Robot Mops
Equipment Review
Today’s robot vacuums promise to map your home, vacuum and mop your floors, avoid pet “accidents,” empty their own bins, do video surveillance, and clean specific rooms following elaborate schedules. Do any of these functions work?
Published Jan. 6, 2022. Appears in America's Test Kitchen TV Season 23: Scandinavian Brunch
We tested the latest robot vacuum cleaners at a wide range of prices. They offer special features that include voice and app control, mop attachments, home mapping and scheduled cleaning, pet-accident avoidance, video surveillance, and more. Our top choices are based on sheer cleaning power: They did the best job at removing dirt. They were also easy to operate, whether we used controls on the robots or their user-friendly apps. The iRobot Roomba j7+ Robot Vacuum was the premier picker-upper, easily “sweeping” the competition. It can keep going to get any job done since it empties its own dustbin, recharges, and returns to cleaning. It quickly created an accurate map that let us label rooms and set up scheduled or impromptu cleaning of designated areas or of the whole house. The Shark ION Robot Vacuum, a more budget-friendly robot with simpler features that performed nearly as well in picking up dirt as our winner, is a great option and our Best Buy.
The first robot vacuum, the hockey puck–shaped iRobot Roomba, appeared in 2002. Since then, the category has grown and evolved as more manufacturers have explored different robot shapes and features. The earliest models navigated by bouncing off walls and furniture as they traveled randomly around each room. Today, many robots can map your home with lasers or optical sensors and follow methodical cleaning patterns. The newest models offer many bells and whistles at a wide range of prices. We first focused on their vacuuming abilities and then decided which extras were worthwhile.
The mission of America’s Test Kitchen Reviews is to find the best equipment and ingredients for the home cook through rigorous, hands-on testing. We stand behind our winners so much that we even put our seal of approval on them.
Lisa is an executive editor for ATK Reviews, cohost of Gear Heads on YouTube, and gadget expert on TV's America's Test Kitchen.
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