Most can either vacuum or mop decently&#;but not both
Photo: Connie Park
Most combos were able to vacuum well or mop somewhat decently&#;but not both (and certainly not at the same time).
The $1,300 Dreame X30 Ultra, for example, picked up the most dry debris, but its mopping performance was among the worst in its price range.
Inversely, the Roborock Qrevo and Qrevo MaxV models mopped okay, but their vacuuming was subpar.
Despite their mop-raising and edge-cleaning claims, almost all robot mops left carpet edges and corners wet, and their mops failed to emerge reliably.
Video: Sabine Heinlein
With the exception of one machine, none of the machines I tested were able to avoid brush-roll entanglement when confronted with 18-inch-long hair.
Photo: Sabine Heinlein
Vacuuming Cheerios and mopping up wet stains left a sticky mess in the dustbin.
Photo: Connie Park
Despite their mop-raising and edge-cleaning claims, almost all robot mops left carpet edges and corners wet, and their mops failed to emerge reliably.
Video: Sabine Heinlein
John Ord, a lead engineer at Dyson, explained that the need to pack in a water tank and fluid-delivery and mopping systems will necessarily compromise vacuuming performance&#;there&#;s only so much tech you can cram into one tiny bot. That&#;s why his company focused on its bot&#;s vacuuming power, instead of adding a mopping function, Ord said.
Most machines claim they can vacuum and mop at the same time, but I learned the hard way that it&#;s usually better to tackle wet spills in the mop-only mode (or, better yet, by hand).
I tried to mop up a tablespoon of milk and a few Cheerios using the $1,200 Ecovacs Deebot X2 Omni. Instead of cleaning it, this machine first smeared the spill around and then started rattling and gurgling, unable to dock or cross thresholds.
After cleaning, drying, and retrying, I declared the bot broken. (The Deebot X2 Omni&#;s manual states that the machine shouldn&#;t be used on wet surfaces, and a spokesperson told us it&#;s industry-wide practice to clean spills before running the robot. Other companies, like Eufy, Narwal, Dreametech, and iRobot, claimed their robots could handle small quantities of liquid.)
Though most machines claimed to have some sort of hair-detangling technology, only the Narwal Freo X Ultra succeeded in sucking in 18-inch-long strands and ferreting them to the bin (instead of wrapping them around the brush roll).
They struggle with dried stains
Photo: Sabine Heinlein
Even robots costing upwards of $1,500 didn&#;t possess any magical stain-erasing powers. In fact, most of the bots would roll over dried milk or coffee stains once or twice and then give up, leaving the stain as a ghostly reminder of breakfast&#;or, worse, spreading it across the room.
The Eufy X10 Pro Omni ($800) is one of the least expensive models with rotating pads that I tested. It was able to remove lighter dry coffee stains by going over the same spots several times, but it didn&#;t make a dent in heavier coffee or milk stains. (It did a surprisingly good job on caramel syrup, a category all other machines fumbled.)
We dribbled coffee and milk (mixed with green food dye, for visibility) on our test floor and let the stains dry for several hours. Even our best performers struggled to erase them.
Video: Sabine Heinlein
With our Bona Premium Microfiber Mop, I was able to erase dry stains in less than half a minute.
Video: Katie Quinn
We dribbled coffee and milk (mixed with green food dye, for visibility) on our test floor and let the stains dry for several hours. Even our best performers struggled to erase them.
Video: Sabine Heinlein
Only three models&#;the Roborock Qrevo MaxV, the Narwal Freo X Ultra, and the Yeedi M12 Pro+&#;managed to erase the dried coffee stains entirely. (The Roborock and Narwal machines have dirt-detection sensors, which impel the robot to go over the stain more than once.)
And only the Narwal robot could vanquish the milk stain. But it took the machine 40 minutes, with the robot running back and forth between the stain and the dock to clean its mops and refill its water reservoir. In comparison, it took us less than half a minute to wipe up the same stain with warm water and a Bona Premium Microfiber Mop.
They&#;re inconsistent navigators
Photo: Sabine Heinlein
Recommended article:OEM Robotic Floor Sweepers vs Traditional Cleaning Methods: Which Wins?
Link to Dayin
The robots I tested were packed with navigation features.
You can program them to focus on or avoid specific areas of your home or to clean the bedroom last, and you can follow them along in real time on little interactive maps of your floor plans.
The bots claim to steer clear of obstacles and differentiate between hard flooring and carpets. But frustratingly often, they got lost, confused, or entangled, or they started mopping the wrong type of surface.
When I sent the Dreame L20 Ultra ($850) on its mop run, it initially avoided the dried-on stains we&#;d placed because it got confused by the blue painters&#; tape we&#;d used to mark the area. (Maybe it mistook the tape for a drop or an obstacle?) The robot approached the stains only after the tape had been removed.
On the other hand, only a handful of the machines I tested avoided our fake poop reliably, including the L20 Ultra and its cousin, the Dreame X30 Ultra ($1,300). These two even showed little poop icons on their map. (The pair came out among the best in our vacuuming tests, too.)
Even some of the most expensive machines, like the Ecovacs Deebot X2 Omni, bump into furniture and humans.
