You Should Think About This Before You Buy a Robot Vacuum Cleaner – Guide

You should think about this before you buy a robotic vacuum cleaner

We’ve tested dozens of robotic vacuum cleaners on Tek.no in recent years, and it’s no secret that we’re already starting to learn about the product category. Because a lot has happened in recent years, and even the cheaper items you can buy in the store today do a very good job.

But it’s not just about buying a robotic vacuum cleaner, there are a few things you should consider before investing in a small robotic assistant.

Also check out our recommendations for which robotic vacuum cleaners you should choose at the bottom of the article, whether they are expensive, mid-range or cheap.

For a robotic vacuum cleaner to do a good job, it needs to be able to reach as many places on your floor as possible. If you have an old house with huge thresholds, then a robotic vacuum cleaner will not be right for you. Or at least you should be prepared to lift it from room to room manually.

Many robotic vacuum cleaners have been able to cross doorsteps up to 2 cm in height, most of them are over 1.5 cm. In our general testing of robotic vacuum cleaners, all but one of the models managed to pass a doorstep that was about 1.5 cm high in one direction, and 2 cm in the other. But check the specifications before you buy, maybe our test or other user experiences. If he didn’t get out of the living room, he wouldn’t be very useful.

The same applies to the height of the robot vacuum cleaner. If access to several places in your home is too high, the sofa is a classic example, then it quickly becomes less useful.

You can either solve this problem by choosing a lower model, or by buying small ones that you can put under the feet of your furniture. Furniture lifts only cost a few hundred dollars and can be a good way to make sure your robot vacuum gets where it’s supposed to.

Until relatively recently, loose cables, barges, and other objects low to the floor were the worst enemies of a robot vacuum cleaner. Because although they can move around without problems at home, the sensor is positioned to do so the above, preferably in the form of lidar. This has made robotic vacuum cleaners smart enough to be able to draw a very accurate floor plan of your home, but it can still be stopped as it devours the charging cable that was lying on the floor, coiling itself in the brush.

There are now three solutions to this problem.

One solution, of course, is to get better at cleaning the floor before you want to clean your robot vacuum. Easily.

The second is to draw a so-called “forbidden” area in the app, in case you have a place in the room where you often have some clutter. Then robotic vacuum cleaners avoid this area each time you clean.

The third option is to buy a robotic vacuum cleaner with a camera on the front. This was first introduced in two models in 2020, but this year many of the top models have this – specifically to avoid wires and not least pet feces.

If you think this might be a useful feature that you need, make sure the robotic vacuum cleaner you buy has a camera up front. For example, iRobot J7 + or Dreame Z10 Pro.

No robotic vacuum cleaner can go up stairs, at least not yet, so you have to carry your robotic vacuum cleaner up and down stairs if you want to clean on multiple levels.

This gets progressively more annoying as the number of floors you want to clean increases, especially if you have a robotic vacuum cleaner that doesn’t “remember” what the different floors look like.

However, in recent years, it has become very common for robotic vacuum cleaners to be able to remember multiple floors, moving faster and more efficiently, but also remember different “no-go” areas you’ve created on multiple floors. Floors. For example, if you do not want to move to the welcome rug in the hallway on the first floor, nor to the bedside table in the bedroom on the second floor.

All the robotic vacuum cleaners we tested in the previous round have support for storing multiple floors, so there’s no need to think about this. But check it out in the specs if you choose an older robotic vacuum cleaner that might not have such support.

It’s easy to look blind at all the new luxury features and benefits of the latest and most expensive robotic vacuum cleaners. But is there anything you really need?

The most expensive “good to have” feature, which you can easily drop if you want to save money, is the dock that has an automatic emptying. Almost all new models now have this, but most are also sold separately.

The other “nice to have” feature that not everyone needs is the front camera. It’s definitely a handy feature if you know you often have cables, shoes, and other small things lying around on the floor, but if you’re the neat type, you can do well without that too.

A mop function is also likely to be something most people don’t need, or will use, but it’s also not something that costs anything more. Even many relatively inexpensive robotic vacuum cleaners have this anyway, while there are also some very expensive models that don’t have a mop function.

