
Its haste did lead to slightly patchy coverage, and it spent a full minute pushing against a chair before dislodging itself. That said, it maps as it goes and its responsiveness to the app-created no-go zones is impressive. Just remember to monitor its dust box, as nothing tells you when it's full.
Key specs
Number of cleaning modes: Auto, room, zone and spot clean
Mapping technology: Yes
Charging time: 4 to 5 hours
Running time: 180 minutes
Canister capacity: 0.6 litres
Variable power: Yes
Pet owners, note that this robot vac pulled all pet hair out of the carpet and successfully sucked up most dirt. Its brushes were a touch too powerful for hard floors, moving dust and debris around the room instead of drawing it up, but it left corners and crevices pleasingly clean.
It cleaned our test room in just under 25 minutes, but its lack of mapping capabilities or boundary strips makes it liable to run away, so use it on a WFH day. Overall, it's another accessible Eufy, thanks to its remote, app and voice assistant connectivity.
Key specs
Number of cleaning modes: Auto, spot, edge and single room
Mapping technology: No
Charging time: 5-6 hours
Running time: 100 minutes
Canister capacity: 0.6 litres
Variable power: Yes
This is like the Eufy by Anker X8 with added mop functionalities, which we found effective for lifting light dirt but unreliable for heavy soiling. It was as quick as its counterpart when vacuuming, and it cleaned well too. Only dust on hard floors proved troublesome as the brushes moved so quickly that they blew some away.
Its sensors stopped it from getting stuck, and its comprehensive instructions and well-designed app made for a smooth set-up. It boasts a remote too, should app or voice control not be what you're after.
Key specs
Number of cleaning modes: Auto, room, zone and spot clean
Mapping technology: Yes
Charging time: 4 to 5 hours
Running time: 180 minutes
Canister capacity: 0.4 litres
Variable power: Yes
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