Best Budget Robot Vacuum for 2021

This is my review of Best Robot Vacuum Cleaners for 2021, on how well they pick up debris on hard floors and carpet or how much suction or airflow they have, their navigational abilities, their obstacle avoidance systems, battery life, their ability to clean deep down embedded dirt and carpet, their noise level, how likely they are to get tangled on their brushes and a lot more.

In this Blog, I’m going to just tell you my favorite robot vacuums in the budget and mid level price ranges, which I define as robots between 150 and $250.

They’re all still mostly basic robots with rudimentary navigational systems, meaning that they more or less bounce around randomly to clean your home, which can actually be pretty efficient, but it’s still pretty basic. I usually recommend budget robots. If you live in a smaller space like an apartment or you have a relatively uncluttered home without a lot other things on the floor that a robot can get stuck on. Basically with budget robots, it’s more important to prep your house before you run them.

Moving on to the mid level category, which I define is between 305 $150 this mid range is where you start to see a lot more advanced tech, especially related to their navigation and app features. For example, all of these are smart robot vacuums, which are robot vacuums  either use or lasers, which we call LIDAR to create a map of your house. So instead of randomly bouncing around, they systematically vacuum back and forth in more or less straight lines, making them much more efficient.

Smart robot vacuums also don’t require that much battery life since if they do run low on battery, they will automatically return to the base to recharge and then resume cleaning where they left off, which they know how to do because they created a map.

A lot of these also have really useful app features like no go lines where you draw lines or boxes on the map inside the app which keeps the robot from going places that you don’t want it to go like near cluttered areas with a lot of cords or certain rooms.

Eufy by Anker, BoostIQ RoboVac 11S (Slim)

Top Features:

All-New RoboVac: Re-engineered to be the slimmest* RoboVac (2.85”) but with quiet operation and increased suction power at 1300Pa power to ensure your floors and carpets are clear of all dirt, dust, and crumbs.

BoostIQ Technology: Automatically increases suction power within 1.5 seconds when extra vacuuming strength is needed to get the best clean.

A Quiet Clean: Vacuums for up to 100 minutes** on hardwood floors with consistent, powerful suction at a volume no louder than an operating microwave.

Premium Features: Anti-scratch tempered glass-top cover for protection, infrared-sensor for evading obstacles, and drop-sensing tech to avoid falls. Automatically recharges so it’s always ready to clean.

For Optimal Use:

– Use on low- to medium-pile carpets, tile, laminated, and hardwood floors. Not suitable for high-pile carpet and very dark-colored floors.

– Move cables out of the way to avoid entanglement. 5 cable ties are provided in the package to help you better organize wires and power cords.

Note:

*Compared to previous eufy RoboVac models.

**Standard suction mode (hardwood floors) provides approx. 100 minutes of cleaning. BoostIQ mode (carpeting) provides approximately 60 minutes of cleaning.

Max suction mode on medium-pile carpets provides approx. 50 minutes of cleaning

Roomba 675

The Roomba 675 is one of the cheapest roombas you can get. But it’s still quite a bit more expensive than the eufy. It’s incredibly well built though as most rooms are and there’s a lot of support and third party spare parts available online from dozens of manufacturers. The best feature of this unit is the dual brush system, which makes the 675 light years better than any robot in this price range at deep cleaning carpets.

It uses 3-Stage Cleaning system loosens, lifts, and suctions dirt, dust, and hair from hard floors and carpet. It more or less randomly bounces around to clean your home. It was really good with pickup on carpets and hard floors picking up all types and sizes of debris from fine to extra large.

the Wi Fi and app capability, able to start and stop the robot from the app, check the battery life and status, get notifications if it’s stuck or whatever. And of course to schedule cleanings which is a really important part.

The Wi Fi also gives it the ability to be used with Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant.

The main reason it’s not as good with hard floors is that it doesn’t have a lot of airflow. And that’s not as good with hard floors as it is with carpets where the dual brushes which don’t require much airflow to clean carpets do all the work. Also, the side brush was a bit aggressive sometimes scattering the piles of debris in our tests.

Roborock S4

Roborock S4 is packed with a lot of power and new features, which make it a significantly cheaper alternative to the s5 and s6, without sacrificing much of anything.

It’s supposed to be a cheaper alternative to the s5 or s6, but it still has the LIDAR or spinning laser for the advanced mapping and navigation features. In fact, in many ways, the S4 is more advanced in the more expensive s5 but one of the reasons it’s cheaper is that it doesn’t have the mopping attachment that the s5 and s6 have.

The roborock S4 has many of the little upgrades that we saw from the s5 to the s6, for example, the S four has the new style side brush which is made out of a longer lasting material. It has the new brush roll as well, which has more bristles and is supposed to be even better for pet hair tangles.

 It also has the newly designed drive train, which is supposed to make it even better at getting out of places in which it’s likely to get stuck. They’ve also placed the brush roll and air intake a little more toward the front of the unit for a more efficient pickup.

the S4, S5 and S6 all have the same size suction motor, which is rated at 2000 Pascal’s. But rubber rock apparently tweaks the actual power output for each version for various reasons.

