The iRobot Roomba 980 Robot Vacuum Cleaner

Robot vacuums nab pet hair, dust and lint from floors before it can settle. They also can avoid obstacles like furniture that is unstable and stairs.

Most robotic vacs require some maintenance, like emptying (and occasionally rinsing) the bin, and wiping cameras and sensors. Additionally, they must be connected to a power source. A lot of them have apps for smartphones for scheduling, best i Robot vacuum setting and more.

Roomba 980 from iRobot

The iRobot Roomba 980, the most recent in a line of top-of the-line best i robot vacuum vacuums, is a staple for any modern home. This model comes with a HEPA filter that can help those who are allergic. On top of that it comes with a powerful battery that can clean up to two hours, and it will return to its dock when its bin is full.

Smart mapping is a different feature that allows it to identify areas of your home that require attention and creates a path for cleaning around them. We've seen this technology in action and it does an excellent job of maneuvering around toys left scattered on the floor or furniture legs that are sticking out from under things. It also has a camera that snaps the Roomba back to its original position when it starts to drift from its intended location.

iRobot also added the option of rolling rollers under the Roomba that do not have bristles, and are therefore more likely to resist the tangles that previous models. The rollers are also larger and can be placed under beds or couches with low sides. They're designed to make this model more movable on various kinds of floors.

What makes the Roomba 980 stand out from other models of this class however, is its incorporation of the latest dirt detection feature that uses cameras to detect particles of dirt embedded. This is a significant improvement over the previous model, that relied on the sensor-driven pseudorandom coverage method to bounce around a room and clean at minimum three times from various angles.

The Roomba 980 performed well in our tests on both carpets and hard floors. It scored highly on carpets with low pile and on mid-pile. It did a good job collecting pet hair, but struggled with long and thick pet hair that was stuck together.

Despite these slight limitations, the Roomba 980 remains one of our most efficient robots, and it's not even close to being as expensive as the other top models on this list. It has many of the features you would expect from a flagship model but does not have all the fancy apps and smart home integration that you'll find in other top contenders.

The iRobot roomba robot vacuum is simple to set up and start running right away. After you have removed the pull tab for the battery and yellow bin insert from its undercarriage, all that you need to connect it to its Home Base docking station or a wall socket, press its large "Clean" button, and let it get to work. It will return to its dock when the battery runs out or it's full of debris, and it has indicator lights on the top for when the bin is full, it needs to be recharged, or its Wi-Fi signal has gone out.