The iRobot Roomba 980 Robot Vacuum Cleaner
Robot vacuums eliminate pet hair, lint, and dust from the floor before they settle. They also can avoid obstacles like stairs and other obstructions, including tippy furniture.
Most robotic vacs require some maintenance, such as emptying (and occasionally rinsing) the bin, and wiping cameras and sensors. They also require to be connected. Many come with smartphone applications to schedule, adjust settings and more.
Roomba 980 from iRobot
The iRobot Roomba 980 is the latest in the line of top-of-the-line robotic vacuum cleaners that are an essential part of any modern household. This model is equipped with a HEPA-filter to aid those suffering from allergies. On top of that it comes with a powerful battery which can clean for up to two hours, and it will automatically return to its dock when it is full.
It also has the feature of smart mapping, which makes use of multiple sensors to help it suss out the areas of your home that require attention and make a tidy path around them. We've seen this technology in action and it does an excellent job of moving around toys left scattered on the floor, or furniture legs that are sticking out of the ground. It also has a camera sensor that can snap the Roomba back to the real world when it starts to drift away from its original location.
iRobot has also introduced a new set of rollers underneath 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 are able to fit under low couches and beds, and they're designed to allow this model to move more easily across a variety of flooring kinds.
The Roomba 980 stands out from other high-end models by its brand new dirt detection feature, which makes use of a camera in order to detect embedded dirt. automatic vacuum and mop robot is a significant improvement over the previous version that relied on the sensor-driven pseudorandom coverage method to bounce around the room and clean it at least three times from different angles.
The Roomba 980 performed well in our tests on carpets and hard floors. Its score on low pile carpet was excellent and it also scored a good score on mid pile, too. It did a decent job of picking up pet hair, but it was struggling with very thick and long pet fur that was stuck together.
Despite these small shortcomings, the Roomba 980 remains one of our most efficient robots, and it's 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 that we'd like to see in a flagship model however, it doesn't come with all the fancy app-enabled functions or smart home integration you might find in other top contenders.
The iRobot Roomba is simple to set up and get up and running immediately. After taking off the pull tab for the battery and the yellow bin insert from undercarriage, all you need to connect it to its Home Base docking station or an outlet on the wall, press its large "Clean" button and let it get to work. It will return to docking station when it has run out of battery or is full of trash. There are also indicators on top that show the bin is empty, or when it needs to recharge, or when it loses Wi-Fi.