The best robot vacuum is the Ecovacs Deebot T9+ Robot Vacuum and Mop, because it's great at picking up everything from pet hair to larger debris, is able to avoid pets, and operates quietly, too.

But its navigation needs a lot of work. If you have a simple floor plan with a lot of carpets, it is worth considering, but the short battery life and lack of an auto-empty dock are major cons. Read more in this hands-on.

On the navigation front, we'll also test the robot vacuum's edge cleaning abilities – does it get right up to the edges of rooms, or leave a margin that needs manual cleaning.

Finding the right automatic vacuum involves evaluating a variety of features and considering your household’s unique cleaning needs. Below are key factors to help guide your purchasing decision:

Deciding which vacuum to buy can be a complicated process. Everyone wants a powerful cleaner that’s effective and convenient to use, but without firsthand experience, how can you tell which models will perform well?

It’s not perfect, since it can struggle with uneven flooring and bumps. Like many robot vacuums, its round shape does limit its ability to reach into corners. But, we’re still very pleased with it. In fact, over three months of testing, we didn’t even use our big vacuum once (and only pulled out the handheld vacuum for corners).

In fact, the Freo X Ultra is one of the quietest bots I’ve tested. Even at full power, it was so quiet that I had to check that it was working. Its anti-tangle brush and oito,200Pa suction did a good job on most carpet, but its 12mm mop lifting isn’t good for plush carpets.

The efficiency of your robotic vacuum depends on suitable floor layouts and consistent scheduling. Optimize its path by tidying cords, low-dangling curtains, and items that could snag brushes.

There are a few reasons why Roomba is a household name, and the Combo 10 Max is one of them. We're big fans of the features it brings to the table—or the floor, if we're being technical—and of its cleaning prowess. When a machine offers vacuuming and mopping, our expectations are doubly high. When it comes to vacuuming, details on the Roomba Combo 10 Max like the edge sweeper brush ensured that dog hair was successfully suctioned right up, and it performed equally well on both rugs and hard floors.

The Narwal Freo X Ultra is one of the best mopping robots I’ve tested — and it’s a good vacuum, too. Its spinning triangular mop pads rotate at 180RPM with 12n of downward pressure.

When we first get the robot set up, we'll see how long it takes to create a map of the home, and how accurate that map is. For subsequent runs, we'll keep an eye on how the robot navigates the space; if takes a logical route through the house, if it repeats already-clean areas, and so on.

The dock is also very compact for a self-empty model. The interior space is mostly given over to a larger-than-normal dust bag, which means you won't be bothered by the tiny onboard bin.

For the record, the brand does promise "NeverTouch" in the name and the base offers auto drying of the mop pads, but we Top 3 Automatic Vacuum Cleaners did

) This saves you from having to pull out the bin after every few runs and empty it yourself. Instead, you’ll have to replace the bag (and buy new ones) when it gets full, generally about once a month. Many robots now have a self-empty dock option you can add later, although buying them together is generally cheaper.