For navigation, it uses infrared light to detect dirt and obstacles as it cleans. Another expensive option, but by far the most user-friendly Roomba yet. It adds 2-in-1 mopping functionality with a mop that lifts / lowers automatically, obstacle avoidance, and all the same features Roomba previously included. On top of that it still has fantastic performance removing 96.4% of all debris. While you’ll need to fill the water tank yourself, the auto-empty base will take care of the debris. Plus, you get obstacle avoidance to improve navigation, especially on more cluttered floors.
That base only holds 30 days of dust and debris, which is smaller than both versions of Shark’s new premium robot vacuum. That’s the only significant difference between the two models, aside from the color, as you can only get this one in black. Shark upgraded the navigation on their new AI lineup which uses the company’s Matrix Clean Navigation system. This sends the robot through a room for two passes going back and forth before doing another run from side to side. It provides complete coverage, while the 360° sensor array helps the vacuum find its way through your home.
From the self-cleaning brush roll to laser navigation, there’s a lot to like with the Shark AV2001WD. LiDAR helps the system map your home and allows you to set No-go zones for areas the robot needs to steer clear of. The robot can’t empty its own bin or change cleaning pads, but it does have recharge and resume for continuous cleaning.
The Samsung JetBot AI Plus consistently failed our solid pet waste test. In each run, it would eventually run over or push one of our dog poop models. Now, compare that to this next GIF, which shows you three runs from our top mopping pick, the iRobot Roomba Combo J7 Plus. The Roomba was less effective at covering the entire room, missing the bottom-left corner in two out of three runs, and it had plenty of difficulty providing adequate coverage around the legs of that mock dining table, too. You can wash the filters in the base of self-emptying systems with water but should replace any filters every 6-12 months. Eufy RoboVac models are not meant to be dismantled and put back together—doing major repairs is impossible without breaking parts of the robot.
When it comes to cleaning performance, the Roborock S7+ did a great job sucking up dirt around my home. This isn’t the robot vacuum to get if you want the most polished experience – and you may very well want that if you’re dropping $1,000 on one – but it remains a powerful vac-and-mop machine with a handful of extra perks. Despite being a more hands-on machine, Shark’s robotic vac and mop was a pleasure to use. Setting it up was as quick and simple as one of the company’s standard robot vacuums, and its first run will create a map of your home, which you can then label with room names, edit with no-go zones and carpeted areas and more. You can even choose to have the robot do a dry run first before doing any actual mopping, so you can make sure it doesn’t enter into the carpeted areas you’ve indicated in your home map. In my testing, the robot accurately stayed away from these zones that I set and I actually like having that little bit of extra control over where the machine goes.
Then there’s the expense to consider — self-emptying bases naturally add a hefty sum to the price tag. The first phase of our analysis starts with testing each robot vacuum to see how effective it is at picking up 20 grams of kitty litter, 20 grams of Cheerios, and two grams of dog hair on hardwood and a medium-pile carpet. We also time how long it takes each to complete each test, as well as how loud the vacuum is as it goes about its business. While we factor in the average cleaning time to our overall rating, we give it less importance than cleaning effectiveness, as most people will schedule a robot vacuum to go about its rounds after they leave their house. Here’s the table on which robot vacuums are best at picking up dirt and pet hair. Note that while all of the robot vacuums were tested by picking up the same material on the same surfaces, those with an asterisk were tested in a 15 x 15-foot square, whereas the other models were tested in a 5 x 5-foot square.
It’s actually kind of surprising how effective they are, since the advertised suction is so modest, and the single brush roll is small. If you have plush carpets and a lot of hair to deal with, though, you’re likely to prefer a robot with better brush action and possibly stronger suction. IRobot’s Roomba i7+ makes our best robot vacuum list because it has a base with its own dustbin, so you can go multiple cleanings without having to empty out the bin. It edged out the Shark Ion R85 on our pet hair test, picking up just over 90 percent of all the fur on both hard floors and carpet.
The Shark IQ digitally maps your home, can be controlled over your smartphone, and has a “Room Select” feature that allows you to clean a specific room. It doesn’t have the raw cleaning power of the high-end Roomba, but it was still a pretty good shark dustbuster cleaner in our tests. They get the surface debris, but if you have a carpeted house or lots of rugs, I’d recommend investing in a stick vac for weekly deep cleans. These are also handy for stairs, something no robot vacuum can tackle (yet).