A robot vacuum that cleans your floors makes life easier on paper, but some robot vacuums end up being so incompetent that it’s just easier to get out a cordless manual vacuum instead.
In our eternal quest to narrow down the best robot vacuums, we test and score robot vacuums across two general categories: technical cleaning performance and whether the experience of having that robot vacuum in your home is positive or negative.
We don't test robot vacuums in a lab
Mashable's testing grounds for robot vacuums are real homes with real people, real pets, and real messes. Each robot vacuum lives with us for at least a month (but usually longer) and is tends to hardwood, tile, and varying rug and carpet piles. The debris the vacuums deal with is a combination of naturally occurring messes that build up over time, as well as messes that we’ve purposefully created to ensure they can tackle it all.
While the acceptable cleanliness status of a floor is subjective, we attempt to get as close as possible to standardizing the robot vacuum testing process through a testing rubric. Our rubric is made up of four core categories that cover all elements of the automated cleaning experience. We gathered these categories based on factors we've identified as important over the years as well as intel that we've gathered from friends, family, and people on the internet about what they look for in a vacuum. We use this rubric to record results, give each robot vacuum a score, and compare them to one another.
We'll get into the weeds with those four categories if you're curious:
Our robot vacuum testing guide explained
How thoroughly does the robot vacuum clean?
This one's pretty self-explanatory, but what's "clean" to one person may not be "clean" to another. Despite the subjectivity, we've come up with a set of tests to evaluate how well each robot vacuum tackles a variety of messes on different floor types. Here's how we measure:
Suction power: The actual force is tricky to compare on paper because not all robot vacuum brands are on the same page as to how suction power should be measured. Those numbers are pretty arbitrary to the average person, anyway, so we evaluate suction power through a series of standardized hands-on cleaning tests. Each robot vacuum faces three types of messes on both hard floors and a carpet or rug. They'll tackle dry debris like rice or large snack crumbs, lighter-weight dry debris like soil or powder, and hair from a human and from a pet. (The pet-hair-on-rug test is my favorite — I let the shedding from my cats build up on the rug in my bedroom for several days, let a robot vacuum at it, and then lint roll the area to see how much fur was still left over.) Any food-like debris is also scattered along the underside of the kitchen cabinets to assess a robot vacuum’s corner cleaning.
Suction settings: To assess suction power past the numerical metric that only some brands provide, we assess how each vacuum’s suction power is demonstrated across a variety of messes and floor types. Each robot vacuum is sent to tackle hard debris like rice, chip crumbs, or indoor plant soil and hair on a rug and on a hard floor, including in corners and along the wall. We also note whether the robot vacuum noticeably boosts suction when it comes into contact with carpet or a spot with extra debris.
Mopping: If the robot vacuum in question is a 2-in-1 model, a few mopping tests on hard floors are also in order. We send each hybrid model over a fresh oil-based spill like Italian salad dressing, a fresh splatter of a thicker consistency like marinara sauce, a dried spill stain like coffee, and dried shoe prints that are always visible from that one angle by the door.
How well does the robot vacuum maneuver around your home without getting stuck?
Navigation is arguably just as important as the cleaning itself — the vacuum needs to be able to make it to the right spot before its cleaning skills can even be applicable. Here's how we measure:
Smart mapping: Either powered by lasers (LiDAR) or cameras (vSLAM), robot vacuums with smart mapping survey the layout of your home on an initial mapping run and remember the floor plan for future tasks. Ideally, they can clean specific rooms at your command, and stay out of no-go zones that you can draw within rooms on the compatible apps. To test this, each robot vacuum’s initial mapping run is timed, and then maps are analyzed based on how many separate rooms were correctly identified — as well as whether there were any areas that the robot vacuum completely ignored upon its first try. Note: We automatically rule out all robot vacuums that do not have smart mapping capabilities, as this has become so standard and so affordable that any robot vacuum without smart mapping is almost guaranteed to be outdated.
General maneuvering: Is it bumping into walls and leaving scuffs? Getting stuck under chair legs? Unable to get over rugs?
Spot cleaning: The flipside of daily upkeep is the inevitable oopsy that needs to be dealt with on the fly. We evaluate if it's a pain in the ass to deal with spontaneous messes. Some things we note: Can you pick the robot vacuum up and press a button to make it start cleaning in a certain spot? Is it easy to draw a zone in the app? Does the vac actually make it to the right spot and take multiple passes?
Small obstacle avoidance: Sometimes titled “3D obstacle avoidance” or “AI obstacle avoidance,” this technology goes past the ability to detect and maneuver around furniture, giving the robot vacuum eyes to perceive obstacles that are only a few inches tall. These obstacles could be on the floor at any given moment, but aren’t permanent fixtures like a couch or a wall — avoiding them is more of a spontaneous case-by-case basis thing. (As of fall 2024, this feature is being more normalized, it’s mostly still reserved for the most premium robot vacuum from each brand.) If a robot vacuum has this capability, we test its agility by putting a variety of small, pesky hurdles in its cleaning path: a phone charger or extension cord, a pet toy, and a small piece of laundry, like a sock or hand towel.
How seamlessly does the robot vacuum blend in with your life at home, and how polite of a house guest is it?
