The best robot vacuums for cleaning up any home at any budget

Here are some basic questions that will help you decide whether to buy a robot vacuum cleaner: Do you like cleaning the house? No, thought not. Do you like relaxing and putting your feet up? Of course you do. In that case, you absolutely need a robot vacuum in your life.

If you're not tech-minded, choosing a robot vacuum cleaner to whizz around your home is easier said that done. After all, is a robot vacuum worth the money? How do they work? And which is the best brand? If that's got your head spinning, don't worry — we're here to help.

Here's a quick guide on robot vacuums.

Are robot vacuums worth buying?

The crisp control of an upright vacuum comes with its own type of high. But if you're not one to use cleaning as a de-stressing method, a robot vacuum could cut a majorly agonising task off of your to-do list.

Whether robot vacuums are worth it or not comes with a caveat: it can't be just any robot vacuum. A cheap robovac that acts drunk — scattering dust rather than sucking, bumping into walls, getting stuck on area rugs — is completely missing that convenience factor that draws people to robot vacs in the first place.

How do robot vacuums actually work?

To answer that question, here's a list of essential features to consider:

Suction power — A vacuum is the one purchase that you hope sucks a lot. Suction power is typically measured in Pascals (Pa), ranging between 600 Pa to 2,500 Pa in the ones on this list. Stronger sucking will be needed to pick up heavier pieces of debris (be sure to set up a barrier around Legos) and to pull patted-down pet hair from rugs.

Floor type — 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 robovac that can hurl itself and its wheels over mats, rugs, and transitions from carpet to hard floors.

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 fewer navigation issues with an advanced model that uses intelligent mapping to remember exactly how your home is laid out, including labelling of specific rooms and where staircases are.

Low-profile furniture — No one should have to be scared about what's accumulated under their sofa over the past year. A robot vacuum measuring three inches or less in height should be able to scoot under most low-hanging sofas and beds.

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 require more time to clean, and it all depends on how annoyed you'll be if it only finishes a few rooms at a time. Average run times for the list below range between 90 and 150 minutes, which translate to about 500 and 2,600 square feet covered on one charge.

App control — WiFi-enabled robot vacuums can be synced with a smartphone app to control scheduling, manual start, cleaning settings, as well as telling your vac to make its rounds when you're not home. Low-end models that don't connect to WiFi will usually come with a separate remote. If you're used to asking Alexa or Google to turn off the lights or tell you the weather, a model with voice integration will blend in nicely.

It's really important to take all of these things into consideration before making any sort of purchase decision. The best models aren't cheap, so it's worth taking your time to properly think this through.

Is Roomba the best robot vacuum brand?

In an unspoken sort of way, Roomba has been crowned "the best" on the sole basis that it's the most established brand in the robot vacuum market. But other brands have the advantage of being already established in the vacuum market as a whole, including stick vacuums, handheld vacuums, and models with huge canisters.

But while other brands may be experts in other departments, Roomba dominates the robot business. The maps created by a Roomba after it gets a sense of your home feature precision down to each room and the type of messes it typically sees. Other vacuums can struggle to make reliable maps. Roombas also typically has better run times.

What is the best robot vacuum?

Whether iRobot, Eufy, Neato, or any other brand is the best at actual cleaning is pretty subjective. "Best" to someone with four dogs and lots of carpet may not mean "best" to someone with a huge house filled with wooden floors. To help make sense of this confusing situation, we have highlighted a selection of the very best robot vacuums for everyone.

These are the best robot vacuums in 2022.