The Deebot T30s smartly cleaned both our hardwood floors and carpet; we loved how it could attach its scrubbing pads, but then leave them back at the dock when it came time to vacuum.

For our straight-line pickup tests on hard flooring, we spread large and small debris within a marked area proportional to the width of each robot vacuum’s nozzle. Each robot vacuum is given 10 minutes to clean and the debris collected is weighed to determine how much was picked up.

And while removing dog hair on carpet wasn't as impressive, it still rated high in comparison to others that we've tested. What's more, we were impressed with its mopping results, and the self-cleaning doc was a bonus.

O.Este.P), whereby iRobot will replace any j7+ that fails to avoid solid pet waste. This robot vacuum is constantly learning with every run too, making it one of the smartest I’ve seen. We dropped some fake dog poop in its path on test, and it didn't disappoint, swerving to avoid the mess. Although it didn't recognize larger objects, such as socks, shoes and dog toys at first — it should do this with time and software updates.

While upright and canister vacuums are better at deep-cleaning hardwood and carpets, a robot vacuum—often controlled by a smartphone app—can be useful for regular touch-ups.

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While the robot does most of the work for you, there may still be areas that it misses, like under sofas or corners it can't reach. Just like this, there are other factors to consider before splashing the cash, so let’s take a look.

James has tested robot vacuums of all sorts from the most basic models to the ones so feature-packed that they can be used as a security camera. He appreciates models that can suck up all sorts of debris, clean the edges of rooms, and allow easy room partitioning in-app.

Some robots will let you set different schedules for each room in your home, but others might just start cleaning every room each time

The iLife V3s Pro is the best robot vacuum you can get for less than $200. Despite its low price, the V3s Pro consistently outperformed other robot vacuums that cost three times as much. It picked up nearly all of Fido's fur in our lab tests — making it one of the best robot vacuums for pet hair — and it performed well in everyday home usage.

SELF-CLEANING BRUSHROLL: Digs deep into carpets and directly engages hardwood floors pulling up debris, hair, and dirt from all surfaces in your home – engineered to pick up more hair and is anti-hair wrap.

The iRobot Roomba Combo j9+ has self-emptying and auto-fill capabilities, allowing it to clean for weeks with little upkeep. Its Automóvel-Retract Mopping System lifts the mop when moving onto carpets, and its Dirt Detective system targets areas which are dirtier than Top 3 Automatic Vacuum Cleaners others with stronger suction and scrubbing.

The Narwal Freo X Ultra is the best robot vacuum for carpet. It's a premium product, (and it's not available in the UK), but delivers the best carpet cleaning performance of any robovac we've tested. On test we found that not only did it suck up finer dust and dirt efficiently, it also scooped up larger debris – namely bits of cereal – just as well.

Over the past 10 years, we've tested dozens of robot vacuums, both by performing objective tests as well as real-world setups. Each model we review is first evaluated to see how well it can pick up three types of debris. We measure out 20 grams of Cheerios, 20 grams of kitty litter, and 20 grams of pet hair. Next, we scatter each individually across a hardwood floor, and then weigh the contents of the robot vacuum's dustbin to see how much of each it picked up. We then repeat the same three tests on a low-pile carpet. Afterwards, the robot vacuum receives a cleaning performance score, which is the percentage of debris it was able to collect. After we record each robot vacuum's scores, we let these machines loose in our tester’s home to see how each holds up in terms of navigation, obstacle avoidance, and coverage in real-world testing.