The iRobot Roomba 980 Robot Vacuum Cleaner

Robot vacuums remove pet hair, lint, and dust from the floor before they settle. They also can avoid obstacles like furniture that is unstable and stairs.

Most robotic vacuums require maintenance, like emptying (and occasionally rinsing) the bin, and wiping cameras and sensors. Additionally, they must be connected to a power source. Many have smartphone apps to schedule, adjust settings and more.

iRobot Roomba 960

The iRobot Roomba 980, the latest in a series of top-of the-line robot vacuums, is an essential for every modern home. This model has seriously strong suction as well as it comes with a HEPA filter that will assist anyone suffering from allergies. It also comes with a powerful battery which can be cleaned for up to two hours and returns to its dock automatically once the bin is full.

It also has a feature called smart mapping which uses multiple sensors to help identify the areas in your home that need attention and make a tidy route around them. This technology is very efficient in navigating around toys left on the floor, or furniture legs sticking out under things. Roomba also comes with a sensor that can snap Roomba to its real-world location if it starts to wander away from its original position.

iRobot has also added an additional set of rollers beneath the Roomba which do not have bristles which makes them more likely to resist tangles than previous models. They're also taller than older rollers and can better fit under beds and couches that are low and are designed to help this model navigate more easily on varying flooring kinds.

What makes the Roomba 980 stand Best robot vacuum for pet hair self emptying out from other models of this class, though, is its inclusion of a new dirt detection feature, which uses a camera to spot bits of embedded dirt. This is a significant improvement over the previous version which relied on a sensor-driven pseudorandom cover method to bounce around the room and scrub the entire area three times at various angles.

The Roomba 980 performed well in our tests on both carpets and hard floors. Its score on low pile carpet was excellent and best robot vacuum for pet hair self emptying it scored a high score on mid pile, too. It did a fair job of picking up pet hair, but it was struggling with very long and thick pet fur that was stuck together.

Despite these minor shortcomings, the Roomba 980 remains one of our best robot vacuum for pet hair self emptying-performing robots, and isn't even nearly as expensive as some of the other top-of-the-line models in this list. It's still packed with a variety of features we'd expect to see in a top-of-the-line model however, it doesn't come with all the fancy app-enabled functions or smart robot vacuum home integration are found in other top contenders.

The iRobot Roomba can be set up in a matter of minutes and is available for use as soon as you are ready to. After taking off the yellow bin insert and battery pull tab from its undercarriage you simply plug it into the wall socket or one of its Home Base docking stations, click the "Clean button" and let it do the work. It will return to its dock when its battery is out or it's stuffed with debris, and it also has indicators on the top of the device to indicate that its bin is full, it needs to be recharged or its Wi-Fi signal has gone out.