Stick with manual vacuuming. The robot vacuums are just as much of a hassle and don’t clean as well. Don’t fall for the marketing.

if the surface is carpeted, just vacuum it manually, the robots can't handle carpet very well

we've had good luck with the eufy ones but you HAVE to empty them every time you run, you HAVE to run them every day and you HAVE to perform periodic maintenance. current one is going strong for 2 years

I’ve bought a couple roomba’s throughout the past 10 years (just the $300 ones). Nice items for non carpeted flooring. Obviously reg vacuuming performs better, Buts it’s nice to be able to hit a button, play some pinball and say your cleaning at the same time.

I've been thinking about this lately myself and found this review guide pretty helpful just as an overview of the current market, still have it open in a tab:

https://www.theverge.com/22997597/best-robot-vacuum-cleaner

We had a roomba for a while with mild success. Lets just say 2 dogs was too much for the thing. It would typically get "lost" and couldn't re-dock after it felt it was finished. We had a rug with blocks of black and other black or brown borders and we would often find the thing stuck in this invisible jail. The roller was always jammed with hair or fur. It would get stuck under our funirture. It was a gift from my mother-in-law, so we didn't lose out on any money.

If you have open hard flooring, then it'll probably do you well, but we'll never spend any money on a robovac.

I have one on my main floor where there is no carpet. If you have carpet, don't even bother. The robot vacuums don't have great suction for carpet. For hard floors, they are the bees knees.

I have a Roborock S5. It's great. Whatever you get, make sure it has lidar. Robot vacuums have come a long way from the original dumb Roomba. Lidar allows the vacuum to map out every room and obstacle in your house. It will save that map for cleaning later. You can even pull the map up on it's app and designate areas that you do or do not want vacuumed.
Hope this helps.

Don’t do it! The robot will map your house. Then, when the bad men come, they will find you.

I saw a news article pop up not too long about about requiring a monthly subscription with new roombas, while with older models it was merely optional. Just something to be aware of if you're looking at those.

My $300 shark lasted 3 years. picked up plenty and it was fun finding where it got stuck when I got home from work. Object detection sensors went out and I have not replaced it. Can't justify 7 or 800 for the self emptying one that I want. But overall I was happy with my shark.

I have two of the 600 series whichever has the smaller batteries. They lasted great for a few years but then the batteries take a decline and fall short of returning home to top off unless I restrict the area by a lot.

I still like having a really clean floor in the summer the wood floors feel much better when barefoot no small surprises

So, the recommendation is to get off your ass and vacuum yourself.

I like my roomba vacuum and roomba mop machines. Works pretty good together. I have it all mapped out, and tell Alexa which room to clean. Gets into areas I cant get into, under the bed and shit.
I recommend it.

i like the eufys because they don't store the interior mapping data for the company to package and resell which is what roombas actually exist to do

I had an early roomba that I hated. Tossed in the trash after a few years.

I was pulled back into robot vacs at the wife's insistence about a year ago and went with the Roborock S5 Max. This is a completely different experience and we couldn't be happier. She absolutely loves it and I don't ever have to touch it. It just works. Win/win.

Well, yeah. You say it in fewer words.

I have gotten good use out of my Neato. It feels more like a real vacuum with a full size beater bar in front and decent size dirt cup. It does a good job vacuuming the carpets and I'm surprised how much it is able to get out of them. It goes around the pinball lakes without too much trouble just make sure the pinball cords don't snare it. They aren't exactly cheap though if you buy the higher end models.

I have a iRobot S9+ Self emptying. Been very happy with it.
I have 4 floors, so I put a docking base on each floor and just move the robot around. It’s saved me dozens upon dozens of hours of vacuuming. I’ve gone from vacuuming 6000+ SQFT to just doing the stairs manually.

I would stick with a manual vacuum. Robot vacuums just don't have enough suction to do a good job.

Bought a Roborock S4 a year or so ago on sale after putting LVP throughout and love it. It does great on big area rugs, but you will need to pick up any little lightweight rugs or it will just push them out of the way or get hung up on them.

The thing you mostly need to watch out for is your cords. It is like it goes out of its way to get to them.

Like mentioned above, I was skeptical for quite awhile but the newer ones have plenty of power and the one I have climbs our ~1 1/4 inch step up into our bathroom once it learned how to navigate it.

Get something laser guided that doesn’t bounce around randomly and you will have good results.

