This is also one of the quietest robot vacs I’ve ever used and one of the shallowest – perfect for reaching under low furnishings. So what sets this model apart from the plethora of other models available? Let’s start with obstacle avoidance since I have personally had adog poo experiencewith a robot vac. Ingeniously, the shark cordless J7 identifies obstacles and avoids them when necessary, including dog turds. In fact, iRobot is so confident of the J7’s turd-evasion technology, it will ‘replace any Roomba j7+ that doesn’t avoid solid pet waste’. The height factor is blown out of proportion for Heurist, since it can crawl under most types of furniture .
Roomba’s devices are much shorter, but wider, allowing them to sneak under furniture much more easily. The fix is that you’ll have to move your furniture out-of-the-way once in a while, which ultimately isn’t that bad of a workaround given 360 Eye’s other advantages. Dyson makes a big deal about its engineering efforts, but its external industrial design is also a key ingredient in the appeal of its products. The 360 Eye is no exception, and its purples, blues and glossy grays make a bold visual statement, which is actually additive to your home decor. It looks sleek and modern, and draw attention – a stark contrast to iRobot and others, who seem to have designed their bots as broad flat pucks that try to blend in with their surroundings and disappear.
The new Dyson vac looks somewhat familiar to its predecessor when it comes to color and design. On occasion, the app would not allow our testers to start the vacuum; it stalled, waiting for a software update which did not come. There were also times when the app simply could not connect to the vacuum. The result of this was that there were several occasions when we were unable to use the vacuum. Its clearance is excellent, confidently passing under furniture only 1 cm higher than it.
Or, for more options, have a look at our round-up of the best robot vacuum cleaners we’ve tested. Fitted with tank tracks rather than wheels, the Dyson 360 Heurist can power over different levels of flooring and even push through deep-pile carpets. For the latter, the option to turn off the brush bar means you can, to a degree, even clean deep-pile carpets and rugs that other cleaners would get stuck on. It picked up mess right up to the edge of a room, sucked dirt out of a carpet, and even coped with a rickety old wooden floor where dirt had become trapped in cracks and dips. This robot vacuum cleaner manages to beat all of the competition. The RoboVac 11S MAX is another strong choice from Eufy’s line of affordable robot vacuums.
Many robot vacuums cope well with both hardwood floors and carpeted areas but if your home has lots of staircases then, you’ll need an additional vacuum to clean the stairs. With many robot vacuums suitable for programming from your phone, you’ll be able to switch these devices on when you’re out and about and come home to clean floors. The majority of robot vacuum cleaners do not need Wi-Fi to work, typically sporting buttons on top of the device to allow you to request the vacuum begins cleaning. Give the house a quick once over without lifting a finger with our pick of the best robot vacuum cleaners. The first thing that stands out about the 360 Eye is its tall, narrow stance.
As all robots cleaning, the Dyson 360 Eye is not ideal in every space or every scenario. You have to note to clear the rubbish bin daily, the app will notify you so you wouldn’t have to monitor it, however for a more complicated cleaning experience, and you will need another vacuum. That being said, for routine maintenance cleaning, we were more than pleased with the results. “Many things are best left to a robot, and vacuum cleaning is one of them,” said Colin Angle, CEO of iRobot, which makes Roomba robot vacuums.
This does mean that it tends not to get too close to the walls and corners of rooms, or furniture, so edge cleaning isn’t so good but that’s a pretty minor quibble given the decent asking price. Amazingly, this actually works, although setting it up does reveal some minor limitations of the system. Aside from avoiding clutter, the J7+ also learns as it goes about its daily business by sending the user a number of images it has taken of any offending obstacles it’s come across while vacuuming. All you do is let it know whether the obstacles are permanent or temporary.
You should have a regular schedule of things such as battery checks, clogs, emptying the dustbins, checking the extractors for tangles and general cleaning. Lifting dirt and debris into the vacuum chamber to be collected by the bin is the one thing a vacuum has to do. It doesn’t matter how powerful the motor is or how large the collection bin is if you don’t have extractor bars the dirt will never leave the floor.
In standard daylight, this is no problem, nor is it an issue with indoor lights on. Ultimately it’s not something that would impact my decision to buy, but it is something to be aware of since it requires more light than the average Roomba to operate. Pre-lockdown Duncan was widely regarded as the best-dressed man ever to work for T3 – admittedly not saying much. Post-lockdown bissell crosswave cordless he is looking forward to wearing clothes other than shorts and hoodies again very soon, assuming he can still fit into them. He currently writes about cycling, fitness tech that isn’t too heavy, and all things kitchen and home related. As well as setting these robot slaves to work every day, I also strongly recommend you let them work while you’re out, or otherwise occupied.
However, when it comes to suction power it just can’t compete. During testing, we found it was best suited to quick daily cleans, but struggled to remove the level of larger debris and ground-in dirt irobot vacuum cleaner the S9 could. That said, for most people this robot vacuum strikes the right balance between price and cleaning power. Wondering how often you should have your robot vacuum cleaner sweep your floors?