While the robot vacuum market likes to advertise that all their products work on carpet, the dirty little secret they don’t want you to know is that robot vacuums don’t do very well on carpets. Hardwood floors are an easy task for robot vacuums, and even flimsy little rugs can be cleaned with little difficulty, but carpets are a whole other story. There is a big chance that your robot vacuum can get jammed and start malfunctioning.
Thankfully, there are a handful of robot vacuums out there that can actually clean your carpets. These are the robot vacuums specifically designed to really dig in there and eliminate the dirt that has attached itself deep into your carpet. And while maintaining carpets can be a very tedious process, with the right robot vacuum, tedious can be taken out of the equation.
The latest options in the robot vacuum market now have smart navigation systems that make them more efficient than ever and some can even deep clean carpet to a degree. Having a tool that cleans carpet for you will help a great deal in preventing dirt from piling up especially on areas that are hard to reach. But if you want a product that will effectively clean around your home, the best things to look for in a robot vacuum are:
- Excellent agitation: Brush roll design is an important feature to look at. Having strong agitation is a must-have for any vacuum to clean dirt that’s trapped under carpet strands. Some of the options even have counter-rotating extractors that are proven in tests to work well at deep cleaning carpet.
- Strong airflow: Airflow is the measure of how much air flows through the suction port of a vacuum. Unfortunately, manufacturers don’t list this specification in their products. It is a must for any vacuum to have a decent amount of airflow to pick up dirt on carpets.
- Navigation: Most cheap robot vacuums use a standard algorithm that just pinballs in a random direction. While it is thorough, it will not be able to clean a large area well. If you want a robot to be able to clean multiple rooms, get something with smart navigation that has a recharge and resume feature.
- Capable of cleaning embedded dirt: This is a rarity in robot vacuums, as most robot vacuum only claim to be able to do this. However, there are some that are capable of delivering this, just take note that even the best robot vacuums cannot deep clean carpet as well as an upright, but opt for something that’s at least decent in this area (above 70%).
- Dust bin capacity: The larger the dirt capacity, the fewer times you need to empty it. This feature only applies to options without a self-emptying dock that automatically empties the robot’s bin as it recharges.
- No-go zones: “No-go zones” is a feature that creates virtual barriers that block the robot from going into areas that are off-limits, such as stairs, drops, or rooms.
A Few Robo Vac Tips:
For your robtvac’s first run, it’s worth staying home to watch. Many homes have hot spots — a weird door jamb, a lumpy rug — that can cause trouble; it’s also worth cleaning up robot booby traps, like ribbons and pieces of string.
If you think you don’t have enough free wall space, we find that under the couch or under a bedroom cabinet is a great place to charge and store it.
If you have a mapping robot vacuum, it usually uses an optical sensor, which means it requires a little light to navigate — 2 pm is a better time to schedule a run than midnight.
You’re probably still going to need a second vacuum. It’s best to keep a backup upright vacuum for quick spot cleaning, vacuuming bedroom corners, and the car.
If you want the best of the best and don’t mind spending money on the premium choice, we recommend that you get the Roomba S675. So far it is the best performing robot in terms of deep cleaning carpet thanks to the extra high airflow and a wide brush. Independent tests show that the S675 can deep clean carpet at a rate of 94.5% which is the highest so far among all robot vacuums. Airflow tests reveal that the S9 is one of the most powerful — a big reason why it did so well on carpet. Not only is the S675 powerful, but it also is one of the smarter robots available.