I went from a Roomba J7 to a Tapo Max Plus something just due to the auto-empty dock and despite being a cheaper buy that made the difference for me. The Tapo definitely has worse object detection but I’m still happy with it overall. Low maintenance auto vacuuming for less than $300 is a pretty good deal imo.
We have the Tapo max pro. I think we just paid $329 (?) at Bunnings not too long ago but it was a sale.
We had a stick and regular in between our last robot (4yrs ago) and now.
I absolutely love it. We have 2 kids and 2 dogs. The kids (6 &4) have to clean up before we run it so it really helps everything from becoming covered in kid toys.
It also maps your house so you can select which rooms. We do our kitchen and 2 lounge areas daily and the bedrooms every 2/3 days.
We don’t have carpet, just a few throw rugs so I can’t speak to the carpet part. But we love it so far!
I just bought a Tapo RV30 max plus for $180. Works fine. I had one of the first Roomba's about 10 years ago. It was a POS. Then I bought Roborock about 3-4 years ago for $500; it worked great at the time but this new $180 Tapo works so much better than it ever did.
Look these things are getting better and better every year; the $1000 ones today are going to be crap in a couple years. Just buy a cheap one today and you wont feel so bad when the 2029 models are orders of magnitude better.
When my roborock Q5 broke down (after 3+ years of daily cleaning), I searched around and found the Tapo RV30 max plus for only $180 on Amazon. It got some great you tube reviews plus it was recommended by Wirecutter and had got a PC Editors Choice award.. I bought it last week and it works great; well the mopping isnt that good but the vacuuming is better than my old roborock. The only downside is that it takes a long time to recharge so when it docks in mid-cycle its a few hours before it resumes. But anyway for the price I don't think you can beat it.
We have a TP-Link Tapo RV30. This is a vacuum and mop, but the RV30C version is just a vacuum which may suit you. We have a 6yo kid and 3 cats. We paid $399 several months back and it seems to work well still. It has a traditional roller brush and hair tends to get stuck there, so it needs regular cleaning. A few clips on the bin have broken off (part of one of the hinges, and part of the latch that allows opening and closing of the bin) but I can still open and close it easily enough. There is a version with an auto empty dock, but we didn't get that. For a 3 bed home it regularly has a full bin after one cleaning session.
We had a Roborock S7 with auto empty bin before this which was considerably more expensive but didn't last more than 3 years. In the last year, it easily got confused, and eventually was losing power from the motors.
imnotedwardcullen
