The iRobot Roomba 980 Robot Vacuum Cleaner

Robot vacuums remove pet hair, dust and lint off floors before they can settle. They also can avoid obstacles like furniture that is unstable and staircases.

Most robotic vacuums require maintenance. This involves emptying the bin (and best mop and vacuum in one sometimes rinsing it) and cleaning the cameras and sensors. Also, they need to be connected to the power source. Many have smartphone apps for scheduling, setting and more.

Roomba 960 from iRobot

The iRobot Roomba 980, the most recent of a series of top-of the-line robot mop for wood Floors vacuums, is an essential for any modern home. This model comes with a HEPA filter that can help those who are allergic. It also has a large battery that can clean for two hours, and return to its dock automatically once the bin is full.

Smart mapping is another feature that allows it to identify areas in your home that require attention, and best robot vacuum mop then creates an easy path to get around them. We've seen this technology in action and it does an excellent job of moving around toys that are left scattered on the floor or furniture legs that are sticking out of the ground. Roomba also has a sensor that will snap Roomba to reality if it begins to wander away from its original location.

iRobot has also introduced a new set of rollers beneath the Roomba's bottom that don't have bristles and therefore tend to resist tangles more than earlier models. These are also a little taller than older rollers and can better fit under beds and couches that are low, and they're designed to help this model navigate more easily across a variety of floor types.

What makes the Roomba 980 stand out from other models with a higher-end price tag however, is its inclusion of a new dirt detection feature that utilizes cameras to identify particles of dirt embedded. This is a great improvement over the previous version which relied on a sensor-driven pseudorandom cover method to bounce around the room and clean at least three times from different angles.

The Roomba 980 performed well in our tests on both carpets and hard floors. Its score on low pile carpet was very good and it scored a good score on mid pile, too. It did a decent job of picking up pet hair, but it struggled with extremely thick and long pet fur that was clumped together.

The Roomba 980 is still one of the best vacuum and mop cleaner performing robots we've reviewed despite the minor drawbacks. It's also not as expensive as top-of the-line models. It has many of the features you would expect from a top model, but doesn't come with all the fancy apps or smart home integrations you'll get from other top contenders.

The iRobot Roomba can be set up quickly and is available for use right away. After taking the yellow bin insert and the battery pull tab from the undercarriage, you simply plug it into an outlet on the wall or to its Home Base docking stations, hit the "Clean button" and let it do the job. It will return to its dock when its battery is out or is full of debris, and it also has indicators at the top to indicate when its bin is full or it's time to recharge, or its Wi-Fi signal has gone out.