Best robot vacuums in 2024 tested and rated

The best robot vacuums feature sharp designs with efficient cleaning performance. We've been testing robot vacuums for 10 years to find those that deliver the strongest suction and best features for all sorts of homes, and all sorts of budgets. Each robot is evaluated using a scoring system as it goes through a series of cleaning tests in our labs.

Our overall winner is the Shark PowerDetect 2-in-1 Robot Vacuum and Mop; it cleans and empties itself for 30 days without any intervention while putting up impressive cleaning scores across the board. Plus, we found its mop powers through even caked-on messes to give your floor some serious shine.

However, at $999, the PowerDetect Combo isn't for everybody. Our best budget pick is the $159 iLife V3S Pro, which cleans even tricky materials such as pet hair like a champ without breaking the bank. However, it lacks the smarts of pricier models, and doesn't have a mopping function.

This guide features other high-scoring robot vacuums across a wide range of prices and uses. Read on to learn more about all of the models we tested.

The quick list

Here’s the best robot vacuums you can buy right now based on our testing. Read on for our full in-depth reviews.

Robot vacuum testing procedures

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. Any special features such as app control, mopping functions, and self-emptying bases are factored in too. This all adds up to days of testing; it takes time, but helps ensure we're evaluating them all properly.

After extensive testing, we’ve compiled several buying guides to showcase our results, including the best Roombas, the best cheap robot vacuums and the best robot mops. We can even tell you what it's like when you use a robot vacuum in your home for the first time. So if you want to know more about robot vacuums so you can decide if one is right for you, you’ve come to the right place.

Meet our testers

Hunter Fenollol

Hunter Fenollol specializes in smart home gadgets and appliances with a focus in robot vacuums and security cameras.

Meghan McDonough

Meghan McDonough has been testing robot vacuums for Tom's Guide since 2019. Since 2008, she’s written about laptops, mobile phones, headphones, speakers, and other consumer tech.

The best robot vacuums you can buy

Best overall

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The Shark PowerDetect 2-in-1 robot vacuum and mop is the best robot vacuum for most people. This all-in-one floor cleaner automatically empties its dustbin, washes its mops, and refills its tanks—all for less than $1,000. Even better, its onboard AI is smart enough to detect stains and scrub them harder, finding dirt to boost suction power for maximum performance.

You can set-and-forget this model on a daily cleaning schedule without worrying about it for 30 days at a time (or 60 if you forego the mopping function). A hybrid of this caliber (such as the Roomba 10 Combo Max) tends to run around $1,400. The PowerDetect even offers more than the pricier competition with an ActiveLift leg. This helps it crawl over obstacles. It effortlessly popped the floor cleaning bot over my home's raised saddles and onto carpets in my living and dining room.

The LiDAR turret quickly scanned our home's main floor plan in a single passthrough. You can use Shark's app to name rooms, set no-go zones, and send the robot out to spot-clean a 5x5 area just by dropping a pin on the map. Meanwhile, it avoided almost all obstacles, including sneakers and dog toys, except for a thin 6-foot USB-C cord draped from our living room wall outlet to my couch.

At an overall cleaning score of 95 percent, this robot vacuum deep-cleans hard floors and carpet. We found that its side brush was really effective in sweeping debris forward and into the vacuum's bin. The only thing it had trouble on was kitty litter on carpet, but even its worst score of 83% is solid in the grand scheme of robot vacuums we've tested. Outside of a little more prowess on carpet, the Shark PowerDetect 2-in-1 is nearly perfect.

Read our full Shark PowerDetect 2-in-1 Robot Vacuum review

Shark PowerDetect 2-in-1 Combo test results (out of 100)

Best for pet hair

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iRobot's Roomba s9+ is one of the smartest and most thorough robot vacuums we've tested, outshining every other robot when it comes to picking up notoriously difficult pet hair. It has advanced mapping which our top pick overall lacks, so it can record and remember a blueprint of multiple floors of your house after just a few trips; you can then label individual rooms, and tell the s9+ to clean specific rooms on specific days.

We suggest scheduling it for when you're out of the house, as this is admittedly a noisy robot vacuum, particularly on hardwood floors; we struggled to have conversations as it cleaned.

However, with an average pick-up score of almost 97 percent, it's a capable vacuum on both hard floors and carpet. We noticed that it's better at picking up more granular materials like pet hair and kitty litter compared to Cheerios — this is usually the other way around. So it works better for collecting smaller debris.

The Roomba s9+ also comes with a self-emptying charging base; while it's unfortunate that you'll have to purchase replacement bags for this base, you will only have to empty the container every 30 days. This will save you a lot of time versus emptying the onboard dustbin.

If you have a bit more cash to play with, the s9+ can also talk with the company's Braava jet m6 robot mop, with the two working as a team, vacuuming floors, followed by a mop. Ultimately, this robot vacuum comes at a steep price, but it leaves little room for improvement.

iRobot Roomba s9+ test results

Read our full iRobot Roomba s9+ review.

