14 best robot vacuum cleaners for spotless floors without lifting a finger

Score: 95/100

Standing out from the crowd for its bright blue finish, Dyson’s latest robot vacuum also grabbed attention for its podium-topping performance. Testers found it simple to set up – especially when using the Dyson app or consulting its dedicated YouTube tutorials. Mapping, setting no-go zones and scheduling cleans are simple, and while you’ll have to empty the dust bin yourself (note, alerts for this flashed up on our tester’s phone as a ‘fault’ although nothing was wrong), it self-charges at its neat and compact docking station.

As you’d expect with a Dyson vacuum, its cleaning power was also excellent. It works by doing an initial sweep, before returning to do a second deeper clean. It can adjust its suction to suit the floor type it’s tackling, and testers found it reliable on both carpet and hard flooring, noting that it didn’t spread any dust or debris around. It reached the edges of rooms well too but struggled in corners.

The vacuum will also notify you if there are areas you need to tackle yourself. One thing to factor into your scheduling is that when it’s on boost mode, it requires regular recharging, so although it’s a very quick vacuum, if you want it to tackle a bigger room, it's worth allowing enough time for a recharge. Overall, it’s a sleek addition to the robot vacuum market.

Score: 94/100

This isn’t the fanciest robot vacuum we've tested, so if you want one that has voice control, a self-emptying system or programmed no-go zones, scroll on. However, for cleaning prowess, it couldn’t be beaten; it scored full marks for its quick and efficient dust pick-up on all surfaces and for excellent pet hair removal. Generally, its side brushes swept most debris towards it, moving just some lighter crumbs (like rice crispies) away.

It navigates around furniture and cables well but there isn’t an indicator for a full dust bag and at 0.5-litres, you may need to empty it fairly frequently. However, it’s easy to use and its battery lasts for up to 150 minutes.

Plus, it connects to Wi-Fi, and its app allows you to set different modes, as well as monitor and schedule cleans. Not to mention, its mop function impressed with the way it swiftly cleaned up small spillages. A great value cleaner.

Score: 94/100

What sets this robot vacuum apart from the rest of the iRobot range is its ‘Dirt Detective’ feature, which means it automatically cleans the dirtiest rooms first and learns your cleaning habits, so it can make personalised suggestions to improve your routine.

It picked up larger debris, such as biscuit crumbs and cereal, quickly and easily, scoring highly in our tests. Its pick-up of dust, pet hair and fine dirt in tricky areas such as around furniture legs, wasn’t quite as effortless, but it still performed well.

When used as a mop and tasked with tackling a large dollop of BBQ sauce, it only left behind small streaks. It also has a handy ‘Auto-Retract Mopping System’, which stops your carpets getting too wet. Other special features include SmartScrub technology and auto-fill and empty functionality – plus, it promises not to pick up any pet accidents (risking spreading it across your floors); it cleans around them instead.

Of course, a robot vacuum like this doesn’t come cheap. However, if you have the money to spend and you want a tech-savvy device, this has a lot of clever features.

Score: 91/100

iRobot’s Roomba vacuums are market-leaders, so it’s hardly surprising its top-scoring models dominated our testing. This is the predecessor to the Combo J7+ (currently out of stock), which means it shares many features, only without the added mop capabilities.

Impressing with its pick-up on all tests, large crumbs, finer dirt and even pet hair posed no problems. It also consistently self-emptied its dust canister fully into the docking station. Plus, the app will notify you when it’s full, and with the capacity able to take up to 60 days' worth of dust, emptying it can sit at the bottom of your to-do list for a while.

It’s slower than a standard vacuum, taking 31 minutes on average to clean a whole room. But testers liked how it notifies you of areas it couldn’t reach — it sends pictures of obstacles through to the app, so you know to tackle them manually later. It also responded reliably to voice control, making it a good all-rounder.

Score: 91/100

Samsung has long had one of our best cordless vacuums, so we were excited to get our hands on its robot vacuum – and it didn’t disappoint. Earning perfect marks for its dust pick-up on short pile carpet and its crumb clearing on hard flooring, this is one excellent vacuum. In fact, it lifted over 90 per cent of the dirt in both tests, something we don’t often see with robot vacuums.

