Cleaning your vacuum is an important step to make sure that the Roomba continues to work as designed. You’ll find that the answer to this question really depends on not only where you buy your Roomba, but also which model you get. Obviously, the more-basic Roomba models will be more affordable, while the higher-end options will cost a bit more.
A full suite of advanced sensors allow Roomba to navigate under & around furniture. “iRobot Extends Wi-Fi Connectivity with New Roomba irobot vacuum cleaner 890 and 690 Vacuuming Robots”. Each product we feature has been independently selected and reviewed by our editorial team.
We’ve aimed to recommend a handful of robots that should work well in most homes while not being wildly expensive. But plenty of models that we don’t explicitly recommend can be good or great, too, and we cite many of them throughout this guide. But, any attempt to fix a robot vacuum should start with contacting customer service. You’ll also need to replace the filter and brushes every few months.
But we live in the real one and that’s not always possible or desirable. Knowing this, many robot vacuums include some way to block off areas you don’t want it venturing into, whether it’s a pet’s area, your kids’ room, or a cluster of device cords in the corner. Often it’s just a length of magnetic tape you stretch in front of or on a forbidden area that the vacuum’s sensors will detect and tell it to avoid. But some models employ virtual barriers, such as the ability to designate boundaries on a floor plan that signal the robot to steer clear. IRobot’s Roomba brand is as synonymous with robot vacuums as Q-tips is with cotton swabs.
The robot smoothly cleaned open areas within the confines of a test pen and never touched any of our solid pet waste facsimiles. We used three pieces of prank dog poop, all of different shapes, to represent the offensive substance. Bissell’s SpinWave Wet and Dry robot can both vacuum and scrub your floors to make them truly shine.
During testing, this robot vacuum tackled every size mess efficiently and more quickly than our other picks. It has multiple modes, depending on the cleaning you need , and its multiple sensors prevent it from hitting furniture or toppling down stairs. And with this pick, you don’t have to rely solely on the sensors to protect your investment — a handy boundary strip is easily installed to stop the robot from entering a no-go area.
There are also infrared sensors mounted underneath, pointing straight downward, so Roomba can detect what it calls “cliffs” . If it feels its brushes might tangle up on tassels or cables, it stops them rotating straight away and drives itself to safety. We’ve seen excellent navigators use both methods, but they’re not equal. Robot vacuums that rely on optical navigation cannot work in a pitch black room, for instance, but infrared may miss certain objects or surfaces in your home.
Use Automations to connect to your smart devices and personalize your cleaning experience by scheduling your robot to clean when you leave the house. Replace filters and side brushes a few times per year, the brush roll about once a year, and the battery as needed—probably every shark cordless second year, though that depends on how often you use the bot. The next important task for a robot vacuum is to cover as much ground as possible, as efficiently as possible. They’re basically fine, but they won’t match the agility of the Eufy or the durability of the Roomba.