One of the first concessions I made during the pandemic was a robot vacuum. If my dog and I were quarantined at home, I would pay to have my dog hair gone. Even though I bought a top-of-the-line Roomba, I was ultimately disappointed with how "automated" my robot vacuums and mops were. It's now five years later; I've since tested a ridiculous number of high-end floor robots, and I'm amazed at how advanced they are, not just because of their new capabilities, but because they fundamentally work better, If I were buying a robot vacuum in 2024, here are the features I would look for.
Sweeping robots become the new standard
Almost all high-end floor robots these days are vacuum cleaners and mops. If you have any concerns about having one machine do both jobs, don’t worry. In trying many makes and models, I have yet to have a carpet or rug accidentally mopped. If you think that serving two goals will make the bot worse at both goals, you can eliminate that concern as well. The latest vacuum cleaners are closer to walls than ever before, and some even have protruding arms that extend to your toes and under furniture. They pick up both micro and macro dirt, and the best rollers rarely get stuck on dirt. In fact, the rollers themselves are now more flexible, so gone are the days of having to keep replacing them because your hair got caught. What will really wow you with these robots is their mopping capabilities, as it will make a huge difference to your floors. Leave your robot alone for a few days and you'll notice it. While some brands and models mop better than others (I recommend models with mop pads rather than rotating brushes or pads), they all take the burden off the housekeeper.
My recommended vacuuming/mopping robot:
Roborock S8 Pro: $1,399.99, comes with mop pad, remote control and auto-fill/empty
Ecovacs Deebot X2: $1,099.99, has swivel pad but can go into corners, perfect for large spaces
LiDAR means faster, more accurate mapping
Floor robots have long navigated by moving in one direction until they hit something, then continuing to hit it until they get around it. The result was scuffs to the furniture and walls, leaving visible black marks. The map itself is not very accurate and needs to be run multiple times to get a realistic, usable map of the room. Most (but not all) robots now use lidar to map and navigate, both day and night. Soon after the robot leaves the dock, the entire room appears on the map with stunning accuracy. Accurate mapping brings the other innovations I look for in any robot I'm buying. Maps are only useful if they can be used for scheduling. Splitting spaces, merging spaces, namespaces, save areas, etc. means you can delegate go/no go areas of the space. You don't need to vacuum under the couch in your living room seven days a week, but you do want to occupy the high-traffic area next to the TV. Operating these maps also means you can use your voice assistant to quickly address problem areas. "Okay Google, clean up the TV area."
Remote control mode means no more reaching under the sofa
If the robot gets stuck, it's likely to happen somewhere you can't reach. Tangled cords can bind your robots, or they can get stuck under a bookshelf or couch. Previously, this meant using your best guess to locate the robot, then getting down on the floor to rescue your trapped vacuum. Remote control solves this problem. In almost all cases, even if your wheel is stuck, you can still use the remote to find and guide your robot out of the space it's in and to a location where you can grab it. I use this feature once a week and it's very useful. I wouldn't buy a robot now without it. This feature usually works with Pin and Go technology, which means you just add a point on the map and the robot will travel to that precise spot and start cleaning.
Let robots maintain themselves
A robot that cleans for you is great, but not if you have to constantly empty it yourself. It's dusty and messy. Older mopping robots require constant refills of water and simply spread dirty water on the floor. Today's advanced robots have a charging base with a vacuum bag inside that the robot empties itself. You only need to replace the bag in the base every month or two. Even the bags are better - they're more durable and don't go as wrong as earlier models. Then there's mopping. These same bases have clean water tanks and dirty water tanks so that they can fill themselves with clean water or pour their own water into the tanks. At least one model has a dedicated container for cleaning fluid so it automatically adds it to the cleaning water. But if I were buying a robot tomorrow, I'd wait for one of two soon-to-be-released models that will connect directly to your water supply.
Some features really don't add anything
As these robots compete, new features are added all the time to justify their high prices and stand out from the competition. The most recent one is onboard video that you can watch via an app on your phone, which really gets me excited. I've mentioned this issue several times with floor robots (and even once with lawn robots), but I haven't found it helpful.
It turns out that price doesn't have as much of an impact on quality as you might think. While all of the best-performing robots I've tested are at the top of the price range, many models in the same range underperform. There are at least some mid-range robots that perform well.
If you're shopping for a robot vacuum/mop, keep an eye out for sales because even outside of big events like Amazon Sale Days or Black Friday, sales happen frequently and the price can be reduced by hundreds of dollars.