It lifted most pet hair, and cleaned room edges well, in part thanks to its effective spin brush and three driving modes that let you select when you want it to tackle them. Despite not having a spot clean function, it mopped our flooring in one sweep (although our testers found a second sweep was required to leave it fully refreshed). We’d also recommend programming your mopping and vacuuming separately as our expert noticed some transfer of dirt from the mop pads onto carpet when it did both in one outing.

As for its tech, well, it’s top of the range. Let’s start with the docking station where it recharges, empties the bin and refills the water tank. Plus, it uses steam to clean and sanitise the mop pads. It’s all compatible with the Samsung Smart Things app too, where you can set its routines, get maintenance alerts and even monitor your home via the robot’s built-in camera which testers found streamed clearly. You can control it via voice as well, and it mapped and detected obstacles well.

Score: 91/100

Robot vacuums and mops are some of the most advanced appliances we test here at the Good Housekeeping Institute, so we have high expectations, but even we’re still sometimes surprised by the innovations. And this design from Eufy definitely falls into that category. It’s the first one to have a dual water tank within the robot, which means it collects dirty water and cleans the mop as it goes.

It’s heavier as a result, but it wowed our testers who said it didn’t smear any ketchup beyond the already stained area when cleaning – something rarely seen in the lab. Its vacuuming was also methodical and effective, lifting an average of 83 per cent of dust and dirt across the different test room floors. Pet hair wasn’t much of a challenge for it and it navigated obstacles well, reaching nicely into awkward spaces, but it struggled at room edges, especially on carpet.

Testers liked its multi-tasking docking station that emptied, refilled and recharged the vacuum, giving a relatively hands-free user experience. They also praised its height for easier access – meaning if they wanted to access on-machine controls, they didn’t need to bend over or kneel down. The app was intuitive too.

Score: 90/100

Often, we find that robot vacuums struggle to catch dust and debris at room edges and in corners – but not this one. Its circular brush was effective at moving debris into its path. It performed well when cleaning carpets and mopping hard flooring, too. Unfortunately, it struggled to lift all the pet hair testers had laid.

It has a relatively advanced (and big) docking station – this one empties the vacuum bin, refills the mop and washes the mop pads – but it’s not the best we’ve seen at auto-emptying. On test, it didn’t happen automatically when the vacuum was full, instead clearing it at set intervals.

It also struggled to lift everything, so our experts had to clear out remnants manually. This somewhat detracts from its practicality, but you shouldn't have to worry about capacity too often as the dock is designed to hold weeks' worth of dirt.

Otherwise, it’s a powerful, effective robot vacuum that should capture more lingering dust and debris than many.

Score: 88/100

As far as robot vacuums go, this is an affordable buy. Plus, its small docking station means it should fit easily into most homes too. It collected crumbs and pet hair thoroughly, but didn’t capture all the dust laid on carpet, making it a better pick for top-up cleans than deep ones. Its mopping was excellent though, clearing smeared ketchup fully within two sweeps.

Unsurprisingly given its price, there were a few things to flag; testers noticed that the mop plates would collect dust and crumbs when vacuuming, so would recommend removing them for that task. You need to refill the water tank manually too (although the water level used when mopping is customisable) and there’s no indicator for when the dock waste bag needs emptying. Hoover advises doing this every 60 days.

Its tech was pretty good though; the robot moved in a coordinated way, there are anti-fall sensors, the app was straightforward to navigate, and it mapped our room quickly. It’s a simple yet effective buy.

Score: 87/100

This robot vacuum and mop is a real overachiever – it self-empties, self-cleans and self-refills its water tank. Of course, you’ll need to look after the docking station maintenance, but that will be a lot less frequent than dealing with the vacuum itself.

Testers found its app was user friendly and the accompanying instructions clear, while the robot moved well, especially around furniture (although it struggled to go underneath a draped bed).

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. Similarly, the mop was handy – removing the worst of our spillages, making it an ideal kitchen helper. Its charging time is quite lengthy, but as it plugs itself in, this isn’t too much of a bother.

