How to Choose a Robot Vacuum Cleaner – Full Buying Guide

The decision to buy a robot vacuum cleaner comes when you realize that cleaning the house has become too troublesome and time-consuming. It’s simply more convenient to invest in a robot vacuum cleaner than spend time and effort on regular manual cleaning. It could be the best decision, but only under the right circumstances. We’ll discuss these conditions to help you make the right choice.

Do You Actually Need a Robot Vacuum Cleaner?

You need to understand if you actually need a robot vacuum cleaner before you start browsing for one. The first thing to consider is the size of the house. If the house is small, it makes no sense to invest in an expensive advanced model. If the house is large though, don’t go cheap and don’t try to save on the purchase.

If you have a multistory house, a separate vacuum cleaner might be needed for each floor. It’s also a good idea to take into account your absence from home. After all, you want the vacuum cleaner to work in your absence. The most important thing to understand is that a robot vacuum cleaner won’t save you from manual cleaning completely. It just eases the process. There’s still a lot to do on your own.

What Does Cleaning With a Robot Vacuum Look Like?

1. Before cleaning, you need to pick up all small items from the floor. If you have kids or pets, this is probably the most difficult task.

2. Free the floor from light items you can move, such as chairs, ironing boards, shoes, pet bowls, coffee tables, you name it.

3. Move light furniture that cannot be lifted, so the robot can crawl everywhere.

4. Prepare the robot: pour some water in the container, attach the microfiber and other features it may have.

5. Start the robot.

6. Take a rest while the robot does the job. This is the main benefit of using technological innovation to do your work.

7. Clean the robot once it’s done: throw out the collected garbage, remove and wash the microfiber and collect hair from the turbo brush.

8. Vacuum corners and other inaccessible places with a conventional vacuum cleaner.

9. Walk around the house and mop off the dirt your robot couldn’t.

As you can see, the process is not 100% automatic, but robot vacuum cleaner developers understand these issues and aim to make them history.

Robot Vacuum Cleaner Problems and Solutions

Let’s take a look at the most common problems and their solutions.

1. Cleaning out the container daily

You can buy a vacuum cleaner with a self-cleaning station, but you’d also have to buy bags (unless you get Roborock S7 Plus, which has a bagless, yet expensive system).

2. Clearing items from the floor

There are vacuum cleaners fitted with cameras to detect objects. They’ll go around objects without touching them. This is also a pricey feature.

3. Difficulties in cleaning high pile carpets

Change to low pile carpets. That will prevent the vacuum cleaner from losing movement trajectory due to its brushes.

4. The vacuum cleaner stains light-colored carpets with its wet rag after cleaning the floor

Some vacuum cleaners have the option to raise the platform. You can also disable the wet cleaning feature.

To solve this problem, there’s a special module that’s been developed for Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra to dry the mop, but it’s sold separately. In the future, this function is likely to be implemented in other vacuum cleaners too.

5. Consumables

Once you decide on a model, browse the Internet for consumables (filters, brushes, bags) before buying it. Choose another model if they’re not available at a reasonable price

6. Incompatibility of furniture with a vacuum cleaner

This is probably the biggest problem and requires complex solutions, since plenty of furniture is made without considering a robot vacuum cleaner going under it.

If the house is new, take into account the presence of a robot vacuum cleaner when buying furniture. That’s not easy, especially if you’ve just started considering robot vacuum cleaners. In this case, it makes sense for furniture producers to consider such modern options when developing new designs.

If you already have some furniture, your only option at this stage is to change it.

7. Many vacuum cleaners don’t do wet cleaning, but only robotic mops

Buy two robots at the same time – one will vacuum and the other one will wash. For example iRobot Roomba S9+ and Braava Jet M6 are great together. Each of them is designed for a specific task and does a great job at it. However, two robots doing two different tasks will prolong the cleaning time, which is extremely important if cleaning takes place when you’re at home. It’s more convenient to use one vacuum cleaner with both functions to save time.

Cheap or Expensive Robot Vacuum Cleaner

As you can see, you’ll need to pay more to solve existing issues. If the price is not such an important consideration when choosing a robot vacuum cleaner, Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra has plenty of positive reviews. You only have to turn it on, nothing else. It can cope with various cleaning tasks better than other alternatives and reduces potential problems. However, even an advanced robot will still require manual work from your side at times. Take the kitchen, for example. Bad stains are difficult to wash even with your hands, let alone a vacuum cleaner. In other words, the mopping function shouldn’t be taken for granted. Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra doesn’t come cheap, but it brings in more features than any other alternative.

Finding a top-notch option is difficult when it comes to cheaper models. Such cleaners may lack side brushes or perhaps the central one, which are mandatory if you don’t have too much power. They usually come with small batteries, while some of them don’t even know how to return to the base. Space navigation is likely to be an issue too, not to mention getting over wired or displaying errors, if they actually have screens. Moreover, such models don’t even come with air filters.

In addition, cheap models have little to no suction power. They’ll work on hard surfaces, but they’re completely useless for soft areas, like carpets. In conclusion, a cheap model is just money down the train, but at the end of the day, it all depends on your necessities, how many rooms you have, the size of your home, carpets or the presence of pets.

Summary

Even the most expensive robot vacuum cleaner out there will have some unhappy customers, just like the cheapest model may have good reviews too. This means you’ll need to choose a model that matches your personal necessities. If a $200 model works well for someone else, it doesn’t mean it’ll get the job done in your home. Your requirements and expectations differ from others’ needs. Which model to start with? Should you go for the cheapest you can find or the fully featured model? It all depends on your budget. One key takeaway is that having high expectations often leads to frequent disappointment with robot vacuum cleaners.