It reached well up against the baseboards, picking up flaky bits of onion skin in our kitchen, and it collected all breadcrumbs in its path. It was about average in terms of noise compared to the other robot vacuums on test though, at 64.1dB.

The Roborock Orevo Curv ticked all the boxes, proving to be a great, splurge robot vacuum and mop hybrid. Probably what stands out is its attractive, sleek design of the curved docking station. Which won't look out of place in any room.

By default, the Florio vacuums and mops simultaneously, but you can adjust its settings in the app to perform either task independently. While mopping, we did notice it left occasional water droplets behind, so it’s important to allow floors to dry completely after cleaning.

The Miele Scout RX3 is packed with technology. Live image transmission, smart navigation and an Amazon Alexa-compatible app mean that you can really control the clean. With a Home Vision function and front camera, you can follow the RX3 as it cleans, even when you're not at home.

Thankfully, many manufacturers make robot vacuums that are suited for cleaning up after pets. Models like the iLife V3s Pro and the Roomba S9, scored the best in our robot vacuum lab tests, picking up nearly all pet hair on both hardwood and carpeting, and making our list of the best robot vacuums for pet hair.

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This prevents any water from dripping onto fabrics. But for the price it is a hassle to have to manually remove and wash the mop after each cleaning session.

Here's the table on which robot vacuums are best at picking up dirt and pet hair. Note that while all of the robot vacuums were tested by picking up the same material on the same surfaces, those with an asterisk were tested in a 15 x 15-foot square, whereas the other models were tested in a 5 x 5-foot square.

Obstacle pickup tests are conducted across both rooms of our testing enclosure, with a mix of oatmeal, orzo, baking soda and sand scattered throughout. The robots are tasked with navigating under a couch and coffee table, crossing over an area rug, and passing through a doorway to collect debris.

Without the app, the AI Ultra is more limited, but it remains a solid performer for general cleaning tasks.

During mopping, sticky stains noticeably lightened after just one pass. The dock also automatically washes and dries the mopping pads upon the robot's return.

It's not perfect. Our tester found it struggled to follow more specific commands. However, it works fine if you just set it to clean your whole space in the most thorough way possible, so if that's your main plan for it, then it's still a solid recommendation.

The Narwal Freo X Ultra is the best robot vacuum Top 3 Automatic Vacuum Cleaners for carpet. It's a premium product, (and it's not available in the UK), but delivers the best carpet cleaning performance of any robovac we've tested. On test we found that not only did it suck up finer dust and dirt efficiently, it also scooped up larger debris – namely bits of cereal – just as well.

Over the past 10 years, we've tested dozens of robot vacuums, both by performing objective tests as well as real-world setups. Each model we review is first evaluated to see how well it can pick up three types of debris. We measure out 20 grams of Cheerios, 20 grams of kitty litter, and 20 grams of pet hair. Next, we scatter each individually across a hardwood floor, and then weigh the contents of the robot vacuum's dustbin to see how much of each it picked up. We then repeat the same three tests on a low-pile carpet. Afterwards, the robot vacuum receives a cleaning performance score, which is the percentage of debris it was able to collect. After we record each robot vacuum's scores, we let these machines loose in our tester’s home to see how each holds up in terms of navigation, obstacle avoidance, and coverage in real-world testing.