The iRobot Roomba 980 Robot Vacuum Cleaner

Robot vacuums sweep pet hair, lint and dust from floors before it can settle. They also can avoid obstacles like stairs and other obstructions such as furniture that is tippy.

Most robotic vacuums require regular maintenance. This includes emptying the bin (and sometimes, best Robot mop and vacuum combo rinsing it) and wiping the sensors and cameras. They also require to be connected. Many come with smartphone apps to schedule, adjust settings and more.

Roomba 960 by iRobot

The iRobot Roomba 980, the most recent of a series of top-of-the-line robot vacuums, is a staple for any modern home. This model comes with a HEPA-filter that will aid those suffering from allergies. In addition, it also comes with a powerful battery that can clean up to two hours and it automatically returns to its dock once its bin is full.

Smart mapping is another feature that allows it to identify areas in your home that require attention and provides a cleaning path to get around them. We've seen this technology in action and best robot mop and vacuum combo it does a great job of maneuvering around toys abandoned on the floor or furniture legs that are sticking out from under things. Roomba also has a sensor that will snap Roomba to its real-world location if it starts to drift away from its original position.

iRobot also added an additional set of rollers beneath the Roomba which do not have bristles, and therefore are more likely to avoid tangles than previous models. These are also a little taller than older rollers and are able to fit under low couches and beds and are designed to help this model navigate more easily across a variety of flooring types.

The Roomba 980 differs from other high-end models by its brand new dirt detection feature, which makes use of a camera in order to identify dirt that has been embedded. This is a nice improvement over the previous model, that relied on the sensor-driven pseudorandom coverage technique to bounce around a room and clean it at minimum three times from various angles.

The Roomba 980 performed well in our tests on carpets and hard floors. It scored extremely well on carpets with a low pile, and on mid-pile. It did a good job of removing pet hair, but it had a difficult time with very thick and long pet fur that was stuck together.

Despite these minor shortcomings, the Roomba 980 remains one of our best robot mop And vacuum combo-performing robots, and it's not even far from being as costly as the other top models on this list. It's still packed with a variety of features that we'd expect to see in a top-of-the-line model, but it doesn't have all the fancy apps or smart robot vacuum home integration that you might find in other top contenders.

The iRobot Roomba is simple to set up and get working immediately. After removing the battery pull tab and yellow bin insert from its undercarriage, all you need to connect it to its Home Base docking station or a wall socket, press its big "Clean" button and let it get to work. It will automatically return to the dock when it is running out of batteries or is full of sand. There are also indicators on top that show the bin is empty, when it is in need of recharging or if it loses Wi-Fi.