Video: Sabine Heinlein
Meanwhile, the Ecovacs Deebot T30S got lost on a rug, spinning in circles and actually mopping the rug with its pads. Shortly after, it got stuck on the baby bouncer (it eventually managed to free itself but quickly returned and got hung up again).
I observed other combos spinning endlessly while searching for their docks or leaving areas they&#;d been instructed to clean untouched. Yet they also often had a magnetic attraction to obstacles I wanted them to avoid, like cords or poop.
And all of the models were prone to ignoring baseboards and thresholds, resulting in an accumulation of grime around the edges of a room.
The Roborock Qrevo and the Qrevo MaxV were relatively reliable navigators, cleaning in an orderly pattern and finding their way back to their docks, without quitting mid-job or getting stuck on the edge of a rug. But unlike the Eufy X10 Pro Omni, which, in my tests, detected obstacles down to the size of a rubber band, the Roborock machines drove over cables and poop without hesitation.
On the plus side, they are good climbers and don&#;t give up easily. A bunched-up pet rug? No problem! A ¾-inch threshold? They&#;ll just bulldoze their way over it.
The more-advanced bots had sensors that supposedly allow them to detect different types of flooring, so they won&#;t start mopping your Persian rug. But I found that when they were on carpets, even those bots that successfully raised their mopping pads (usually about ¾ of an inch) still left the edges of the rug damp. This can be particularly problematic if the machine crosses a light-colored carpet after mopping up coffee, a brightly colored drink, or urine.
The only machine that didn&#;t wet rugs at all was the iRobot Roomba Combo J9+, which elegantly lifted its mop pad above its body. (Unfortunately, it wasn&#;t very good at mopping when it was actually supposed to.)
Some bots, like the Ecovacs Deebot T30S and the Yeedi M12 Pro+, raised their mopping pads only slightly. So you&#;d need to roll up your carpets altogether before mopping. And both bots started to actively mop the rug on occasion.
They&#;re large, loud, and require maintenance
Photo: Connie Park
The bots with self-emptying docks weigh between 10 and 30 pounds, and they have about the same footprint as a large garbage can. Due to the size and heft of these bots, you can&#;t easily use them on multiple floors or even in different areas of a home.
The bots are noisy when self-emptying, and it&#;s hardly a hands-off experience. You can push off emptying the dust bag until it&#;s about to explode, but you can&#;t exactly ignore a bucket of fetid mop water sitting in your living space.
Some companies have started adding auto-refill and drainage systems, but this is still a relatively rare feature. (I wanted to try the SwitchBot S10, which is supposed to connect to your plumbing system, but wasn&#;t able to get it going.)
Robot hybrids are not maintenance-free. Roborock&#;s rubbery brush roll, for example, gets chewed up easily and needs to be replaced frequently.
Photo: Sabine Heinlein
Either way, the area of the dock that washes the mop pads needs regular scrubbing, since it tends to collect muck and liquid. You also need to occasionally machine-wash and replace the pads.
New bags, brushes, and filters add to ongoing expenses. Roborock&#;s brush roll, for instance, is particularly prone to damage&#;one tangled cable and it looks like a dog&#;s chew toy.
But their apps are pretty slick
Screenshots: Ecovacs
To their credit, most of the robot vacuum-mop combos I tested were a breeze to set up.
After installing your machine, you plug it in, download the app, and scan a code or pick your model from a list. The app then walks (and talks) you through connecting your machine to your Wi-Fi so you can control it with its app.
Of course, there were outliers. iRobot&#;s app is prone to crashing, and I spent hours trying to initiate the SwitchBot S10. After it failed to connect to our Wi-Fi, I contacted customer service and was told that my Wi-Fi ID and password shouldn&#;t have special characters. Despite a SwitchBot spokesperson later assuring me this requirement was removed and giving me troubleshooting tips, I still couldn&#;t get the machine to work.
Some combos, like the Roborock Qrevo MaxS, are equipped with cameras, letting you monitor your home or chat with your pet (or partner). But when I tested it on the Roborock Qrevo MaxV, I found the sound unclear.
Image: Roborock
The most feature-packed apps come from Roborock and Ecovacs. Once you&#;ve set up your bot and mapped your home, the apps&#; fairly accurate maps let you divide and label rooms and set up no-go zones.
They also let you choose between vacuuming and mopping (or both), adjust suction power, and fine-tune how much water and scrubbing power the mop uses. You can even create &#;scenes,&#; a function that allows you to tell your Roborock Revo or your Ecovacs Deebot to mop the dining room first and vacuum the playroom second, or to vacuum on Sundays and mop on Mondays.
This doesn&#;t mean the apps always work perfectly. In my tests, saved maps sometimes vanished into thin air, and newly named rooms reverted to their generic labels.
One of our older paid testers found managing the Roborock robots through the app a &#;cognitive and visual effort,&#; while acknowledging, &#;It keeps the brain sharp.&#; Others remarked that they wished the app had more explanations. All of our testers found the Roborock app&#;s remote control (which allows you to take over and control the robots&#; direction) to be unintuitive.
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