You don’t want to wet your carpets, and some robot manufacturers are now solving this problem with robots that automatically detect carpets and lift the mopping pads to avoid causing damage.

Shark's IQ robot vacuum is stacked with smarts and collects then deposits debris into its docking station after each cleaning session. This bagless base system holds over a month's worth of dirt. You can use its advanced scheduling feature to set and forget it until it's time to empty out the dock.

❌ You don't need the very best mopping: The advanced mopping and comprehensive dock bump up the price here, and other robovacs will do a good enough mopping job for most people (the Eufy X10 at #1 has a great mop, for example).

The iRobot Combo Roomba j9+ receives solid performance scores across the board in CR’s tests, earning an excellent score for cleaning bare floors and a very good score for carpet. It has smart mapping technology as well as avoidance technology to help it move around household obstacles like cords.

Ruth is a Homes Editor at TechRadar, and has been reviewing consumer tech for over three years. She's spent the past year focusing on home appliances, and floor cleaners in particular.

PreciSense LiDAR Navigation with 3D Mapping Technology creates precise maps that can be viewed in 3D, and you can add furniture and floor materials to your virtual home build for accurate and customized cleaning.

There are a lot of factors to consider when purchasing a new vacuum cleaner. Do you want an upright model or a canister? What type of filtration system do you need? And what about automatic cleaners?

❌ You have an open plan home: The Narwal app won't let you demarcate open plan spaces into 'rooms'.

While the app is intuitive, and the Top 3 Automatic Vacuum Cleaners mapping good, there is a major issue for anyone with an open plan living space. Namely, you can't separate it into different zones. It won't be a problem for everyone, but if you live in an open plan home, you'll probably want to opt for a different brand.

This can help the robot vacuum cleaner detect probable stuck areas and adjust the cleaning path automatically. Anti-dropping sensors also prevent the robot vacuums from falling off the stairs.

Most robot vac apps allow you to set up virtual barriers to block off entire rooms or just small sections of a room. Homes with lots of areas to avoid (like kids’ playpens or dog beds and bowls) would benefit from no-go zone settings in the app.

On test, we found it did a fantastic job of clearing spillages. We were also impressed with the comprehensive docking station, which helps ease the burden of the maintenance tasks involved with mopping robot vacuums.

After cleaning is complete, the mops are dried with hot air in as little as 2 hours to help prevent odor

ADAPTIVE NAVIGATION - A full suite of advanced sensors allow Roomba to navigate under and around furniture, and along edges. Cliff Detect keeps it from falling down stairs.