How to Choose Your Robot Vacuum
few years, no other gadget—headphones, electric bicycle, literally anything at all—has improved as dramatically as the humble robot vacuum. The hardware and software have improved beyond all imagining. There are self-emptying bins, multilevel mapping abilities, and all sorts of bells and whistles, like an automated robot arm! Prices on the entry-level models have dropped significantly, to the point where robot vacuums are now an accessible household tool instead of a statement of bougie affluence or a potential cat car.
And yes, we know that robot vacuums aren’t perfect. But it’s a device that goes into the darkest, murkiest corners of our houses regularly. Let’s retain a little grace for the little robot that does what we don’t ever want to do. If you’re worried you’re at risk of becoming the next Roomba “pooptastrophe,” here are a few tips that can help you get the most out of your new sidekick.
Updated July 2025: We updated our recommendations and updated the robot vacuum models.
The hardest part of writing a robot vacuum roundup is deciding which vacuum is the best one. All of us have different houses, lifestyles, and desires. A single person or a couple in a two-bedroom apartment, without kids and with hardwood floors, would be fine with a bare-bones model. A family of five living in a two-floor single-family home with multiple floor surfaces, with small children and several pets, would need a much higher-end model (that is, all the help they can get).
Here are a few factors to consider:
Navigation system: Robot vacuum manufacturers will try to convince you that pure suction power (which is measured in kilopascals, or kPa) is the most important factor. This is not true. The most important factor is whether or not it gets stuck under the same corner and dies every time you run it. The Matic robot vacuum (10/10, WIRED Recommends) has by far the best navigation system I’ve ever used; it uses six RGB cameras for a system called long-term SLAM (simultaneous localization and mapping) to create an absolute 3D map of your house. Basically, it navigates visually, like a human does; if someone visits your house and comes in through the back door, they don’t get lost if they exit out the back door.
Other systems include lidar, which uses pulsed lasers to pinpoint where the vacuum is at eye level, a gyroscope, or simple bounce navigation, which uses sensors on the outside of the vacuum to ping-pong it around your house. The more complicated the navigation system, the more expensive your robot vacuum will be. If you have a simple layout and not much dirt, you will be fine with a cheap Tapo ($200). Barring the Matic, Roborock ($500) has a proprietary system that’s basically lidar, which is the second most reliable I’ve ever used.
Mopping or vacuuming: Do you live in a house with hardwood floors or tile and need a vacuum that can mop as well as vacuum? Many vacuums now have built-in multifunctionality; the days of chaining your separate robot vacuum and robot mop together are long gone. However, if you need serious mopping capabilities, you might want to consider a robot vacuum that can detach the mop pads, like the Dreame series, so that it won’t drag them over your clean floor. Cheaper robot vacuums use detachable cleaning clothes and clean the mopping pads with high heat to keep them from stinking. A more affordable robot vacuum, like the Shark, will use glorified wet pads to just skim your floors.
Either way, make sure you use the proprietary cleaning solution or a brand-name solution that is compatible with your robot vacuum’s system. Using just any old floor cleaner can seriously clog your robot vacuum’s delicate internal piping.
Battery life: Showstopping extra features like a robot arm, pet camera, or chassis lifting to get over bumps can add a lot to your vacuuming experience. Unfortunately, they also decrease battery life. If you like to run your robot vacuum in one fell swoop after dinner and have it finish cleaning by the time you go to bed, you might want a simpler model that doesn’t need to recharge every two hours.
Finally, keep in mind that the vacuum that you want might not be the one your friends want. Maybe your friend needs a smaller vacuum to get under one particular couch, or they prefer a simple navigation system because the only thing they use it for is to clean under the kitchen table after dinner. It helps to have clear expectations of what you want your robot vacuum to do.
Keep Security Top of Mind
In 2022, MIT Technology Review revealed that gig workers had been posting images online of iRobot customers that had been recorded by the vacuum’s camera. The company never fully recovered, and the incident made many people wary of buying a robot vacuum with a camera. It’s also nerve-racking to have a robot vacuum with a camera operating autonomously around your home.
Once, a robot vacuum I was testing came out from under the couch, peered up at me, and went back. It turned out that a researcher for the company had mistakenly found himself still logged in; still, the experience was profoundly unnerving and kept me leery of onboard cameras for years.
