![i robot vacuum i robot vacuum](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/bHD8WQYVZjwo77qXVg2FMn.jpg)
I can’t comment on the comparative performance of iRobot’s bots, which I have not personally tested, but I do not hesitate to compare a €180 (~$200) Rowenta-branded robot vacuum to a very expensive cat toy. Surely that must count for something? I imagined wildly. The brand in question (Rowenta) sat alongside the better known (and a bit more expensive) iRobot on the shop shelf. Or at least something that, y’know, could suck dust. It was a budget option but I assumed - or, well, hoped - the retailer had done its homework and picked a better-than-average choice. I know this because, alas, I tried - opting, finally and foolishly (but, in my defence, at a point of near desperation after sifting so much virtual chaff the whole enterprise seemed to have gained lottery odds of success and I frankly just wanted my spare time back), for a model sold by a well-known local retailer. It’s the very worst kind of badly applied robotics.Ībandon hope of getting anything worth your money at the bottom end of the heap. Yes, that’s despite the fact they are still actually expensive vacuum cleaners.īasically these models entail overpaying for a vacuum cleaner that’s so poor you’ll still have to do most of the job yourself (i.e. Here’s the bottom line: Budget robot vacuums that lack navigational smarts are simply not worth your money, or indeed your time. So in the spirit of trying to prevent anyone else falling prey to convenience-based indecision I am - apologies in advance - adding to the pile of existing literature about robot vacuums with a short comparative account that (hopefully) helps cut through some of the chaff to the dirt-pulling chase. Reader, I know, because I fell into this hole.
![i robot vacuum i robot vacuum](https://i.pcmag.com/imagery/reviews/037VOWCMwFHuGMfCtgoDqv8-1..v1608738925.jpg)
Unfortunately there are just so many brands in play that all these reviews tend to act as fuel, feeding a growing black hole of indecision that sucks away at your precious spare time, demanding you spend more and more of it reading about robots that suck (when you could, let’s be frank, be getting on with the vacuuming task yourself) - only to come up for air each time even less convinced that buying a robot dirtbag is at all a good idea.