Best robot vacuum cleaners to get rid of dust and pet hair

{{#items}} {{#image}} {{#imgUrl}} {{/imgUrl}}{{^imgUrl}} {{/imgUrl}} {{/image}} {{title}} {{#starRating}} {{/starRating}} {{prettyPrice}} Buy now{{#isExternal}} {{/isExternal}} {{/items}} Sign up to our free weekly newsletter for insider tips and product reviews from our shopping experts Sign up for our free IndyBest email Although they’ve improved a lot in recent years, even the best robot vacuum cleaners won’t beat a good zip around with a traditional cordless vacuum . But what these little robo-helpers excel at is maintaining a baseline level of tidiness between more-thorough cleans, meaning you can enjoy dirt-free carpets and hair-free floors for longer. More-advanced models come with a mopping attachment, which lets the robot tackle kitchen and bathroom floors more effectively. Depending on the robot vacuum you choose, you might have to swap the mop attachment in and out, or it could be fully autonomous, switching modes on the fly as it detects the floor type it’s on. Pretty much every robot vacuum will connect to Google, Alexa or Apple’s smart home platforms, so you can build a cleaning schedule or trigger the vacuum from your phone while you’re out and about. Many are also able to ‘learn’ the layout of your home and plan more-efficient routes, some can avoid obstacles, others wander aimlessly, a few can even empty their own bins, and some are able to detect and navigate around hazards such as loose charging cables, shoe laces and dog poop (you can imagine the mess that would make). How we tested We tested each robot vacuum cleaner over many months and in different homes (some with pets), paying close attention to how each robot performed in new surroundings. As well as allowing the robots to clean routinely, we subjected them to some more-rigourous tests too: spilling cornflour and rice in their path to measure their effectiveness at dealing with different types of mess. As well as testing their hoovering skills, we rated each robot’s app and how easy they were to set up and maintain. Also considered were the costs of any replacement parts – all robot vacuums wear out over time and require fresh filters, brushes, dust bags and rollers. The best robot vacuum cleaners in 2023 are: Best robot vacuum cleaner overall – : £619, Irobot.co.uk Best budget robot vacuum cleaner – eufy RoboVac 15C Max: £249.50, Amazon.co.uk Best robot vacuum cleaner for pet hair – iRobot Roomba s9+: £724.99, Amazon.co.uk Best robot vacuum cleaner for carpets – Neato D10: £443.86, Amazon.co.uk Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today. Already subscribed? The best Roomba iRobot makes, the Combo j7+ is a self-emptying robot vacuum cleaner with an intelligent mopping function that automatically switches modes when it moves from hard floors to rugs and carpets. Roomba’s best-in-class obstacle detection can spot and avoid common household hazards such as dangling cables, shoelaces, stray socks, toys and pet mess, meaning you can confidently set it going without having to ‘pre-tidy’ – exceptionally handy in busy homes. The robot even sends you pictures of anything it’s avoided, so you can clear the space and send it around again (or, if you’re lazy, like us, dismiss the notification and promise you’ll get round to it later). We would recommend choosing the version with the self-emptying charging base. It sounds like a jet engine when it’s emptying, but the bin holds weeks’ worth of dust and makes the robot basically fully autonomous. The mopping tank is small, so you’ll need to refill with detergent fairly frequently if you use it routinely. The app lets you reduce the amount of water being used, to help extend the mopping function further between refills. Continue reading… {{#hasItems}} {{#items}} {{merchant}} {{price}} Buy now {{/items}} {{/hasItems}} A great and relatively cheap robot vacuum cleaner, the eufy RoboVac 15C Max lacks the ability to map out and remember your home’s floorplan. This means it takes a little longer to clean, as the robot can’t learn the most efficient routes around rooms, but the decent battery life means it eventually gets everywhere it needs to go. A lack of a mapping function also means you can’t set no-go zones, so you’ll have to remember to close doors to prevent the robot getting up to mischief. The RoboVac 15C Max has good suction for the price, and handles dirt and dust on hardwood floors and medium-pile rugs with ease. The sensors can tell when the robot moves from carpet to hard floors and adjusts the suction strength to suit the situation. Continue reading… £249.50 Amazon.co.uk Buy now {{#hasItems}} {{#items}} {{merchant}} {{price}} Buy now {{/items}} {{/hasItems}} This mopping, self-emptying robot vacuum comes from networking giant TP-Link – probably best known for its internet routers rather than its home appliances. The Tapo RV30 Plus has the clean and fussless appearance of a wifi hub, but the performance and features of a top-end robot vacuum. Lidar navigation powers some competent obstacle avoidance. During our tests, the RV30 could navigate without bumping mindlessly into furniture, building a detailed map of your floorplan as it goes, to help it clean more efficiently on future runs. The mopping function is basic