With the iRobot app experience being the same across all Roombas, the s9+ stands out for its subtle premium features like its elegant design, elegant-looking clean base, superior cleaning intelligence and top-of-the-line suction power. Aside from the extra suction, those are all nice-to-haves rather than must-haves, so most people – including you! It’s the fanciest robot vacuum iRobot has to offer, but you’ll get a similar level of quality with the Roomba j7 while spending a couple hundred bucks less.
From there, we base our final rating on its price, cleaning ability, functionality and ease of use relative to similar models. The all new i3+ remembers your routines and automatically schedules around your life. It also knows to empty itself, so you don’t have to think about vacuuming for months. True informed consent dyson robot vacuum means “that the person fully understands the procedure, they fully understand the risks … how those risks will be mitigated, and … what their rights are,” she explains. But this rarely happens in a comprehensive way—especially when companies market adorable robot helpers promising clean floors at the click of a button.
A self-emptying base opens up other opportunities too — some bases hold water tanks to automatically fill an on-board tank for the best robot mops. Ultimately, a self-emptying base will make your robot vacuum cleaner more versatile. With Imprint Link Technology, this model does not just vacuum; it also features a built-in Braava jet m6 robot mop. It uses the signature 3-Stage bissell crosswave cordless Cleaning System to offer 40x the suction power of other models, targeting pet hair lodged in your carpets. The built-in Clean Base Automatic Dirt Disposal is able to empty itself for up to 60 days, giving you more time to focus on what’s most important. You have the ability to control the unit through voice control or the companion app, whichever is more convenient for you.
Another type of navigation, which iRobot uses on most of its newer, smart-mapping Roomba vacuums, is called vision-based navigation, or visual simultaneous localization and mapping (vSLAM), said Williams. “These models are able to systematically navigate and clean in a corn row fashion,” he said. It’s quick to map out the home and easy to create no-go zones or select specific rooms to clean. This model also comes with a self-emptying base, which makes it low maintenance, but it is just as noisy as other vacuums when it empties. In terms of cleaning, it’s very careful to navigate its way around furniture, but the overall pickup could be better, particularly on pet hair.
This small-but-mighty robot vacuum wowed our testers in the lab by picking up tiny grains of sand, clumps of hair, and pieces of cereal with equal ease. It has three different brushes underneath it to help the vacuum pick up a wide path of dirt on every pass, and a strong suction system helps to remove even large pieces of debris from your hardwood floors. If you’re looking for a particularly high-tech robot vacuum with features like object detection, automatic dirt disposal, or smart mapping, you’ll likely find the Roomba 694 to be a little low-tech. It doesn’t offer any of the fancy features a more expensive robot vacuum may possess, but we found this to be an incredibly reliable and effective tool for hands-free cleaning on multiple floor types.
The iRobot Roomba i3+ is the company’s least-expensive robot vacuum with a self-cleaning feature. Thanks to the self-emptying base, you don’t have to dump out its contents after every run—very convenient. The Roomba i3+ excelled at most of our tests, except for picking up kitty litter on carpet, for which it scored a low mark of 58.
Like the i3, there’s an elevated plus version that comes equipped with a self-emptying dock. First and foremost, you should follow the directions in your instruction manual for where to place the robot vacuum. While most will offer similar guidance, the measurements irobot vacuum cleaner required can vary, and some designs may prefer a greater clearance. Generally speaking though, your robot vacuum should be placed against a flat and straight wall on a level surface, with around 3 ft of clearance on each side, and at least 4 ft in front.