So you could say that, well all three of these have the same potential power, the S4 is the most powerful, at least in terms of airflow tests, it had the same great pickup ability, it picked up everything from fine to extra large debris on all four of its power settings and on carpet and hard floors very cleanly. And with no issues.

 Its side brush was also very effective with no scattering of debris. Also, the side brush don’t have starting and stopping issues.

The s four also has the virtual no go zones feature where you can draw lines or boxes on the map in the app to keep the robot from going places you don’t want it to go. It is one of the most accurate robots I’ve seen with this feature.

These have three other power settings, including a quiet mode, which is obviously much quieter, if that’s important to you, the edge and corner cleaning was just so so no better or worse than any other round robot vacuum.

You’re getting everything that was good on the s5 but upgraded with all the new technologies and the only downside is that it doesn’t have the mapping option.

Roborock S5 Max

Roborock  S5 Max is more than just an update from the previous s5 version, which was one of our favorite robot vacuums when it came out a few years ago. This release is intended to bring their very popular s5 model into the next generation with updated hardware and software. The newer Robo rocks have a much larger 32 bit quad core processor. This bigger brain helps them in a number of ways, especially with navigation. They also have upgraded side brushes, which are made out of materials that are less prone to wear as well as upgraded main brushes which have more bristles and are supposedly better with resisting pet hair tangles.

But the main upgrades from the older s5 to the next generation is with the software. And there are a lot of new features to play around with in the app.

First things first, the s5 max did its main job of picking up debris off of hard floors and carpets extremely well. the s5 Max was better than any I’ve seen to date with pure pickup ability. I tested it on its max power and its so called balanced power mode. And in both cases, it was really impressive.

 It was possibly the best sand pickup on hard floors I’ve seen yet which is not very easy to do or very common, especially in a lower power setting. Uncarpeted, It had the same great pickup ability for all types and sizes of debris.

In general, we tested its power in a number of ways and found that it had a touch more airflow than the older s5 as well as the s6.

It’s the same size as the s four which I think is a major plus. And it’s especially impressive when you consider that they still made room for the new large water tank for mopping.

It uses LIDAR, a spinning invisible laser to map out your house and it created a complete map on its first run. Its new quad core processor makes it really efficient with navigation.

In general its navigation and obstacle avoidance was really good. It also had higher than normal climbing ability. And it did pretty well with not disturbing small mats as well. Like the older s5 the S five max also has virtual walls or no go lines where you draw lines and or boxes on the map in the app which keeps the robot from going where you don’t want it to go.

S five Max has some app upgrades like the room select feature which is where after it creates a map you can divide and name the rooms in your house so that you can tell it to clean certain rooms and not others which means that you can really customize your schedule cleanings like you could say on Mondays vacuum the kitchen and living room only on max power at 9am or any number of variations.

the s5 max represents a totally new mopping design. The older mops were basically small capacity tanks with a pad that just attached to the bottom of the robot. They functioned essentially using gravity, where the water slowly seeped into the mopping pad at a fixed rate. The s5 Max is the first Roborock to include a separate detachable electric water tank which can hold quite a bit more water than the previous model. This is combined with a very similar mopping pad attachment, but instead of it operating purely by gravity, it now has an electronically controlled water dispenser, which can be adjusted in the app.

So far, the new software features for mopping were also a major plus mainly that in addition to the no go lines that you set up, you can also set up no mop zones, which will only be recognized if you have the mop pad attached.

 It’s a significant upgrade from the s5 It’s nearly perfect with its pickup ability and navigation and all the app and mop features are some of the best if not the best in the industry.

Samsung Electronics VR20T6001MW

Samsung Electronics VR20T6001MW is a mopping robot that is very different than the ones you’ve seen that iRobot produces. And I think it’s going to do a much better job cleaning overall. The electronic, cordless mop is designed to clean all types of floors from tile, vinyl, laminate, and hardwood.

It’s got dual mopping pads, both spin and rotate and double water tanks that will let this robotic mop intelligently clean dust, dirt, and grime for up to 50 minutes before a water refill* and up to 100 minutes before a recharge.

Each pad has its own water reservoir that it says it could last for 15 minutes, total time, or you don’t have to mess with the water at all. That’s one of the big downfalls with some of the other modern robots, or pretty much any robot vacuum that has the mop attachment on the back, it just doesn’t hold very much water and you got to swap out the water tank every like 20 minutes or so.

It comes with a little tray that you set it on. So this is not once again, it’s not a smart robot. So you have to set this where you want it to clean. Its smart system sensor allows the mop to safely navigate your home.

And here comes all the accessories. It comes with two different sets of mopping pads. One is microfiber, which is really good for cleaning. And the other one is called mother’s yarn. Supposedly it’s 100 times thicker and the microfiber and it’s really going to do a much better job in the cracks for like tile, and any dust that’s kind of in the corners and stuff, it’s going to pick it up a little bit better than the microfiber.

It also comes with the remote, you can tell it where to go forward, backward, left, right. Data, automatic mode and edge cleaning mode, focus intensive, a pattern a step. For stains that are kind of thicker and it’s just not gonna be able to get it up without scrubbing. I think these are going to do a much better job with its  8 different cleaning modes (Hand Mode, Focus Mode, and Random Mode to name a few) and two types of machine washable pads, the Jetbot Mop does the hard work for you.