There are other navigation systems available. However, an onboard camera can help enormously with navigation and obstacle identification. If you want a robot vacuum with a camera, check the company’s third-party safety certifications, the most reputable of which are probably the TÜV Rheinland security standards and the ETSI EN 303 645 cybersecurity standards. Other vacuums offer on-device storage, which means the images won’t float around in the cloud, or they offer two-factor authentication.
For more tips on ensuring your digital security, check out our (ahem) guide to digital security. You can also check out our ultimate guide to setting up your smart home.
How to Set Up Your Vacuum
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Great! Now you have your robot vacuum. Here are the first things you should do to make the setup as easy as possible.
Most robot vacuums—indeed, most smart home devices—will only work if they’re on the 2.4-GHz band. Nearly every vacuum will pick the right Wi-Fi band automatically, but some do not. If, heaven forbid, you can’t connect your robot vacuum to Wi-Fi, you have a few ways to troubleshoot it. You can set up separate SSIDS for your 2.4-GHz and 5-GHz networks, or you can move the robot vacuum dock far enough away from your router that your phone automatically connects to the 2.4-GHz band when you’re setting it up. Both of these have worked for me, but we have more tips for making sure you’re on the right Wi-Fi band.
You get a robot vacuum to save time, so why can’t you just unbox it and turn it on? One of the reasons I like using a robot vacuum is that it teaches me to clean my house, too. It takes time for both you and the robot vacuum to learn what the potential booby traps in your house will be for the roving machine.
If you have elected for a robot vacuum with mapping capabilities, it usually gives you the option of a quick mapping run without cleaning. It might seem like a waste, but it does save time in the long run. Use the mapping run to take a quick walk around your house and look for dangling shoelaces, wired headphones, or any long strings or fringes that will trip up the smartest robot vacuum.
And turn on your lights. Your robot might have optical sensors, which require ambient light to operate. If you find that your vacuum is getting stuck a lot, don’t schedule your cleanings at night. (Try 9 am, which is when my vacuum is usually scheduled.) If you have a dog, cleaning right after you leave will also give your pup less time to have an accident on the floor.
Nowadays, your robot vacuum will also ping you if it has navigation issues. In my house, dust often gets on top of the optical sensors, which can be removed by wiping with a soft cloth.
Yes, unfortunately, a robot that routinely digs into the yuckiest corners of your house will need a little routine maintenance. More than a few people have complained to me that their robot vacuum doesn’t work and just drags dirt around. If yours is doing this, then the bin is probably full. A robot vacuum’s dust bin is pretty small. Most robot vacuums have a bin size of around 0.6 liters. The dust bin on my Dyson ball vacuum is twice that, and I still need to empty it from room to room.
Many robot vacuums now come with tiny tools embedded inside the body of the vacuum that make routine maintenance slightly easier. I also keep scissors and, er, poking tools (a chopstick) on hand for cutting through hair or yarn that has snarled a roller brush or to push an obstinate Lego through the vacuum chute on a self-emptying bin.
I do have to say here that robot vacuums are not unique in this regard; these are all problems that have befallen my handheld push vacuum. I have yet to come across a robot vacuum problem that could not be solved with a few minutes of routine maintenance (well, and the occasional factory reset).
Ideally, you’d automate your robot vacuum’s cleaning cycles, not give it another thought, and come home to a clean house every day thereafter. But as helpful as robot vacuums are, they cannot pick up your kid’s 1,000-piece puzzle set for you or put away the dirty laundry that you’ve left in a pile on the floor.
Some friends have told me they appreciate regular reminders to pick up after themselves. I have developed other strategies, given my laziness level at the time. If your robot vacuum allows you to divide your floor plan up by room, you can clean each separate area at separate times (this will also help reduce recharging time during each clean). For example, I might clean my kids’ playroom during the day while they’re at school, then schedule a separate kitchen cleaning after dinner.
I have also created what I call “throw zones.” If you don’t have time to put everything away every time you run your robot vacuum, you can designate an area to toss the toy necklaces and blankies before you leave the house. Draw a virtual boundary line in the app. Before the cleaning run starts, toss every iffy household item behind the boundary. You can then sort out everything that has landed in your own personal Bermuda Triangle, but you can get to that later.
With two kids, a dog, and a full-time job, I’ve found that robot vacuums are one of the few devices that help keep my house in a semi-presentable condition. And unlike a push vacuum, it regularly cleans places I might otherwise overlook, like under the couch, beds, and oven. Soon, you too may find your robot vacuum has also become your best friend. At the very least, it still makes a fine tool for rolling the littlest of your cute critters around the living room.
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Source: Wired.
