When you want to empty the base, part of it snaps off and opens to eject debris, and it easily locks back in place when you return it. Not only is this quite convenient, but it also brings the lifetime cost of ownership down since shark canister vacuum you won’t be buying special bags every few months. The Samsung POWERbot R7040 Robot Vacuum, Shark IQ UR1005AE Self-Empty Robotic Vacuum and the ECOVACS DEEBOT 900 Smart Robotic Vacuum Cleaner are some of the best robot vacuums.
Robot vacuums simplify your life and give you more time to spend doing things you love. Sign up for a BJ’s Membership to further streamline your life and save money on your purchases. I’m PCMag’s expert on fitness and smart home technology, and I’ve written more than 6,000 articles and reviews in the 10-plus years I’ve been here. I unbox, set up, test, and review a wide range of consumer tech products from my home in Florida, often with the help of my pitbull Bradley. I’m also a yoga instructor, and have been actively teaching group and private classes for nearly a decade. He has been featured in Fast Company, Reader’s Digest, Business Insider, Realtor.com, She Knows, and other major publications.
Carpeting and high pile rugs will probably require stronger suction than hard floors, as well as special features like an extra-wide or self-cleaning brush roll to prevent hair from wrapping and clogging. Folks in homes with multiple floor types might consider a bigger, sturdier robot vacuum that can hurl itself and its wheels over mats, rugs, and transitions from carpet to hard floors. The Roomba i7+ has an advanced “home base” that doubles as a charging station and a self-emptying dustbin where it can store up to 30 loads of debris from the i7+ cleaning cycles. Additionally, its cleaning performance and usability (via app control and advanced mapping) easily make the i7+ one of the best robot vacuums on the market. While the 11S did a good job pulling up pet hair from a medium-pile area rug, many of the long strands got wrapped around the brush roll and needed to be cut off after cleaning. This is one of the few models we tested without a self-emptying dustbin, and it needed to be emptied after every one or two cleaning sessions.
When compared side-by-side, the Ionvac SmartClean 2000 is virtually identical to the Eufy RoboVac 11S, yet it costs even less, retailing for less than $100. However, the Eufy edged out the Ionvac when it came to cleaning and navigation abilities, offering better dirt pickup and missing fewer spots around the floor. Still, the Ionvac performed better than you might expect for a lower-price model, and it’s not a bad option for light cleaning in spaces with minimal obstacles. We’ve tested a handful of its laser-nav bots over the past few years, including the Deebot Ozmo T8 AIVI (a higher-end but otherwise similar version of the N8 and N8 Pro).
If the dock is in a cluttered area or under a piece of furniture, there’s a good chance the bot will not re-dock. The Shark AI Robot VacMop is the only model shark pet hair vacuum on this list that doesn’t use a camera. That’s great, but it did not avoid any obstacles, nor did it even acknowledge in the app that it encountered any.
You miss out on digital mapping and a self-emptying dust bin, but in terms of cleaning performance you are covered. In my view, Shark IQ is the robot you get if you want a self-emptying dust bin for the lowest price point. The Shark IQ lacks in a number of areas, including cleaning performance, dust bin size, and zoned cleaning. That said, it’s performance wasn’t bad in our tests and it does have the self empty dust bin. If that feature is important and you want the cheapest option, this is it.
However, this is the perfect model if you’re hoping to break into the world of Roombas without the expensive price tag of one of their more premium models. With a self-emptying base, it’s highly self-sufficient, and compared to similarly priced or more expensive vacuums (such as a Shark robot vacuum or Miele Scout RX3), it has a great navigation system. It picked up 55% of debris during that test, which fell right in the middle of all the vacuums.
It’s also really, really loud when emptying and although the suction was pretty mega, our reviewer felt that the L10s Ultra is better suited to the hard floors since not all crumbs were lifted from deep-pile rugs. It works in rows to make sure every little inch is covered and features a self-cleaning brush roll, so you don’t have to stress about hair getting wrapped around it and shutting the whole thing down. The expensive machine has a longer setup process because its clean base comes in two pieces. You must attach the bottom of the base, where the robo-vac charges, to the garbage-bin upper portion using a few screws and a tool that attaches to the bottom of the base. Roborock provides everything you need to do this in the box, so while it takes a bit more time, it’s still an easy process.
But unlike most of its competitors, the Roomba i3 EVO is actually a sturdy, repairable appliance—and although longevity is never guaranteed, you can reasonably expect to own and use it regularly for years. It’s also better at cleaning rugs than most other bots, and hair doesn’t get tangled in its brushes as quickly. With the companion app and a Wi-Fi connection, you can remotely turn the robot on or off and optionally set an automatic cleaning schedule. The downside is that it doesn’t work quite as fast as some competing models. The main drawback here is the lack of premium Roomba features (like an obstacle-detecting camera or super-powerful suction) and the loud volume of the vacuum as it’s cleaning. Compared to the other models on the list, this one is definitely the most obtrusive in terms of sound.
The Roomba 694, on the other hand, was easy for us to strip down and then reassemble with just a screwdriver. The Roborock app has tons of features and customizations, and it gives you more control over navigation than you can find on other robot vacs. It also provides a better user experience and works more reliably than its closest competitors’ apps.