Best budget robot vacuum

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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. It reached well up against the baseboards, picking up flaky bits of onion skin in our kitchen, and it collected all breadcrumbs in its path. It was about average in terms of noise compared to the other robot vacuums on test though, at 64.1dB.

There are a few caveats when purchasing a robot vacuum this cheap. For starters, the iLife V3s Pro is slow, taking more than 90 minutes on average to clean a 5x5-foot test space — others took less than 30 minutes. Also, it can’t be controlled from your smartphone, so you have to use the included remote control, and you can't connect it to Alexa or Google Assistant to turn it on or schedule cleanings.

But, if these are #FirstWorldProblems you can live with, then you'll be pleased to know the V3s Pro is great at doing the one thing it needs to do well, and that's picking up debris. For this price, its downsides are tradeoffs we're willing to make. That's why it's also one of the best cheap robot vacuums.

iLife V3s Pro test results

Read our full iLife V3s Pro review

Best value robot vacuum

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You can simply set and forget the Shark IQ robot vacuum for over a month thanks to its advanced scheduling capabilities and self-emptying dustbin. The easy-to-use Shark app makes automating the robot vacuum painless and relays any issues the bot runs into. For the most part, the robot goes out on its own and deposits up to 45 days worth of debris into its bagless docking station.

It's super convenient not to have to dump out contents after every run especially if you're upgrading from a typical on-board dustbin. The Shark IQ excelled at all of our tests, even picking up kitty litter on the carpet which other models (like our previous pick for this category, the Roomba i3+) scored low marks in. We were particularly impressed by the effectiveness of its row-cleaning pattern — it thoroughly picked up fur and debris even if it blew or knocked them to the sides on an initial passthrough.

At 3.5 inches tall, it's an average height, but it may struggle under low-reaching furniture. For instance, it reached the gaps under our kitchen cabinets with ease, but couldn't sneak under our couch.

The Shark IQ can be controlled via an app as well as with Alexa and Google Assistant, so you can create a schedule and connect it to smart home devices. It even has mapping features of more expensive robot vacuums so you can mark individual rooms as well as set invisible boundaries called No-Go zones. This is a high-performance option if you want a self-emptying charging base, but without paying top dollar.

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Read our full Shark IQ review.

Shark IQ test results

Best robot vacuum with mopping

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The S7 MaxV Ultra comes with an all-singing, all-dancing charging base, which has a whopping footprint of 16.6 x 19.4 inches. So it’s safe to say you need some space if you want to invest in this combination robot vacuum and mop cleaning powerhouse. The hefty charging base isn’t just for show though — it comes with the expected self-emptying capabilities (it can hold up to 7 weeks worth of dust), plus it contains two water tanks, one each for clean and dirty water.

With this setup, it can wash its own mop cloth when necessary, which is quite a useful and rare feature. A small bristle brush will scrub the cloth once the robot docks and fresh water is applied while the dirty water is extracted. This is an ideal function if you hate the task of removing and washing the cloth after each cleaning session like with the Roomba J9+ Combo.

With an overall cleaning score of 91.26, this robot vacuum wasn't the best of the best, but it was still above average. It achieved an almost perfect score when set to the task of picking up Cheerios and performed well when collecting kitty litter (95.73 on average). The S7 is smart enough to know when it's on a rug and can lift its mopping pad so that your carpet doesn't get soaked. It's gentle in operation too, slowing itself down as it approaches obstacles.

However, its streak suffered when it came to collecting dog hair from our carpet — it picked up just 58%. That’s the lowest score we've seen compared with similar models; the Roomba j7+ is the closest at 72.5%, but even that’s a sizeable gap. That being said, the Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra offers a quality performance otherwise and the technology is very impressive.

Although its AI object recognition actively avoids most obstacles, it failed to recognize fake pet poop on the test and mistook it for fabric instead. Nevertheless, the robot vacuum would suit households without pets who value convenience above all, and don’t mind splurging for it.

Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra test results

Read our full Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra review.

Best robot vacuum for pet poop

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iRobot’s Roomba j7+ is one of the best Roombas because of its obstacle avoidance technology. With this, it can essentially detect everyday objects, such as cables and socks and steer clear of them. The main benefit of this feature is the bot’s ability to avoid pet poop. In fact, iRobot is so confident in the Roomba j7+’s intelligence that it’s introduced the Pet Owner Official Promise (P.O.O.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.

The j7+ comes with a cleaning base which is hard to fault. It can hold up to 60 days of debris and looks easy on the eye compared to other bases — plus it’s more compact too.

This robot vacuum scored well for collecting large debris, such as cereal and kitty litter, collecting 98.33 and 94.6% respectively. However, we've seen better performances on pet hair from other robot vacuums, but its overall pet hair score was still a respectable 82.5%. Ultimately, this is a great investment if your pets are prone to accidents and you want to avoid further mess. Keep in mind that's it's a little forceful prior to mapping though — it even knocked one of the weights which secures the walls out of place during our debris tests.

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iRobot Roomba j7+ test results

Read our full iRobot Roomba j7+ review.

Best robot vacuum for upholstery

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