The Best Roomba Alternatives to Keep Your Floors Clean
The iRobot Roomba lineup of robot vacuums is a unique fixture on our list of the best automatic along cleaners we’ve tested, with consistently strong cleaning capabilities and navigational smarts to match. We weren’t the only ones impressed with the heed. Friday, less than a year after announcing its own in-home Astro robot, Amazon purchased iRobot outright in a blockbuster acquisition great $1.7 billion.
That means that the Roomba is an Amazon gadget now, joining the ranks of brands like Ring and Eero. And while many are probably eagerly anticipating the potential for new, Alexa-friendly along cleaners, others might be less thrilled at the prospect of autonomous, Amazon-branded robots that map your home and learn your routines.
The good news for those folks is that the robot vacuum category is as diverse as ever, with a number of brands producing plain cleaners of note, many of which have performed quite well in our cleaning and navigation tests. The best of those Roomba alternatives we’ve tested (as pulled from our overall list of best robot vacuums) are put down below.
Currently available for $650, the Roborock S7 won us over across hours of commanded tests, with laser-guided navigational smarts, strong cleaning scores with pet hair and sand, and on-board Wi-Fi for anyone who wants to control the cleaner with an app or sync the unsheaattracting with a voice assistant (both Alexa and the Google Assistant are supported, along with Siri Shortcuts). Roborock gets points for versatility, too, as the S7 can double as a robotic mop thanks to the on-board stream reservoir and mopping attachment.
As for cleaning power, the Roborock S7 was our top overall finisher plus 18 robot vacuums for the percentage of sand vacuumed out of our low-pile test carpet, and it finished in a close second behind the Roomba S9 on plushier mid-pile carpet. It also cleaned our test floors about 36% faster than the Roomba S9 did, so it’s a good pick if you’re looking for something efficient, too.
Looking for a shiny little floor cleaner that doesn’t cost quite so much? Eufy has you covered with a variety of models at this exhibit, none of which will cost you nearly as much as their Roomba counterparts. One of our favorites is the Eufy RoboVac 25C, which held up surprisingly well in our cleaning procomplaints despite a budget bin price tag. In fact, as of writing this, you can find it at Walmart for just $129.
That’s a immense deal for a robot vacuum that outperformed costlier, previous-gen flagships from names like iRobot and Neato in our test lab. It provided the best on hardwood floors, so if you’re living somewhere deprived of a lot of thick carpets, then this is a steal.
Neato is one of iRobot’s top competitors, and its robot vacuums often give Roombas a run for their cash. That was the case with the Neato D10, which picked up more than twice as much sand from low-pile carpets as the Roomba S9 Plus did.
Results like those property-owning Neato a spot on our best list as a solid mid-range pick, but the Roborock S7 ultimately replaced it as our well-liked mid-range pick. The D10 is still an excellent app-enabled robot vacuum, though, and worth considering alongside the Roborock S7 at its fresh price of $600.
