The iRobot Roomba 980 affordable robot vacuum Vacuum Cleaner

Robot vacuum cleaner black Friday vacuums take pet hair, lint and dust from the floor before they settle. They also help stay clear of stairs and other obstacles such as furniture that is tippy.

The majority of robotic vacuums require maintenance, like emptying (and occasionally, rinsing) the bin and wiping sensors and cameras. Also, they need to be plugged into an electrical source. Many have smartphone apps for scheduling, adjusting settings and automatic vacuum and mop robot more.

Roomba 960 by iRobot

The iRobot Roomba 980 is the latest in the line of top-of-the-line robotic vacuum cleaners that are a staple of any modern household. This model comes with a HEPA filter that can assist those who suffer from allergies. On top of that it also has a powerful battery that can clean for up to two hours and it automatically returns to its dock once its bin is full.

Smart mapping is a different feature that assists in identifying areas in your home that require attention and provides a path for cleaning 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 from under things. It also has a sensor that will snap Roomba back to reality when it starts to drift away from its original position.

iRobot has also added the option of rolling rollers under the Roomba that don't have bristles which makes them more likely to avoid knots than earlier models. The rollers are also larger and can be placed under beds or couches with low sides. They're specifically designed to make this model more adaptable to different floor types.

The Roomba 980 is distinguished from other models with a high-end price tag by its new dirt detection feature that makes use of a camera in order to identify dirt that has been embedded. This is a significant improvement over the previous version that relied on the sensor-driven pseudorandom cover method to bounce around a room and clean at least three times from different angles.

In our tests of its performance, the Roomba 980 did well on carpets and hard flooring. It scored extremely well on low-pile carpet and also on mid-pile. It did a great job picking up pet hair but struggled with thick and long pet hair that was stuck together.

Despite these small shortcomings, the Roomba 980 remains one of our best robot floor cleaner-performing robots, and it's not even close to being as expensive as the other top-of-the-line models in this list. It still has a lot of features that we'd expect to see in a flagship model, but it doesn't have all the fancy apps or smart home integration that you might find in other top contenders.

The iRobot Roomba is easy to set up and get up and running immediately. After taking the yellow bin insert and the battery pull tab from the undercarriage, you just 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 runs out or it's stuffed with debris. It also has indicators on the top for when its bin is full or it requires recharging or its Wi-Fi signal is not working.