It may seem hard to believe since they’re not as ubiquitous as some even younger gadgets, but autonomous robot vacuum cleaners have been with us for over two decades. While names like Electrolux tried to launch robot vacuums for homes in the 1990s, it took the MIT-trained roboticists at iRobot launching Roomba vacuums in 2002 for commercial success to hit. Then, for a long time, iRobot was the only viable brand on the market. Today, you have more choices than ever. Whether you just need a basic robot vac that can keep your carpet from collecting crumbs or a multi-function machine that sucks up dirt, scrubs floors, and then empties itself automatically, there are dozens of great options. But faced with such an abundance of choices, how do you decide which brand to choose?In this month’s Readers’ Choice award survey, for the third year in a row we ask our audience to rate the robot floor cleaners they use at home. To find a winner, we consider many factors, from the essential yet generic necessities like reliability and overall cleaning, to specifics such as how well the vacuum avoids obstacles, how much dirt it can hold, noise levels, and suction power—particularly concerning pet hair. The results below differ from last year’s, revealing the first brands you should consider in 2024 when shopping for a robot vacuum.
The Top Robot Floor Cleaners for 2024When we kicked off our first Readers’ Choice survey on robot vacuums and mops in 2022, Roborock and Eufy were at the top of the charts. This year, Eufy makes a resurgence. When we look at the category of all robot floor cleaners (including all vacuums, mops, or units that combine the two), both Roborock and Eufy have identical scores for overall satisfaction and the likelihood of recommendation. Still, we’re giving Eufy (a division of Anker) the edge. It earns top grades in the most subcategories, including battery life, cost, ease of use, and overall cleaning. We’re also giving it extra kudos for winning the important subcategory of pet hair cleanup.(Note: Click the down, left, and right arrows in our interactive charts to view different elements of our survey results.)
Roborock is certainly no slouch, though. It earns top scores in a variety of categories, including home mapping, obstacle avoidance, scheduling, and water tank capacity. No matter what your floor cleaning needs may be, you should definitely pick from one of these two brands.Shark (from SharkNinja) was last year’s big winner. But while the brand still earns some excellent scores in subcategories (particularly dustbin capacity, manual maintenance, mobile app control, noise level, and reliability), and even has the same likelihood to recommend as Roborock and Eufy, it falls just short of equaling them for overall satisfaction. Nevertheless, we’re handing a Readers’ Choice award to Shark as well because it dominates a very important subcategory: self-emptying. Robot cleaners with this feature save users even more time since they don’t have to pour out the contents of a dustbin every day. Not only does Shark score high for self-emptying, it does so with an 8.8 out of 10—the highest number on the chart this year in any category.The other vendors on the list this year are far behind (by over an entire point) for satisfaction, including iRobot, the 400-pound gorilla of robotic floor cleaning.iRobot still looms large—especially when we look at the results for vacuum-only devices (below). But even there, as you can see in the chart, Eufy is the clear winner. Shark again gets the same level of recommendation, but Eufy secures the superior satisfaction rating, and both leave iRobot’s Roombas in the dust, so to speak.
For standalone vacuums, Shark carries the top score in most subcategories, and Eufy’s wins are limited to cost, ease of use, and pet hair cleaning.We didn’t get enough survey responses to rate any vendor for a mop-only product. This is largely due to the fact that there are still few mop-only cleaning robots on the market.
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That makes combination vacuum/mop devices an important category to consider. Eufy drops out of our results here, leaving the field wide open for Roborock to retake the lead. The brand earns the top scores in an impressive 19 subcategories this year. The only one it doesn’t earn the highest rating for is dustbin capacity, which goes to iRobot.
As we noted last year, in all charts, the top scores earning wins are still typically below 8.0 out of 10 (the highest score available). That’s unusual in our surveys. It may indicate that PCMag’s audience (and robot cleaner owners in general) are generally less satisfied with the performance of these machines than they are with other electronics, and that there’s still plenty of room for improvement in this product category as a whole. For our in-depth, lab-tested reviews, read The Best Robot Vacuums for 2024.Full Results
The PCMag Readers’ Choice survey for Robot Floor Cleaners was in the field from August 5 to August 26, 2024. For more information on how we conduct surveys, read the survey methodology.
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About Eric Griffith
Senior Editor, Features
I’ve been writing about computers, the internet, and technology professionally for over 30 years, more than half of that time with PCMag. I run several special projects including the Readers’ Choice and Business Choice surveys, and yearly coverage of the Best ISPs and Best Gaming ISPs, plus Best Products of the Year and Best Brands. I work from my home, and did it long before pandemics made it cool.
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