Check out the bottom of the box here for our specific tips for cheap robotic vacuums.

In general, there are not many operating costs associated with a robotic vacuum cleaner, but there are some wear parts. This varies from model to model, but the side brush, main brush and air filter should often be replaced at regular intervals.

RoboRock, for example, says the filter should be replaced after 150 hours of use, the side brush after 200 hours, and the main brush after 300 hours. Prices for this also vary from model to model, but most often it is a matter of 100-200 kr per part.

It is not so that these parts Should They are replaced frequently, but they will not function optimally after a lot of use.

Furthermore, you may need to purchase vacuum cleaner bags if you have an automatic vacuum dock. They cost 30-80 kroner per piece, and are often sold in packages of several bags. The only model that doesn’t need this is the RoboRock S7+.

We recommend these models:

Here we are simply picking straight from our comprehensive test, where we recommend you consider the RoboRock S7 + or the iRobot Roomba J7 + – the two models that came first and second in the aforementioned test, respectively.

RoboRock S7+ They cost around 8000 kr and provide great cleaning results, a mop you can always wear and a docking station that doesn’t require vacuum bags. The only thing we missed, which also prevented us from giving it a 10/10, is the lack of a camera on the front.

The front camera has it iRobot Roomba J7 +, which could also provide the most beautiful docking station we’ve seen. This is simply the luxury option, and fortunately it works just as well as it sounds. Here, there’s excellent packaging all the way through – both in terms of software and hardware. We reduced this to 9,000 kroner, but recently it cost us more than 10,000 kroner. We think it’s too high, so keep an eye on it once it drops to kr 9000 again.

If the price drops a little bit from the top of the fattest models, the selection is starting to get too big. Previous models whose prices have fallen, and newcomers in the “great value for money” category, are fighting in this segment.

Here we have three robotic vacuum cleaners we recommend, with slightly different prices and benefits. Dreame Z10 Pro, RoboRock S6 MaxV and RoboRock S50 Max.

We start with the most expensive option, the price of which has already fallen since we tested it only a few weeks ago. Dream Z10 Pro At the time of writing 5200 kr in two stores, which is simply a very good price. Here you get a robotic vacuum cleaner that can vacuum and mop, avoid small objects with the front camera, and empty itself into the dock when you’re done cleaning. At this price, it is difficult to compete with the Dreame.

Next on the list is RoboRock S6 MaxV, who was the test winner last year. On paper, it’s very similar to the Dreame Z10 Pro, but without the docking station. However, you get a more advanced program and slightly better cleaning results, especially on carpets. However, the price difference isn’t that big, 4700kronr for the S6 MaxV, so here you can consider how great you can be with the auto-discharge docking station, which the Dreame Z10 Pro can offer.

The last in the middle class category is RoboRock S5 MaxAt the time of writing this report, it has decreased to 3,890 kroner. Here you also get great cleaning results, very good application and a good mop attachment. However, you don’t get an automatic docking station or a camera up front, but as mentioned earlier, it’s not something everyone needs either. For under 4,000 kroner, this is probably the best robotic vacuum cleaner you can buy.

We haven’t tested very many really cheap robotic vacuum cleaners, and often many of the cheapest vacuums on the market are “too dumb” to even merit the low price tags. You can simply get more headaches than clean floors if you buy a robotic vacuum cleaner for 500 kroner.

But we tested last year Xiaomi Robot Vacuum Wiper (Mi 1C), which was reasonably low priced at the time, and has fallen further in price this year. Last year it cost just under 3,000 kroner, now it’s down to around 2,000 kroner.

For that price, you get a good robotic vacuum cleaner, which can be vacuumed and moped, and can be controlled by a fairly powerful app. In our tests, it made it perfectly acceptable in our cleaning tests, and astounded us by outstripping even the highest door handles (2 years). It’s also quite low, in part because there’s no lid to turn on top, which means it comes under fairly low furniture. In this price segment, we also think it is worth noting that it has rarely had problems with moving around the house, rarely crashes, and this, of course, is not among the cheapest models.