The robot vacuum market is crowded. Consider the following nitty-gritty criteria to help narrow your options:
Smart mapping: This is a non-negotiable at this point, considering robot vacuums with smart mapping can be scored for under $200 if you find them on sale. Often LiDAR (laser) based, smart mapping refers to the navigational tech that allows a robot vacuum to create and remember your home’s layout. This is how it can clean specific rooms on demand, or spot clean a certain zone within a room that you’ve selected in the mobile app. Small obstacle avoidance is a slightly pricier, but seriously worthwhile extension of navigational technology. It helps the robot vacuum detect and avoid items on the floor that other robot vacs would get stuck on, like phone chargers or shoes. For a robot vacuum to be worthwhile, it needs to get to the right place — just saying.
Suction power: A vacuum is the one purchase that you hope sucks a lot. Suction power is typically measured in Pascals (Pa), averaging between 5,000 to 8,000 Pa for any decent contender since around 2022. The ante is being upped, though: Multiple 2024 flagship models clocked between 10,000 Pa and 12,000 Pa, and several 2025 flagships are casually hitting between 20,000 Pa and 22,000 Pa. Stronger suction will be needed to pick up heavier pieces of debris like pellet cat litter or popcorn (be sure to set a barrier around Lego pieces) and to yank patted-down pet hair from carpet or rug fibers.
Floor type: Expanding on the point above, carpeting and rugs require stronger suction than hard floors, as well as an extra-wide or self-cleaning brush roll to prevent hair from wrapping. Folks in homes with multiple floor types might consider a bigger, sturdier robovac with large wheels and floor type sensors that can hoist itself over door mats, rugs of varying piles, and transitions from carpet to hard floors.
Automatic emptying: Because robot vacuums are typically under four inches tall, their onboard dust bins are also small — which means they frequently require emptying. (Dust bins fill up particularly quickly in homes with pets.) A self-emptying vacuum takes that job out of your hands, emptying itself into a larger dust bin in its charging dock. These larger bins can typically hold weeks of dirt without needing to be cleaned or dumped out.
Self-washing and drying mopping pads: If you’re sending your robot vacuum mop combo out to mop almost every day, your life will be much easier if the robot vac’s self-empty dock also deals with the dirty mopping pads, too. After mopping, the vac will wash and dry its pads and dispense new, clean water into the tank, so they’re ready to go any time you need to start a new cleaning. The dock will also hold the dirty water for up to a week at a time.
Home layout: Every robot vacuum is equipped with sensors and drop detection. But if your home has lots of rooms, lots of turns, or lots of close-together furniture, you’ll have far fewer navigation issues with a model that uses LiDAR laser technology or vSLAM camera technology to map exactly how your home is laid out, including labeling of specific rooms, mental notes of furniture and twists and turns, and the ability to follow zones set by you in the app. In 2024, smart mapping is so common and so affordable that you’d actually be more hard-pressed to find a robot vacuum that doesn’t have this capability — and if you happen to stumble across one, there’s definitely a better option for your money.
App control: Any robot vacuum that we’ll recommend at this point is WiFi-enabled, which means it will be synced with a smartphone app to control scheduling and remote start, map and virtual boundary editing, and suction or mopping levels, as well as occasional more advanced features. WiFi compatibility also typically brings voice control via Alexa or Google integration.
Battery life and square footage: One of the main complaints people have about their robot vacuum is that it craps out in the middle of the floor. Larger spaces or homes with multiple stories obviously require more time to clean, and how much you prioritize battery life depends on how annoyed you’ll be if your robot vac has to take a time out during its queue to charge. Average run times for the list below range between 90 and 150 minutes, which translates to about 500 and 2,600 square feet covered on one charge. Some ultra-efficient models can clock over 200 minutes on one charge, which would only really matter in homes exceeding 3,000 square feet.
Height and low-profile furniture: No one should have to be scared about what’s accumulated under their couch over the past year. A robot vacuum measuring three inches or less in height should be able to scoot under most low-hanging couches and beds. Robot vacuums with mopping gear and a water tank on board are slightly bulkier, but many manage to stay below 3.5 inches.
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