Automatically empties your Roomba® i3 EVO robot’s bin – you don’t have to think about vacuuming for weeks at a time. Braava jet® m6 robot mop tackles grease and grime all at the sound of your voice. Our robots are designed to clean around your schedule and your life. If this card works with your vacuum cleaner, please open a PR and your model to the list.
On that note, there is still a place in the world for cheaper robots that rely on semi-random navigation. (We like to call it bump-and-run navigation.) If you only need to clean a few rooms at a time , then one of these models can get the job done. The Roomba i7 is an older model and tends to cost less than the new Roomba j7. We wrote a review of the self-emptying Roomba i7+ in 2018, when it was brand new, and called it the best robot vacuum that money could buy.
Parts of some models are interchangeable, allowing owners to mix and match features, or switch to other units for longer battery operation. Additionally, some units can be adapted to perform more creative tasks using an embedded computer in conjunction with the Roomba Open Interface. Another option to consider is the Roomba i7 (or i7+), which has the same cleaning system and Smart Map capabilities as the j7 but does not have the obstacle-avoidance feature.
You might not expect sufficient cleaning power from a budget robot vacuum, but that’s precisely what the Anker Eufy RoboVac 25C delivers. Its suction power ability to scour sand from hardwood floors (78.9%) wasn’t too far below that of the Roborock S7. The Eufy RoboVac 25C’s sand performance across low-pile (53.5%) and medium-pile (52.2%) carpets was decent as well. The dream scenario is that you set your robot to automatically run on a schedule and then empty itself out, so you don’t have to touch your bot or even think about cleaning your floors for weeks on end.
The robot is a standard puck-shaped affair, measuring 350mm across the diameter. It stands 98mm tall, including the LiDAR turret that extends out of the top. I found this was just slightly too high for it to get under the low shelf of my coffee table, which robots that don’t have a LiDAR turret can usually manage. At £329, the Roidmi EVE is at the cheaper end of the robot vacuum spectrum, and you get a lot of bang for your buck. Like a number of the other models in this list, The Tech Bar Momax connects to your smartphone – or smart home assistant of choice – allowing you to map its course around your house. And as it’s smart enough to recognise obstacles ranging from shoes or pet poo – and avoid these – you don’t have to tidy up beforehand if you don’t have the time.
Using its laser rangefinder and bump sensors, the S4 Max learns your floor plan in a single cleaning session and creates an interactive map in the companion app. That map enables a bunch of cool tricks, like targeted room cleaning and no-go zones, without having to manually move the bot or fiddle with physical barriers like you would with other robots, including our other picks. The S4 Max shark cordless isn’t the only robot with a smart-map feature, nor is it the cheapest, nor does it always work perfectly. The Roomba i3 EVO is also a better cleaner than most robot vacuums—at any price. We also tried the opposite, running the i3 EVO before the Roborock S4 Max, and found that the S4 did not come back with much debris in its bin, likely because the Roomba i3 EVO grabbed it all first.