The 10 Scariest Things About Best Robot Vacuum Cleaner For Carpet

Best Robot Vacuum Cleaner For Carpet

Many robot vacuums are good at cleaning hard floors, but struggle with carpet. They can get stuck in thick rugs or tangled in cords.

It's worthwhile to look at your flooring types, traffic patterns and tidiness preferences before you choose a robot vacuum cleaner to clean your carpet. Our top picks can help you find the right carpet cleaner.

1. Powerful Suction

Carpets require a stronger robotic vacuum cleaner. While any robot vacuum can remove your hardwood, tile, or laminate floors of crumbs and hair that blows across them like tumbleweeds. Many of the best robot vacuums we have tested have powerful suction. Some can even go up to 8000 Pascals (or Pa). This is enough suction to grab dirt and debris embedded in your carpet robot cleaner fibers and then pull it into the dust bin, from where you can dispose of it.

The most reliable robots have a huge dustbin with an easy-to-empty mechanism and enough battery capacity to complete the task. You should check whether the model you're considering can automatically empty its dustbin when it's filled, too. This will reduce your chores since you don't have to manually empty the bin into a garbage bag.

Certain robots with strong suction offer a maximum cleaning mode to remove particularly difficult to remove dirt. This feature is typically drains the battery faster than normal cleaning runs, so it's best robot vacuum for carpet to keep this feature to an absolute minimum.

A growing number of robots combine mopping and vacuuming capabilities. They have water reservoirs that are either in the chassis or as a separate component that you use to replace the dustbin when you want to mop your floors. Certain machines, such as the Roborock S7+, and the Eufy 11S Max that is less expensive, performed very well on carpets and hard flooring in our tests. However, they did not perform as well in their mopping mode as our top selections.

2. Adaptive Navigation

While some robot vacuums are excellent on carpets, others have a difficult time to navigate them. This is due to the difficulty in the combination of a powerful vacuum motor with tiny moving wheels and sensors in a compact device.

Fortunately, there are ways to make robots more adept at managing rugs. For example, you can roll them up or tape them to secure them to ensure they don't get caught in the roll. Another solution is to restrict a robot's access to the area with physical barriers or virtual walls (depending on the model).

Eufy RoboVac 11S Max is the most affordable choice for handling rug. It's a bargain, however it doesn't sacrifice performance. It did an excellent job at removing dry oats on both a medium-pile carpet and hard floor and also deftly moving furniture with low clearance. It has a few other smart features as well like the voice assistant remote control and an intelligent mapping.

It did not clean thicker carpets as effectively as other bots, however it still cleaned them well. It isn't able to avoid objects and is not self-emptying which means you'll have to empty the bin every time.

If you're willing to spend some more, the iRobot Roomba X10 is the best pick in this category. This robot has amazing mopping and object recognition capabilities, easily sucking up Cheerios and heaps of oatmeal while skillfully maneuvering fake dog turds, cords and other messes. In addition to its powerful Boost IQ mode, which maximizes the power of carpets, it offers multiple cleaning options and a relatively long run time. It's not equipped with the sophisticated mapping and navigation technology of the more expensive Roborock S8+.

3. Simple to operate

Many robot vacuum cleaner owners are enthralled with their machines, but they're not a replacement for upright models or a canister. While a robovac can do an great job of removing hair and dirt blowing across hard flooring, it falls a bit short of deep cleaning carpets. This is especially true when it comes taking fine material off rug fibers.

To maximize the performance of your robovac, make sure you choose one that is maneuverable with a high pile carpet robot vacuum-quality obstacle-avoidance technology as well as strong suction power. Our ratings of the best robot carpet Shampooer carpeting robots all meet these requirements, and also offer other smart features like programmable scheduling and zoned power levels.

You'll want a machine that can easily change between different flooring types, like hardwoods and rug. Most robots come with different suction levels for different kinds of floors. Rugs with lower piles require less suction than plush shags and area rug. To give you the ultimate flexibility, certain models let you alter the level of suction for every room in your home with an app.

A top-rated option in this category is the Eufy BoostIQ that makes use of its smart sensors to automatically increase suction in carpeted areas, and to reduce the noise of non-carpeted areas. The model we tested navigates with ease, rarely tumbling off ledges or bumping into furniture, and it comes with ample suction for any floor type. It has a large dust bin, a long runtime and an easy setup process. Our test subjects reported that it was easy to customize settings and schedule cleaning runs through the app. They also reported that their floors were significantly cleaner after three months.

4. Smart Cleaning Schedules

The most effective robot vacuum for carpet has strong suction, assisted by brush roll systems that go through different pile heights in order to catch hair and large chunks of dirt while simultaneously inhaling fine particles that a weaker robot vac would pass right over. Most of our top picks make use of automatic suction adjustments based on the type of floor to maximize cleaning. All of them have self-emptying bins or at least the option to do so, to cut down on trips for garbage.

Some models that vacuum and mop include the dual-mode feature that automatically raises its mops to higher settings for better performance on carpets. In our tests, hybrids failed to perform as well as mop-only vacuums or dedicated robotic cleaners. The Roborock S7 is the exception. It comes with the dual mode of vacuuming and mopping, and uses mapping technology to avoid obstacles like stairs.

Mapping technology is an excellent asset for any robot vacuum, however, it can be particularly useful for those who also mop both carpets and hard floors. It lets them create an electronic map of their home and remember obstacles such as stairs or furniture.

This info can be used to devise efficient cleaning routes so that the robot doesn't spend time cleaning areas that are already clean, or attempting to get around an obstacle. This information can also assist to avoid accidents such as when a robot is caught in cords or gets stuck on rug.

Some robots with mapping features allow you to set up no-go zones to ensure that the robot carpet shampooer is able to tell to venture near certain areas such as the pet's food bowl or an expensive rug. Some models allow you to designate specific rooms, which let the robot concentrate on a particular room or areas within the home.

5. Easy to Clean

Robot vacuums and mops are able to quickly get rid of messes, whether your children track in dirt or furry animals. The most effective robots can swiftly vacuum up the crumbs and other debris like pet hair, dander, and other particles on hard floors and also low pile area rugs. Some also offer automatic carpet recognition, increasing suction when they touch the rug, helping to lift dirt and other debris.

A lot of the top robots come with a self-emptying feature which makes them a great choice for homes with limited storage. Certain robots have a bin that needs to be empty manually. It is crucial to clean and inspect your robot for tangled strands of hair and an empty bin. This can affect its performance. If your robot is equipped with apps, you can get maintenance instructions and replacement schedules directly from the manufacturer.

Certain models come with features like home mapping and object-avoidance that keep them from traveling into areas you do not want it to. Shark's top pick, for example, will create a map during each cleaning session. You can then edit it with carpeted and no-go areas, and label the rooms. It also comes with two laser sensors that can detect objects as it moves, as well as the hazard avoidance technology which can detect furniture leg, window blind cords and other common obstacles.

It's not quite as powerful as the Roomba J7 from iRobot that we have rated as our top robovacuum, but it is still an effective robovacuum, especially if you have a mixture of carpet and hard floors. It's a great value and has a decent performance when compared to other mid-range robot vacuums I've tested. Its navigation tools are easily set up and used however it isn't equipped with the second pair of camera sensors to detect obstacles in real-time or a mopping feature that can dampen carpets.