The majority of robotic vacuums require maintenance. This involves emptying the bin (and sometimes rinsing it) and wiping the sensors and cameras. Also, they need to be plugged into an electrical source. A lot of them have apps for smartphones for scheduling, setting and more.
Roomba 960 by iRobot
The iRobot Roomba 980 is the latest model in the line of top-of-the-line robotic vacuum cleaners that are a staple of any modern household. This model is equipped with a HEPA-filter to aid those suffering from allergies. It also comes with a large battery that can clean for two hours before returning to its dock automatically when the bin is full.
It also has an option called smart mapping, which makes use of multiple sensors to help determine the areas in your home that require attention and create a cleaning path around them. This technology is extremely effective in navigating toys left on the floor or furniture legs sticking out from underneath objects. It also has a camera that will snap the Roomba back to its original position when it starts to drift from its intended location.
iRobot has also added a new set of rollers beneath the Roomba's bottom that don't have bristles and, therefore, tend to resist tangles better than earlier models. They're also higher than the older rollers, and will fit better under beds and couches with low sides, and they're designed to let this model move more easily across a variety of flooring kinds.
What sets the Roomba 980 apart from other models with a higher-end price tag Its main feature is the inclusion of a new dirt detection feature, which uses cameras to detect particles of dirt embedded. This is a great improvement over the previous version which relied on a sensor-driven pseudorandom coverage technique to bounce around the room and clean everything at least three times from different angles.
The Roomba 980 performed well in our tests on carpets and hard floors. Its score on low pile carpet was very good and it scored a excellent score on mid pile, too. It did a decent job of removing pet hair, but it struggled with extremely thick and long pet fur that was clumped together.
Despite these slight limitations, the Roomba 980 remains one of our top-performing robots, and isn't even close to being as expensive as some of the other top-of-the-line models in this list. It's got plenty of features that we'd expect to see in a top-of-the-line model however, it doesn't come with all the fancy apps or smart home integration you might find in other top contenders.
The iRobot Roomba can be set up in a matter of minutes and is ready for use as soon as you are ready to. After taking off the yellow bin insert and pull tab from the undercarriage, you just plug it into the wall socket or one of its Home Base docking stations, click the "Clean button" and let it work. It will automatically return to its dock when the battery runs out or is full of debris, and it also has indicators on the top to indicate when the bin is full, it requires recharging or if its Wi-Fi signal has gone out.