Score: 84/100

We’ve been waiting for Shark to enter the robot vacuum chat for a while, and we weren’t disappointed. This is its first model (with several more coming soon) and it put in a stand-out performance, cleaning an entire room and picking up almost all the mess our testers laid in less than 15 minutes.

It performed perfectly when tackling crumbs and was good with pet hair, but struggled to collect all the dust laid, sweeping some specks out of its path. Given robot vacuums are best at keeping on top of mess rather than deep cleans, we don't see this as a big issue though. Plus, its mopping was excellent.

It's easy to use, doing much of the heavy lifting itself; it maps your home and stores its route in the clear, accompanying app. It also recharges itself, detects and avoids stairs and self-empties. Some dirt lingered in the canister but if the occasional empty is all the work required of us, we won't complain!

Score: 84/100

This robot vacuum is a great crumb gobbler. Testers said it was brilliant at collecting biscuit and cereal debris, lifting over 95%. It tackled pet hair effortlessly too, but dust was a different story – while it lifted nearly every speck from laminate, on carpet, a lot was left behind. The mop function works well for cleaning the worst of a spill too, although you may want to follow up with a final wipe yourself, as there’s no spot clean function.

Clear instructions meant testers found it easy to set up and use, and they liked its app control, but struggled to get the voice tech working. Its docking station is available separately and performed well on test generally, even though the vacuum’s canister didn’t always fully empty into it. It’s also fairly large, and there’s minimal information on how often to empty the dust bag. We suggest keeping an eye on it regularly to begin with until you get into your own routine.

Score: 82/100

This has an advanced docking station at a relatively mid-range price; it cleans and removes mop pads, empties the dust bin, and tops up water and cleaning detergent levels. Our testers found it easy to set up, with mapping wrapping up in just two minutes thanks to the built-in camera, which scans the room with reduced movement.

You can view live footage (and recordings) via the straightforward app when it's out cleaning too, and it acts like some of the best baby monitors or pet cameras, patrolling and letting you speak to them. Testers found this feature reliable, with minimal lag.

Our experts also liked the drop pin function, which means you can precisely direct your vacuum to a spot for cleaning. And on that note, it mopped effectively and vacuumed well enough for light refreshes. It disabled the side brushes when on carpet, so it struggled on room edges, and it didn’t quite have the power to collect all the dust we laid. It did a decent job with pet hair and crumbs though.

Score: 80/100

Why have one vacuum cleaner when you can have three? Meet Eufy’s E20 model, which combines a robot, stick and handheld vacuum into one neat docking station so you can seamlessly switch between the three depending on the cleaning task at hand.

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.

Tackling an entire room from start to finish took 14 minutes, and the robot collected an average of 95 per cent of debris – just a few biscuit crumbs were left behind. However, it struggled on our dust-specific test, only removing the very top layer on carpet.

Pet owners can rejoice though; it sucked up most pet hair in two minutes and the vacuum’s roller brush rotates in reverse after cleaning, working with the built-in comb to dislodge any trapped hair.

As you’re getting a three-in-one system with this robot vacuum, we also tested the stick and handheld vacuums. The stick vacuum excelled at lifting pet hair and dust on hard floors while the handheld worked best at collecting lingering crumbs. Together they scored 87/100, making the three-in-one system a worthwhile investment for all round cleaning.

Score: 79/100

This one had us at retractable legs. A robot vacuum and mop that can clamber over obstacles really is a game-changer. Little steps though – this one can only manage obstacles up to 6cm, so think carpet strips rather than stairs. That said, the functionality worked well in our lab tests with the robot recognising barriers and using its retractable legs to move over them.

As for its cleaning, it's great on larger debris like Rice Krispies and can give a large room a good clean, but it fell down on finer dust and debris on carpet, so it's probably best for keeping on top of mess, rather than as your sole cleaner. It also took a few passes to get all the pet hair, but it was particularly good at reaching into crevices and corners on hard flooring, thanks to its side brush. It also mopped well with minimal smearing.

As for the tech, our tester loved the retractable legs and found the app clearly laid out and easy to follow – all the info you need is there, from battery life to dock controls. We also liked that it has built-in LED lights so it can keep working when the house is dark, finding its way and dealing with the mess. Plus, there's a 'do not disturb' mode for quieter cleaning.