✔️ Battery life and dust cup: Let the size of your home guide you. If you live in a small apartment, you can consider a corded vacuum or one that doesn’t need as much battery life; if you have multiple floors, you'll want a longer run time and a bigger dust cup. If you have stairs, you’ll need a vacuum that can easily go up and down each step all while picking up dirt and dust.

One of the big benefits of a Roomba is that they're relatively slim in height, meaning they can venture places other bots can't. On test, we found this one was especially good at handling pet hair, with its grippy rubbery rollers.

We'll also look at how the robot tackles the issue of switching between vacuuming and mopping – will it reliably detect floor type, and pick up its mop pad when moving from hard floor onto carpet, for example?

The Roborock Orevo Curv ticked all the boxes, proving to be a great, splurge robot vacuum and mop hybrid. Probably what stands out is its attractive, sleek design of the curved docking station. Which won't look out of place in any room.

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On top of this, the Wyze app is easy to navigate and intuitive to use. It also comes with useful features, such as a location-based trigger. For instance, we could make sure the robot wouldn't run when we walked the dog, but would when we was a sufficient distance away.

You’ll be using an upright vacuum to clean bare floors and low-pile rugs, we recommend selecting a model where you can adjust the height of the nozzle and switch off the rotating brush to avoid damaging flat and delicate surfaces or scattering debris.

✔️ Weight: Lastly, the weight of a vacuum makes all the difference when lifting it up and down the stairs and around the house. A heavier, larger option may Top 3 Automatic Vacuum Cleaners be great for power and durability, but it's not ideal if you live in a multi-level home or want to vacuum hard-to-reach places.

Experience effortless cleaning with the eufy Robot Vacuum 11S MAX. Its super-thin design slips under furniture with ease. Enjoy powerful suction that tackles hard floors and medium-pile carpets.

This pint-sized but powerful robovac is perfect for small homes – and it just dropped to less than half price

The iLife V3s Pro is the best robot vacuum you can get for less than $200. Despite its low price, the V3s Pro consistently outperformed other robot vacuums that cost three times as much. It picked up nearly all of Fido's fur in our lab tests — making it one of the best robot vacuums for pet hair — and it performed well in everyday home usage.

✅ You also need a manual vacuum: Most people with robovacs also have a manual vacuum. The Ecovacs takes the fuss of that out by providing you with one in the first place.

Read more on this subject in our article exploring can a robot vacuum replace your existing vacuum cleaner?

Robot vacuums have a series of brushes on the underside of the machine that work together to collect dirt and dust that they come in contact with. The dirt is then sucked into the dust cup, which is fitted into the vacuum's body.