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Best Overall
Roborock Q5 Pro+
Best Vac-Mop Combo
Shark AI Ultra 2-in-1 Robot Vacuum and Mop
The Best Mop
Eufy X9 Pro
Best Affordable Mop
TP-Link Tapo RV10 Plus
No other product I’ve tested has advanced as quickly as the humble robot vacuum. Just a few short years ago, they were mostly annoying, overpriced devices that fell off steps and got stuck on rugs. Now you can find robot vacs at every price point with an incredible array of features, including mapping capabilities, self-emptying bins, and even cameras.
Vacuuming an ever-changing household is a complex task, and no robot vacuum is perfect. However, I test them in one of the most challenging environments possible—a carpeted, two-story family home with messy kids and a shedding dog—and personally, I find them indispensable. Whether you’re choking on cat hair, need to lighten your chore load, or just want to spend more time with your family, we have a pick that will help.
Looking for more cleaning solutions? Check out our Best Dyson Vacuums, Best Cordless Vacuums, and Best Air Purifiers guides for more.
Updated November 2023: We added the Roborock Q5 Pro+, the Ecovacs Deebot T9+ and the TP-Link Tapo RV30C. We also updated prices and links throughout.
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Photograph: Roborock
Best Overall
Roborock Q5 Pro+
A full review is forthcoming, but the Roborock Q5 Pro+ is this year’s iteration of the reliable midrange Roborock Q5+ (9/10, WIRED Recommends) that has been my mainstay for the past two years. It’s pretty much the exact same vacuum for the same price, except that now it has a detachable mop pad, slightly stronger suction, a little more run time, and a slightly bigger dustbin (770 milliliters as compared to the previous 470 ml).
I’ve been running it for a few weeks, and it has operated mostly as expected. It uses the same lidar detection, so no mobile cameras roaming your home. But it remains remarkably fast and thorough, cleaning about 890 square feet in 90 minutes, mostly unattended. The app updates regularly, and I’m continually discovering delightful features, like automatic cliff zone detection in a spot where there’s a room grate—no other robot vacuum has noticed that you can’t vacuum here! Along with the hardware features, you can create multiple maps, designate different rooms, or set different cleaning zones in the app, as well as see your maps in 2D or 3D. This is the best robot vacuum if you, like me, have a large house with multiple surfaces and you need a capable, reliable robot helper.
★ Alternative: Don’t need a mop? The list price for the Roborock Q5+ is weirdly still $700, but you can clip the coupon, and it also goes on sale very often. Mine is still reliably running.
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Photograph: Shark
Best Vac-Mop Combo
Shark AI Ultra 2-in-1 Robot Vacuum and Mop
I’ve tried several gigantic, premium multi-modal robot vacuums, including the Ecovacs Deebot X1 Omni and the Roborock S8 Pro Ultra ($1,600), but it’s very, very hard for me to recommend a robot vacuum that costs over $1,000. For that much, you could hire a house cleaner who wouldn’t take up three full square feet of room in your kitchen. Shark’s AI Ultra 2-in-1 (8/10, WIRED Recommends) gives you about 90 percent of the functionality for a fraction of the price, and with fewer cameras. It uses laser navigation to make an accurate map of your home within 20 minutes, which you can subdivide in the easy-to-use app to indicate vacuuming or mopping zones.
When you swap out the Shark’s vacuum bin for the mopping bin, you can see it wiggle as it scrubs the floor. If you spot-clean with UltraMop, you can see it wiggle even more. The scrubbing action, combined with Shark’s proprietary cleaning solution (only use water if you don’t want to buy the solution separately, cautions Shark), ensures that your hardwood floors are getting thoroughly cleaned. It never got the carpets wet, and, yes, the vacuum function worked well too. My only quibble is that washing the reusable mop pads by hand can get gross pretty quickly.
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Photograph: Eufy
The Best Mop
Eufy X9 Pro
The Eufy X9 Pro (6/10, WIRED Review) is simply the best mopping vacuum I have tried. The X9 Pro has two mops on the bottom that each rotate at about 180 revolutions per minute. When you start a mopping session, it takes several minutes to wash the mop in the docking station, and you can choose the frequency with which the mop returns to the station to get rewashed. The mopping itself, and the mapping, is fast and accurate; even with a rewash frequency of every 10 minutes, it still only took 30 minutes to mop my kitchen, laundry room, and bathroom. My 6-year-old spilled a half-bottle of syrup and to my astonishment, when I mopped and walked over it, my feet didn’t stick! The floor was clean! The docking station then dries the mops for you, so they don’t get all gross.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t work so well as a vacuum. There’s no self-emptying bin and the onboard bin has a relatively small capacity. It also doesn’t work on medium- or long-pile carpets—that is, any carpet that isn’t an industrial short-pile. But you can toggle the carpet cleaning settings in the app. If your house is mostly hardwood floors, this is a great pick.
