Indeed it is. Not just for its vacuum ability, but it, and other VSLAM Roombas, are the only ones that can clean close around my round dining table pedestal. All lidar-based bots leave about a 1" gap of crumbs.
Yes, agree. I'm deeply disappointed and frustrated how things are progressing (regressing) in this regard. They can generally do parallel lines well enough, as long as the "intelligent" modes are turned off. But I find they generally require two passes to clean up what my older robots did in one pass. Glass sliding doors, or patterns in the floor, can cause them to swerve and miss areas.
The Ecovacs in particular avoided a whole area on the floor because of a shadow cast by my countertop there.
The Narwal made a perfect map of my upstairs, but when I directed it to go to only clean my laundry room, it went to every other room first trying to find a back way in, finally it got to the edge of the laundry room, turned around and again went to every other room, then got to the laundry room a 2nd time, and then finally went in to clean it. This repeated every time.
I had a Dreame that would get stuck in some sort of virtual box until I moved it out with my foot.
My dining table has a round pedestal base. No robot in the last few years will vacuum tightly around it. They all leave about a 1" gap, which is exactly where the crumbs tend to collect. I still keep my Roomba J9+ in service to go clean up after the others once a week.
Another thing that foils modern robots is cleaning close around chair legs. I do a test, sprinkling some oatmeal around a chair leg. Modern robots will get about 50%-75% of it, but my old Roombas would consistently get all of it.
It may be an unpopular opinion, but the best navigation, edge/corner cleaning, and overall coverage I've ever seen was from my Roomba S9.
Then you would love a Dyson VizNav, Roomba S9+, and Braava M6. Their cleaning ability is far far superior to anything Roborock makes. They just aren't as good at being robots.
Their stubbornness on using camera based navigation was bad, but then when Amazon was going to buy them I think it also scared off a lot of more tech savvy users. I sold mine and replaced them (S9+/M6) with one Q Revo. Roborock is out here making vacuums with robotic arms that pick up and move things out of the way and climbing stairs and iRobot is like "vacuum don't work if dark :-(".
We have the roomba s9+ and the matching mop system. We’ve had it for years and I’ve always wanted to throw it out the window.
Currently it spins in circles. Thinks it’s battery at half charge, is completely dead. There is zero consistency with them and never has been.
I’d never recommend a Roomba product and they’re in bankruptcy anyways.
Shark and Eufy are supposed to be really good.
You forgot the most important question which is what your budget is. I have 2 German shedders and a chocolate lab. I've had an S9 that worked pretty well for the last 5 years on hard floors. Technology and anti-long hair tangle has come a long way and, almost any new bot in the mid-range or premium range are going to do great at anti-tangle. I know people really don't like roomba right now but, my max705 just did my while 900 sq/ft space without puking out clumps of hair like my S9 would, on a single pass. I tested a Dreame X50 too and frankly it was about the same result there too albeit the dreame did it much more quietly.
Top Robot Vacuums on Reddit
1
Roborock
Qrevo S
82% positive of 260 users
Reliable, great mopping (lifts pads), but poor cable avoidance.
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