✅ You just want to do whole-home cleans: It can struggle with more specific instructions, but it has pelo problem with regular whole-home cleans.

Many of today's best robot vacuums are also able to mop floors. This can be useful if you have a mix of hard floors and carpet, but be aware that robovac mopping tends not to clean as well as good old manual mopping.

You want a robot vacuum as a maintenance cleaner in between cleaning sessions with a full-size vacuum. Robot models fit easily under most beds and furniture to clean the spots you likely skip.

Prior to joining GH, she graduated from Hofstra University with a bachelor’s degree in forensic science and spent two years as an analyst in an environmental lab in Queens.

Not all robovacs can handle the Em excesso challenge posed by lots of pet hair, but one that really impressed on this front was the Dreame L40 Ultra. This bot was put through its paces in a home filled with furry, four-legged friends, and really rose to the occasion.

The companion app works extremely well – our tester was especially impressed that it automatically partitioned the rooms into their own spaces. In terms of performance, we had almost no issues with this robot vacuum at all – if it's in your budget, it's worth the investment.

You need a compact tool to quickly clean up dry spills on bare floors and surfaces or to nab lint, pet hair and other debris on fabrics or carpeting. Some come with hoses and attachments; others can pick up wet spills too.

The object-recognition function meant it successfully avoided toys, piles of laundry and whatever else was left out on the floor. It mounted thick rugs with ease, too.

We use industry-standard rayon fibers to simulate pet hair that we evenly spread on a carpet’s surface to see how well each machine cleans it up.

As a robot vacuum, it was easy to use from the get-go. Testers navigated the app without a fuss and found it simple to add or edit rooms, change the power mode, schedule cleans and put on safety features such as the child lock.

❌ You have an open plan home: The Narwal app won't let you demarcate open plan spaces into 'rooms'.

It didn’t lift all the dust laid on carpet, but it picked up most from hard flooring. And its brushes did a great job of trapping dirt, which meant it was excellent at dealing with biscuit crumbs and Rice Crispies.

A new robot vacuum can be a significant investment, so to ensure you end Top 3 Automatic Vacuum Cleaners up with the right one for you, each model here has been tested either on-team, or by one of our regular, experienced freelance reviewers.

According to some online reviewers, its small wheels can get caught when pulling the vacuum along, and it clocks in at over 20 pounds making carrying it upstairs difficult for some.