enough. You need to manually swap in the attachment any time you want to mop, and it will happily try to mop your carpets and rugs given half the chance. That said, the app lets you easily designate rooms, so assigning the vacuum to mop just the kitchen or the bathroom is straightforward. The app also adds convenient features not seen in other robot vacuums in our list. You can tell it to only use the self-emptying bin during certain hours of the day (self-emptying is loud ), and you can disable the physical button on the vacuum itself, so mischievous kids and dextrous pets can’t set it going. The Tapo RV30 is also quieter than most, particularly on its weakest setting. Noise isn’t a concern if you set your vacuum to do its thing while you’re out of the house, but a less cacophonous vacuum should benefit those who spend more time at home. Continue reading… £399.99 Amazon.co.uk Buy now {{#hasItems}} {{#items}} {{merchant}} {{price}} Buy now {{/items}} {{/hasItems}} Slightly more advanced than the entry-level RoboVac 15C Max, the RoboVac G30 Hybrid adds a mopping function and features improved navigation and route planning, so it’s faster and more efficient. The mopping mode is more basic than the Roomba Combo j7+, which costs three to four times as much. Switching to this mode requires that you replace the dust bin with a water tank and reusable microfibre cloth, so you don’t get the fully autonomous mode of the pricier rival. It’s worth mentioning that none of these hybrid robots does a particularly good job of mopping, because they lack any scrubbing action. Dried-in stains are beyond them, but the cloth can easily tackle puddles and small splashes. They’re particularly effective at keeping tiles looking tidy and staying on top of bathroom spills. Another small drawback is the robot’s lack of app-based no-go zones. To control which areas of the home you don’t want cleaned, you have to attach special magnetic boundary strips to the floor. That’s not ideal, but otherwise the RoboVac G30 Hybrid is an excellent and dependable cleaner with great suction power and advanced features for the price. Continue reading… {{#hasItems}} {{#items}} {{merchant}} {{price}} Buy now {{/items}} {{/hasItems}} If you’re fastidiously clean, the roomba s9+ is for you. It got every floor in our house spotlessly clean – from thick-pile carpets to hardwood. It even left satisfying track marks on our carpet. We loved that this robot learned where the dirtiest parts of our house were and focused on giving them a thorough clean. It also didn’t struggle with long hair as much as some other robots we tried – we were so impressed as even our regular non-robot vacuum struggles with our shed hair. As the suction power isn’t as strong as some others we tried, we put this down to the clever design of brushes and rollers. We’d say it is on the noisier side but we think it’s a fair trade for the quality of the clean. It’s especially loud when it returns to the clean base, which sucks all the dirt out of the robot. But this only lasts for a couple of seconds. The clean base meant we didn’t have to faff with emptying the bin on the robot very often, and it kept all nasties trapped inside the closed system. Allergy sufferers will also appreciate the Hepa filter. The app is easy to use, and you can set no-go zones and ask it to clean only certain rooms of the house, which is a function we found ourselves using a lot. Continue reading… {{#hasItems}} {{#items}} {{merchant}} {{price}} Buy now {{/items}} {{/hasItems}} Miele is the Rolls Royce of domestic appliance brands. German engineered and built to last, the machines are reliable and highly efficient. The scout RX3 is no different. It feels sturdy and is pretty easy to set up. You can control this robot vacuum using a remote, app or manually using the buttons on the robot. We found the app slightly more basic than others we tried, but the mapping function is fairly accurate, and it’s easy to set up schedules. The scout has cameras on it, so you can see what your robot sees via the app – this could be useful if you’re away from home to see what’s going on if your robot gets stuck. The scout has a silent function (which isn’t particularly silent), as well as turbo, spot-cleaning and auto options. We found the scout performed really well on hard floors – thanks to longer brushes, it gets right into the corners and under radiators. It did struggle with going between hard floors and rugs, though, and long hair became clogged in it pretty quickly. On carpets, the scout fared well – it did a decent job, and although the carpet wasn’t spotless afterwards, it was noticeably cleaner. We found emptying the bag-free scout easy, and it has a decent capacity – we ran it daily for several weeks, and it still had space to fill. Continue reading… {{#hasItems}} {{#items}} {{merchant}} {{price}} Buy now {{/items}} {{/hasItems}} With the longest battery life of any robot we tested and a substantial 700ml dirt bin, the D10 is capable of cleaning even the largest of houses. The D-shape design of the Neato lets it get into corners with ease, and scraped up even those bits that are hard to reach by hand. While it’s not the most powerful in terms of suction, we did like that it has a Hepa filter. We found the app easy