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Photograph: TP-Link
Best Affordable Mop
TP-Link Tapo RV10 Plus
The TP-Link Tapo RV10 Plus (7/10, WIRED Recommends) is so much cheaper than many other vac-mop combos because, instead of using lasers or cameras to navigate, it has a gyroscope navigation system. It has no mapping function, but that just means it doesn’t have a camera that can take pictures of your butt and send them to Amazon. The hardware is almost fool-proof—it comes in two pieces and the self-emptying bin attaches to the bag via a straight chute, with no curves or doors to trap debris.
It does require boundary tape to prevent it from dragging a wet mop on the carpeted parts of your house, and if it misses a door, well, that room just isn’t getting clean. But if you have an open floor plan and hardwood floors this is a solid pick that doesn’t break the bank, especially since it’s usually on sale.
★ Alternative: TP-Link has just sent us the next version, the Tapo RV30C ($259). This version uses lidar navigation instead of gyroscope navigation and is much more affordable. We will update this roundup once we have a review.
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Photograph: iRobot
The Best-Looking Robot Vacuum
iRobot Roomba j7+
Even as dozens of competitors have hit the market, iRobot’s vacuums are still beautiful. The robots never have trouble settling on the auto-empty station, and so far, iRobot is the only company to offer bin sensors in even the midrange Roomba i3+ line, so that the robot automatically empties itself when it’s full. It’s also the only manufacturer to offer a smaller bin with storage inside for tools and extra bags. I always forget where I’ve put the extra bags.
The Roomba j7+ has powerful suction and some of the best navigational tools on the market. iRobot now has a feature called Genius that lets you teach your Roomba about your personal preferences and cleaning schedules, instead of painstakingly programming them manually. However, last year, Amazon inked a deal to acquire iRobot for $1.7 billion. iRobot has assured WIRED that there is no way Amazon can use the data acquired from inside your home.
★ Alternative: I’ve now tested both the j7+ and the Combo j7+ (5/10, WIRED Review), which is the j7+ with a robot arm that can lift and lower a mop to the ground. The robot arm was super cool and solved a real pain point, but otherwise, the j7+ had trouble finding its way around—I had multiple frustrating navigation errors other robot vacuums didn’t have. iRobot’s other tools are useful enough that I still include them in our recommendations; however, if you don’t want to take this chance and you find Amazon’s statements unconvincing, you should go with our top pick.
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Photograph: iRobot
Best Cheap Robot Vacuum
iRobot Roomba 694
If all you want is a robot vacuum for under $200 that will Ping-Pong around your kitchen after dinner, there is no shortage of options. You can generally find a slim Eufy 11S for under $100, which can fit under the lowest cabinets. In my testing, I have found that Yeedi vacuums have trouble making it back to the dock, but otherwise, the battery life and room navigation are pretty great. The earlier iterations of the Roborock S Series also go on sale often; I have a Roborock S6 that is still going strong.
Generally, if you want a cheap robot vacuum, I suggest looking at the ones from iRobot. Even the cheapest iRobot vacuums have features like Dirt Detect, where it spot-cleans specific areas. The company has many robots in its midrange 600 series and E series that are all about $300 or less. There are some minor differences—for example, the 694 has a roller brush, while the slightly more expensive E5 has iRobot’s signature brushless roller; different vacuums may have different button styles—but for the most part, if you can find a Roomba for $300 or less, it’s a great buy. The app is simple and easy to use, the vacuum is quiet and powerful, and it has stellar navigation capabilities.
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Photograph: Eufy
Best for Pets
Eufy RoboVac X8 Hybrid
Unlike almost every other model here, this Eufy robot vacuum utilizes twin turbines. Each turbine generates up to 2,000 Pa of suction energy, meaning that it can suck up twice as much dirt in one pass. In my testing, the X8 Hybrid’s maps were way too wonky for me to trust it to lug a full 250-milliliter tank of water around my house. However, it was the perfect vacuum to deep-clean all the dog hair and kid detritus in the basement. If you have an enclosed area that needs regular deep cleaning, this will do the trick.
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Photograph: Ecovacs
The Best-Smelling Robot Vacuum
Ecovacs Deebot T9+
I recently tried Ecovac’s midrange model, the Ecovacs Deebot T9+ (8/10, WIRED Recommends). (I regret to inform you that $800 is midrange for a new mopping-vacuuming robot.) Among many positive attributes, like the fact that it doesn’t use cameras to navigate and the disposable mopping pads are easy to use, it also has one standout feature—it comes with an air freshener.
