The iRobot Roomba 980 robot vacuum with docking station Vacuum Cleaner

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

Most robotic vacs require some maintenance, such as emptying (and occasionally, rinsing) the bin and wiping sensors and cameras. Also, they have to be connected to a power source. Many have smartphone apps to schedule, adjust settings and more.

Roomba 960 by iRobot

The iRobot Roomba 980, the most recent in a line of top-of the-line industrial robot Vacuum vacuums, is a must for any modern home. This model is incredibly powerful suction as well as it comes with a HEPA filter that'll help anyone concerned about allergies. On top of that it also comes with a powerful battery which can clean for up to two hours, and it will automatically return to its dock when its bin is full.

It also comes with an option called smart mapping, which makes use of multiple sensors to suss out the areas in your home that need attention and then create a clean path around them. We've seen this technology in action and it does an excellent job of maneuvering around toys that are abandoned on the floor or furniture legs that stick out of the ground. Roomba also has a sensor industrial robot Vacuum that will snap Roomba back to reality when it starts to move away from its initial location.

iRobot has also added a new set of rollers beneath the Roomba's bottom that don't have bristles and therefore tend to resist tangles better than the previous models. They're also higher than the older rollers and can better fit under beds and couches that are low and are designed to allow this model to move more easily on varying floor kinds.

What makes the Roomba 980 stand out from other models with a higher-end price tag however, is its inclusion of a new dirt detection feature, which uses cameras to detect bits of embedded dirt. This is an improvement over the previous model which relied on the use of a sensor-driven pseudorandom cover to bounce around the room, and then clean the entire area three times at various angles.

In our tests of its performance in our tests of its performance, the Roomba 980 did well on carpets and hard flooring. Its score on low pile carpet was impressive, and it also scored a excellent score on mid pile, too. It did a good job of removing pet hair, but it struggled with very thick and long pet fur that was clumped together.

The Roomba 980 is still one of the best performing robots on our list, despite these minor limitations. It's also not as expensive as top-of the-line models. It has many of the features you'd expect from a top model, but it doesn't have all the fancy apps or home integration you'd see in other top contenders.

The iRobot Roomba is simple to set up and get working immediately. After taking off the yellow bin insert and the battery pull tab from its undercarriage you just plug it into the wall socket or one of its Home Base docking stations, press the "Clean button" and let it do its job. It will return to the dock when it runs out of battery or becomes full of trash. There are also indicators on top that indicate when the bin is empty, when it is in need of recharging or when it loses its Wi-Fi.