to use, and the setup was easy. In the app, you can see the maps it has made of your floorplan and then set no-go zones. You can also set schedules and tailor these down to how strong you want the suction to be and which room you want cleaning. We liked that this robot wasn’t too noisy – we had it running once we were tucked up in bed, and it didn’t wake us. The Neato D10 doesn’t have an onboard camera or mic, which is great if you have privacy concerns. The eco function, which uses energy more efficiently, is a nice touch too. Continue reading… £443.86 Amazon.co.uk Buy now {{#hasItems}} {{#items}} {{merchant}} {{price}} Buy now {{/items}} {{/hasItems}} We found the app and mapping function of the eufys we tried to be among the best on the market. It’s fast and accurate; you can set no-go zones and spot-cleaning areas if you just want it to clean under your kitchen table after dinner, say. It also lets you see the trail of where it’s been in real-time. As you would hope, you can also set up regular cleaning schedules to suit your life. However, we realised that if you want to do multifloor cleaning with the X8, you need two docking stations, because the robot gets confused. You can buy additional docking stations, but with other RVCs, you don’t have to do this. This, however, is the only real quibble we have about this vacuum. It is very quiet when operating. And it adapts the suction levels automatically based on the flooring type it’s working with – you can also change this manually if you want. We found it fared better on hard flooring rather than carpets, but it still did a fair job on the latter. Corners, under radiators and all those awkward spaces didn’t seem to phase the X8, and it got even tiny bits of dirt. It also swerved all the obstacles we left in its way. Continue reading… £499.99 Eufylife.com Buy now {{#hasItems}} {{#items}} {{merchant}} {{price}} Buy now {{/items}} {{/hasItems}} We were intrigued to see how the Samsung robot vacuum would fare because it’s designed slightly differently from all the other models. It’s chunkier for a start and has a flat front and no spinning brushes at the side. It also has the most powerful suction of any robot vacuum we tried, which did mean it picked up plenty of dirt and debris around the home. After it has finished its cleaning cycle, the jet bot returns to the clean station dock, which then sucks the dirt out of the robot and stores it in a tower. You’ll need some dedicated space for this tower because it does take up a fair amount of room. But this means you have to empty it a lot less often, and it traps dust particles in the system rather than releasing them back into the air – great for allergy sufferers. The gadget is controlled via the Samsung SmartThings app, and once set up, our vacuum got to work scanning and mapping the house with a good degree of accuracy. The object recognition function meant it successfully avoided toys, piles of laundry and whatever else was left out on the floor. It mounted thick rugs with ease too. You can also use the app to access the camera on the vacuum and see where it is in real-time – handy if it has got stuck or you want to check up on your pet (you can guide it remotely, too). We were impressed with how clear this image was. The jet bot senses what kind of surface it is cleaning and adapts its suction accordingly. It did a brilliant job both with hardwood and carpeted floors, getting all but a few scraps. Continue reading… {{#hasItems}} {{#items}} {{merchant}} {{price}} Buy now {{/items}} {{/hasItems}} Time-saving: The best aspect of a robot vacuum cleaner is the fact that it cleans your home all by itself, saving you valuable time and leaving you one less chore to do yourself. Cleans while you’re out: You can schedule the robot to clean on specific days and at specific times. Schedule cleaning for when you’re out at work and enjoy the feeling of coming home to a clean house. Better reach: Thanks to their small size, robots can get under heavy furniture that you wouldn’t usually be able to clean yourself. Vacuum and mopping: Many of the newer robot cleaners are dual function, with mopping capabilities as well as vacuuming. Space saving: The compact and minimalistic design means robot cleaners take up much less space in your home than a traditional vacuum cleaner, plus they look a lot nicer. Control remotely: Wifi-enabled robot vacuums can be operated and controlled via a smartphone app, and many of these models feature voice control, which is normally compatible with Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant. ​Spot cleaning: Crumbs under the dining room table? Simply pick up the robot vacuum and put it next to the mess for a quick and easy spot clean. Small bin capacity: Robot vacuum cleaners are much smaller than traditional vacuums, which means they have a much smaller bin capacity. You’ll find you’ll need to empty the robot after every thorough clean. Price: Although they are becoming more affordable as the technology develops, robot vacs are more expensive than regular vacuum cleaners, making them a serious investment in your cleaning routine. Obstacles: Depending on the size of the model, robot vacuums can get stuck on objects or under furniture. You need to ensure the room is reasonably clear