We have a Neato D3 (the cheapest one) and have ran it close to 4 years, it has had one replacement battery and we change the beater bar every year.

We have a dog and two cats and it cleans both floors of the house twice a week and always returns with a full bin of junk.

I just get my robot friend to vacuum for me.

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i got a roomba 960 model(no longer made now) it does better on carpet than hardwoods honestly. I love it. just gotta spend the money on a higher number model to get results.

We have a prehistoric roomba for the game room. I does ok, helps with dog hair. A Bobbi white for the house. Main floor is hardwood, game room is hardwood, and the basement is tile. Bobbi becomes confused when you move it from floor to floor. It does not replace manual vacuuming. It is a great help with dog hair, Legs Diamond is a shedding machine.

Unless you have a real network Irobot 7 waste money. Cannot just play nice with smart phone.
Likely not issue to most but worth mention.
Like idea vac weaving thru the forest pinball legs but did not work.
Shane

I swear by my Roomba. When people say they don't vacuum as well as a full sized vacuum that's true, but having Roomba vacuum every single day means I have to vacuum with a stand up maybe once a month. Carpets included. And if you're talking about tile, it should be a slam dunk - just watch those cords!

I've got a Roomba in the basement for carpet. Roborock S7 on the main floor and second floor for a mix of tile, wood floor, and carpet. I really like the Roborock S7. You get to edit no go zones, like under pinball machines, and overall the user interface is pretty slick. The mopping feature on it works fairly well. I also got the auto empty bins and they are awesome. The price of things anymore I subconsciously compare to pinball machines and then I don't feel bad spending the money.

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Just remember you get what you pay for. Don’t buy a cheap stupid one that bounces off walls. Invest in a smart unit that maps the house. Also, they do carpet just as well or better then uprights. People that say this are talking about robots that came out years ago. Modern ones do really well. At this point I only have to get an upright out for stairs. Roombas work well and are built like tanks. Shark IQ cleans well, no hair gets wrapped around the brush, only bad thing is the software is a bit lagging. My shark will happily spend hours cleaning under the machines. Just stuff the chords out of the way.

We have a Roomba i7+ on the main level of the house with wood floors and it does a pretty decent job. I took the 780 we had in the house and put it out in the gameroom. The gameroom is 1,800 sq.ft of low pile carpet and it does great. I've found light bulbs, screws and other small items I've dropped when working on games. Set to a 3 day a week schedule, I stopped manually vacuuming out in the gameroom.

I bought a I3 from Costco a few years back. We have 2 dogs and one sheds a lot of very fine white hair. Its everywhere on the floors. The i3 does a amazing job on both carpet and my hardwood floors. I find that the suction is really good and the dirt bin is completely full by the end of the cycle. It will recharge itself when it gets low in the middle of a run and then finish the job when it is recharged. My honest assessment is that this little thing is pretty damn amazing at vacuuming and I honestly couldn't do without it now.

That said it does come with some issues. The first and really only issue is that it does need maintenance every so often., I find that after a few runs it needs a good cleaning. I have to take the rollers out and remove all the hair ( mostly my wifes) from the inside of them as they are long and will wrap themselves around the rollers., also you need to clean the filter every now and then or the suction will not be so good. Also, after each run I need to empty the bin as it is completely full. ( however this last one will vary depending on the level of hair or debris on your floors.. I have a friend who has the one that empties itself and he even mentioned that you still need to empty the main bag and perform cleaning maintenance on it every now and then.

But with all that , I really am amazed at this little thing and its nice to just set it and go and it will do its job. Even high pile carpet gets cleaned pretty good. Every time I empty the bin I'm continually amazed at how much stuff it picks up.

Years ago I had a garage model that worked well sweeping up sawdust, nails, dirt. Eventually the batteries died and it got clogged up. But for a few years it did a great job.

https://www.youtube.com/c/VacuumWars

Best vacuum review channel EVER!!!

I have a Roomba i9+ and it's perfect for our needs. Hardwood floors and lots of pet hairs. It cleans really well, integrates with the Home Assistant platform, and we've never had a issue. We have a lot of guests during the summer and would have to vacuum daily to keep the house clean due to our location. The Roomba runs at night and we never think about it.

That's what ours is named :p

I named ours Esmarelda, turns out it was a perfect name………..

All our robots have names too. Roxanne (Roborock) handles the house. Elvis (Landroid Model L) mowers the yard.