Last Updated on 25 August 2025 by Dan Wilderness
Hello everyone! I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s looked at sales and seen a Robot Vacuum cleaner and thought “I wonder if they actually work?”. Well I took the plunge a little while ago, and thought I’d share my experiences on if a Robot Vacuum Cleaner is worth it, and how I found it versus a traditional vacuum.
(To temper expectations, I’m afraid we don’t have any videos of cats riding a Roomba, which is another excellent use of these!)
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Why I bought a Robot Vacuum cleaner
At the time I was living in a flat, so no pesky stairs for any robot to find it’s struggles to climb (or falls down!)
I had a traditional vacuum but was noticing that I was getting a fair amount of dust build up from the joys of London under my furniture which the traditional hoover wasn’t easily reaching without physically moving the sofa each time. A fair amount of dust also came in when having any windows open from the outside world.
The working theory was that that in having a basic cleaner that could get into these tight spots, and give the flat a general hoover each day would keep the place clean with minimal effort.
During an Amazon Black Friday sale in 2018, I therefore bought an entry level Eufy Robot Vaccum (this one if you’re interested). I mainly went for this on virtue of wanting to try out a cheaper entry level one whilst limiting my spend, rather than my usual approach of balancing reviews and cost.
Be warned, you do also end up thinking of a Robot Vacuum as a strange kind of pet when zooming around the place, and get quite fond of having it around.
How did the Robot Vacuum perform?
Setup
It was really easy to get set up and I found the charging station didn’t take up too much space on the ground.
I was able to get it set up to clean on a program at a specific time each day, and in connecting it to the mobile app I could also trigger it at any point from there, and could get information on the battery and it’s status.
Cleaning Performance
Let’s start off with this – a robot vacuum is designed for an extra daily clean, rather than a full replacement for a regular vacuum, and expectations should be in line with this.
With this in mind, I was pleasantly surprised by what the robot picked up as the base level! It got a lot of the pesky dust that had been eluding me in the tricky places.
What it wasn’t so good at was any items that were a bit more bulky, like a rogue bit of wrapper. My particular model had two brushes on the front which span to clean the floor. Those brushes tends to bat away those items and they’d end up at the side of the room, rather than being hoovered up.
I also noted that whilst the brushes did help clean the floor, hair tended to get wrapped around them. This meant it picked it up effectively, but you had to do a bit of manual unpicking from the brushes which isn’t ideal – you wouldn’t normally go rummaging around in what your vacuum cleaner has picked up unless you really have to after all! I could also see this being a potential issue for those who own cats or dogs.
I generally found in terms of pickup though, and did the job expected of it, subject to the next section…
Smartness
I had certain expectation of a robot vacuum, that it would try and follow a fairly logical cleaning pattern on the basis that most rooms are some form of rectangle.
This wasn’t the case with the Eufy – instead once it launched it would just carry on in a particular direction, bump into something gently and take this as it’s cue to go a different way. It eventually got to the whole room, but through haphazard chance and randomness rather than efficiency.
I was disappointed, particularly as this meant there were times it would take significant time to discover the door and get to cleaning outside of the main rooms, and there was a danger of it being missed entirely.
It came with magnetic strips you could put it down to help it identify where to go, but these tended to be to help it identify where you didn’t want it to go, rather than where you did.
However part of this was because I went with a cheaper option. More advanced models, particularly those from iRobot (who make Roombas) use laser mapping to identify the rooms they’re operating on, and I’ve actively seen ones that do a far better job of mapping out the room.
Another problem was my dining chairs, which had a metal strip along the bottom of the design. The robot vacuum had a bit of a nasty tendency to have enough acceleration to get only that but not to be able to get off it again, causing the cleaner to get stuck and send me a text message asking for help. This wouldn’t be a problem with normal chairs, but it was a bit of a fundamental problem for me!
On the plus side, it was smart about when running low on battery that it would pick this up, slow down and work out a path back to it’s charging station to dock itself and get back to full power, which was nice and simple.
Emptying
Emptying the robot vacuum was very easy – when it was in it’s charging back you simply pushed on the back to release the compartment and tipped it into the bin.
It was a relatively small compartment needing changed about every 2-3 days, however the robot would text me to alert me to the fact it was getting full.
I’ve noticed some of the Robot Vacuums now actually deposit what it’s swept up into a large reservoir on returning home, minimising the amount of ongoing emptying that you need to do.
Overall Conclusions on my Robot Vacuum
My conclusion is that the technology can work for an in-between clean, but realistically you need to spend a bit and go for at least a mid-level model in order to pick up one that works effectively. My entry-level one had too many flaws to do an effective job.
I do believe the technology can be effective if you spend a bit more, at least for in-between cleans. I have seen various models that clean in an effective manner. The problem is that often this often involves spending some fairly significant amounts of money, to the point that takes you past premium vacuum cleaners with significantly better performance.
Even the highest end robot vacs just don’t have the power to be able to able to clean a carpet deeply in the way that a plugged or even a cordless vaccum cleaner can.
However what they can do is provide a basic level of surface level clean with minimal effort required by you. If you’re in a flat type environment and bringing in little dirt, it’ll definitely keep things looking clean and smart.
However, my recommendation would be to invest in buying a better end regular vacuum instead – I love my Shark and think theirs are generally excellent! I’ve listed some of the best regular vacs and robovac’s to consider below.
Best Robot Vacuum Cleaners
It’ll burn a hole in your wallet, but this is the ultimate option in the space for room detection and logical cleaning.
Best with Mop – Shark Matrix 2 in 1 with Mop
Shark’s Robot offering is significantly cheaper than the Dyson, but also offer some mopping functionality in order to keep your hard floors looking sparkling!
Available at Shark, Amazon or Argos
Best Budget-ish Option – Eufy Clean X8 Pro
This Eufy Robot is a considerable upgrade from the one I bought but still one at the bargain end of the market. It has a large station in order to empty dust into and so minimise the amount of maintenance and emptying required.
Available at Eufy, Amazon or Argos
Best Regular Vacuum Cleaners
Best all round – Shark AZ3900UKT
It is hard to go wrong with any of Shark’s vacuum cleaners, which all offer extremely high performance in their cordless models. Whilst not the cheapest option and a little bulky, the performance is absolutely unmatched.
Available at Shark, Amazon or Currys
Best bagged vacuum – Miele Complete C3
Bagged vaccums test to be the best and safest option particularly for those with allergies, as they limit the re-release of dust and particles when emptying the cleaner. Miele’s products are high quality in general and they tend to lead the way bagged vaccums.
Available at Miele, Amazon or Currys
Best for Pet Hair – Shark Stratos Pet Pro AZ3000UKT
Yep, it’s another Shark, but this one is specially designed to maximise pickup from those pets with pesky longer hairs. The tech avoids them getting wrapped in the vacuum to keep performance high.
Available at Shark, Amazon or John Lewis
Best Cordless Vacuum – Samsung Jet 95 Pro
Yes, you’re probably reading this and thinking “Samsung? The TV guys?”. The company has made a big step into the cordless vac space and is making some really good options here.
Available at Samsung, Amazon or John Lewis
Your experiences with Robot Vacuum Cleaners
We’d love to hear about your own experiences with RoboVac’s or about any questions you have if weighing up if one is one is right for you!
Just leave us a note in the comments below letting us know!
And that’s it!
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