I’m very sensitive to smells, and I was expecting to find the air freshener to be a horrible, extraneous addition. I was surprised to find that I loved that faint, refreshing smell as the vacuum quickly and efficiently cleaned my house. Unlike other mopping robot vacuums here, you swap out the vacuuming base for the mopping base. This is a little extra work, but it does prevent your robot from dragging a damp mop over your carpeted floors on the way back to the dock.
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Photograph: Samsung
Amazing Navigation
Samsung Jet Bot AI+
Samsung’s Jet Bot AI+ was not my favorite by any means. It looks like it was designed by someone who has never seen a robot vacuum before. It’s enormous. The vacuum is 5 inches high, tall enough to get stuck under our sofa, and the tower is a whopping 21 inches high. You’ll definitely notice it parked in the corner of your house.
However, I had to include it, because it’s quiet, fast, and powerful, and its navigational system is even better than iRobot’s. It left about 4 inches of clearance around all obstacles, which might not work for you if you need a lot of edge cleaning. But I watched in amazement as it skillfully navigated around a sleeping 80-pound dog, even vacuuming around her face without trembling a single whisker. It was phenomenal.
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Photograph: Getty Images
A Few Tips
Yes, You Still Need a Push Vac
Robot vacuums have a complicated task. Your home is ever-changing, and no robot vacuum will be perfect. We have a few starting points here, but if you’re still having trouble, you should check out our guide to getting the most into your robot vacuum.
- Stay home for your robot vacuum’s first few runs. Many homes have hot spots—a weird door jamb, a lumpy rug—where you will need to rescue your vac. Do a quick run-through beforehand for robot booby traps, like ribbons, charging cables, and pieces of string.
- Check your Wi-Fi. If you have a Wi-Fi-enabled robot vacuum, most of them can only connect to the 2.4-GHz wireless band. If you’re having problems connecting, make sure you’re linking to the right band. Check out our guide to setting up your smart home for more tips.
- Vacs need maintenance. Like every robot—especially one that comes in contact with the grimiest parts of your house—you need to care for it regularly. Error messages may prompt you to empty the bin mid-run, cut the hair off the rollers, or wipe off the cliff sensors. Instruction manuals and YouTube can help.
- Vac during the day. If you have a mapping robot vacuum, it usually uses an optical sensor, which means it requires a little light to navigate. It’s better to schedule a run at 2 pm than at midnight.
- Don’t throw out your old vacuum. I hate to be a downer, but you’re probably still going to need a full-size manual vacuum once in a while. I keep a Dyson around for quick spot cleaning and vacuuming bedroom corners.
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Photograph: iRobot
Why Self-Emptying Bins Are Worth It
You’ll Probably Need One
If you think your robot vacuum isn’t working, the first thing I’d suggest you try is emptying the bin more regularly. If it’s dragging dust balls around your house instead of picking them up, it probably just doesn’t have enough room in the bin. When I reviewed the Roomba S9+, I predicted that within a few years, most robot vacuums would have a self-emptying bin. The future has come to pass, and now almost every manufacturer makes one.
I’ve tried almost every self-emptying bin available. I think the convenience is worth it, but they may require some tinkering. If you purchase the bin as an accessory rather than bundled, the robot may have trouble settling itself properly on the base station’s ports when it docks. You also have to check occasionally to make sure the self-emptying chutes on both the station and the robot vacuum itself aren’t clogged.
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Photograph: Narwal
Don’t Buy These Vacs
We’ll Take a Pass
Not every vacuum earns a spot on our list. Here are a few that I repacked straightaway.
- Narwhal for $699: This expensive vacuum is incredibly beautiful and preposterously hard to use in every way. The proprietary app is clunky, the navigation software is buggy, and it failed to pick up dog hair that I tossed right in front of it.
- Neato D10 for $600: We’ve liked Neato’s vacuums in the past, and I was excited to try the latest model. It’s one of the easiest robot vacuums to set up. However, the build quality has worsened noticeably over the years; it kept disconnecting from the app and losing my map in the process. And at 4.25 inches tall, it got stuck under my dishwasher and cabinets.
- Eufy L35 Clean Hybrid for $359: I want so badly to love all Eufy vacuums. They’re attractive, and the app is so clean and easy to use. But Eufy’s mapping software has lagged behind its competitors. My 7-year-old likes to bring up the time when the Eufy simply could not locate itself in the house and kept chasing me, much to my annoyance. (Coincidence? Perhaps not.) You don’t want a robot vacuum that ticks you off.