Robot vacuums can be a pretty unobtrusive addition to your household — if they're productive and user-friendly. But if a robot vacuum is loud, clunky, or a pain to use, you're not going to want it in your house at all. Here's how we measure:
Noise level: We use a sound meter app to determine how loud the vacuum is when it’s cleaning and, if applicable, emptying into the self-empty dock. The average volume when cleaning is between 55 and 65 decibels, while the average volume when self-emptying is between 70 and 80 decibels.
Battery life: Finding out how long a robot vacuum can run on a full charge is pretty self-explanatory: We send it out on a full charge and let it clean until it dies. Typically, this ranges between 90 and 180 minutes, with some botvacs reaching 200 or more. During this test, we keep in mind factors that could impact battery life: For example, cleaning an extra furry living room rug using boosted suction power will drain the battery faster than cleaning a hard floor in eco mode. But we don’t weigh battery life too heavily when assessing a robot vacuum’s value — most times, the vacuum can complete the rooms you’ve queued up way before it would need to return to the dock to charge. Unless you live in a pretty large house and will be expecting the robot vacuum to clean your entire home in one fell swoop, you probably won’t notice the difference between an hour and a half or three hours of battery life.
App experience: Almost every robot vacuum released in the past few years is a smart robot vacuum that users control through an app. (Because we're aiming to compare all of the latest models from each main brand, we won't be considering any older robot vacuums that don't have an app.) But the mere fact that there is an app isn't enough — it needs to be easy to use. Is room editing or dragging and dropping zones an intuitive or convoluted process? Once the map is made, does the app make it easy to add new areas to a current cleaning queue, or trace the vacuum's current cleaning path? Does the map show where carpets, rugs, and obstacles are, and does it let you dismiss inaccurately identified obstacles?
On a more abstract note, we also make a mental note about each vacuum's design, both in terms of aesthetics and durability. Is it plastic-y and on the verge of falling apart if you ever have to pick it up? Is it chic enough to not stick out like a sore thumb in whatever room it's in? Does it come in more than one color? Looks aren't everything, but when a robot vacuum can't be shoved into a closet when it's not in use like an upright vacuum can, its presentation has to be considered.
How much maintenance can the vacuum do itself, or is human intervention required to take care of it?
Some robot vacuums are automated and have more advanced self-maintenance features than others, and if someone is already considering buying a robot vacuum because of the hands-off cleaning experience, they might want that convenience to extend to dustbin emptying or mopping pad cleaning, too. Here's how we measure:
Self-emptying: In the good year of 2024, robot vacuums that self empty are the norm — it’s almost weird to recommend a robot vacuum that doesn’t come with a self-emptying dock. OK, some situations may call for a standalone robovac: small spaces (like apartments or studios) may not have the physical space to house a bulky dock, and homes with light foot traffic and no pets may not need automatic emptying after every cleaning run. So any robot vacuum with a self-emptying dock gets points for convenience — past that, we compare self-emptiers on features like dustbin capacity, where we see how many weeks it takes to fill the dock’s dustbin with daily cleaning of a few rooms each day. If there's no self-emptying dock, we still use each vacuum for light daily upkeep every day to see how many days it takes to fill up the dust bin.
Mopping pad maintenance: As the most premium self-maintenance feature available in hybrid robot vacuums right now, this bullet point is applicable less often than automatic emptying (though it is becoming much more mainstream). Here, the robovac’s self-emptying dock also stores a clean water and dirty water tank, plus fans that wash and dry the robot’s mopping pads after it mops. If this is present, that robot vacuum gets automatic points — not having to manually detach, wash, and reattach the mopping pad each time seriously broadens your cleaning schedule, especially for spur-of-the-moment cleanings for which you may not have time to prepare. We also track roughly how many weeks of regular mopping it takes for the dirty water tank to fill up or the clean water tank to require refilling.
The timeline of both of these features can fluctuate based on the size of the rooms being cleaned that specific day, as well as the level of mess the robot vac is cleaning up. Our estimates of how frequently the dust bin or water tanks need to be dealt with might not be an exact science, but we aim to keep it standardized enough that discrepancies wouldn't differ more than a day or two.
Why you should trust us
Senior shopping reporter Leah Stodart, here. I’m Mashable’s resident robot vacuum expert — an unofficial title I've earned after not only testing, but living with robot vacuums in my various apartments since 2019.
In the past five years, I’ve watched the robot vacuum market transform — from clunky little machines that were often more trouble than they were worth to smart, self-maintaining household appliances that really make life easier. I’ve witnessed features like mopping and mapping go from novel and clumsy to methodical and efficient, and have seen the rise and mainstream-ification of more advanced features like automatic emptying, automatic mop washing, and small obstacle detection.
I’ve tested more than 25 robot vacuums along the way, analyzing them in my own home as they clean up after me, my roommates or family members, and my cats. That real-life experience, paired with the fact that I’m nitpickier than most when it comes to the cleanliness of my floors, has allowed me to build some serious robot vacuum expertise that I just don’t think you’d gain in a lab.
When I say you should trust “us,” I also mean my editors, Shopping Editor, Jae Thomas, and Deputy Shopping Editor, Miller Kern. After collaborating with me on robot vacuum coverage for Mashable for years, keeping up with robot vacuum releases, and even testing a few vacs themselves, they’re in the loop of the robot vacuum space, too.