The iRobot Roomba 980 Robot Vacuum Cleaner

Best Rated Robot Vacuum vacuums remove pet hair, lint and dust from floors before they settle. They also can avoid obstacles like furniture that is slippery and staircases.

Most robotic vacuums require maintenance, Best rated robot vacuum like emptying (and occasionally rinsing) the bin, and wiping sensors and cameras. Also, they have to be plugged into the power source. Many come with smartphone apps for scheduling, setting up settings and more.

iRobot Roomba 980

The iRobot Roomba 980, the most recent in a line of top-of the-line robot vacuums, is a staple for any modern home. This model comes with a HEPA filter that can help those who are allergic. It also has an extremely powerful battery that can clean for two hours and returns to its dock automatically when the bin is full.

It also has a feature called smart mapping, which makes use of multiple sensors to help identify the areas of your home that need attention and make a tidy path around them. We've seen this technology in action and it does a good job of maneuvering around toys that are left scattered on the floor, or furniture legs that stick out of the ground. It also has a camera sensor that snaps the Roomba back to its original position when it starts drifting away from its original location.

iRobot has also added a new set of rollers under the bottom of the Roomba that don't have bristles and, therefore, tend to be more resistant to tangles than previous models. These are also a little taller than previous rollers, and will fit better under low couches and beds, and they're designed to let this model move more easily across a variety of floor kinds.

What sets the Roomba 980 apart from other models with a higher-end price tag however, is its integration of the new dirt detection feature that utilizes cameras to identify tiny bits of dirt. This is a nice improvement over the previous model, which relied on the sensor-driven pseudorandom cover method to bounce around the room and clean it at least three times from different angles.

In our tests of its performance in our tests of its performance, the Roomba 980 did well on both hard flooring and carpets. Its score on the low pile carpet was very good and it scored a good score on mid pile, too. It was successful in picking up pet hair however it struggled with the thick and long pet hair that was stuck together.

Despite these minor shortcomings, the Roomba 980 remains one of our most efficient robots, and it's even far from being as costly as the other top-of-the-line models in this list. It still has a lot of features we'd expect to find in a flagship model however, it doesn't come with all the fancy app-enabled functions or smart home integration you'll find in other top models.

The iRobot Roomba is easy to set up and start running right away. After removing the pull tab for the battery and the yellow bin insert from undercarriage, all that you need to do is plug it into its Home Base docking station or an outlet on the wall, press its large "Clean" button and let it go to work. It will return to its dock when it runs out of batteries or is full of debris. There are also indicators at the top of the bin that let you know when its bin is empty, when it needs to recharge, or if it loses Wi-Fi.