While vacuuming your floors may be easier than ever thanks to cordless cleaners that let you navigate around your home, sucking up dirt and debris from every inch of your floor, without being tethered by a cable, for many of us is, like many other household chores, not how we want to spend our free time.
In fact, research by online directory Yelp revealed over a third of Americans claim they’d be willing to give up alcohol if it meant they would never do housework again. The best robot vacuums certainly make this possible, for floor cleaning at least, as they pootle around your home unaided collecting dust and debris while you put your feet up.
So it’s no surprise that the number of US households with a robot vacuum grew by 11% to 14.2 million in 2018, according to market research firm Statista. However, while these appliances do a great job of cleaning your floors you may be wondering just whether you should be using a robot vacuum to clean your floors.
Chances are you don’t vacuum your floors every day if you have a traditional vacuum cleaner, but as robot vacuums don’t offer the same level of powerful suction, is collecting the dust and debris from your floors every day better than a once a week clean?
If you’re certain you want to get your hands on one of the best robot vacuums rather than read on to discover whether you should set your Roomba cleaning every day, then check out these great deals for some of the best on the market. Roomba Black Friday deals abound as well, and we're seeing record-low prices.
So, should you use your Roomba every day?
We posed the question to iRobot, which has been manufacturing robot vacuums since 2012. In fact, the brand claims that 20% of all robot vacuums sold worldwide are Roombas. It told TechRadar, it largely comes down to personal cleaning preferences.
“We often hear from our Roomba customers with pets, kids, or who live in areas with a high-allergen count and dust and debris, that the greatest benefit for them is that they can run Roomba as often as they need,” it said.
In our opinion, using your robot vacuum to clean every day will keep your floors looking spick and span. We’d also recommend scheduling your robot vacuum to clean every day, rather than doing this manually. That way, if the kids have accidentally dropped biscuit crumbs, or perhaps the dog or cat is shedding more hair than usual, you won’t have to remember to clean up the spill yourself with a vacuum cleaner - it’ll be automatically dealt with.
You could even schedule the clean to happen if you know you’re going to be out of the house, for example when you’re in the office or on the school run, so the robot vacuum isn’t getting in your way. Some robot vacuums, such as iRobot’s new Roomba J7, have a geolocation feature that means the robovac can detect when you’ve left the house and will automatically start cleaning.
However, if you’re considering a nighttime clean, check that the noise created by the appliance won’t disturb your sleep before you head off to bed.
- Discover How robot vacuums work and whether you should buy one?
- How to clean a robot vacuum: top tips for keeping your robovac in working order
- Not sure about a robovac? Check out the best cordless vacuums instead
Will I need to empty my robot vacuum more frequently?
If you own a robot vacuum and it’s not scheduled to clean your home every day, is it because you’re worried about how frequently you’ll have to empty the dust canister? After all, cleaning more often means more dirt and debris is collected. While this may be the case with some robot vacuums (although this isn’t a time-consuming task at all) many models are self-emptying, including the iRobot Roomba i7+ and the Roomba S9+.
These robovacs automatically return to the base station when its dust canister is full, and deposit the dirt and debris into a disposable dust bag. These bags can be removed and thrown straight into the garbage when they’re full, offering a truly hands-off approach to vacuuming.
In the case of Roomba’s models that are self-emptying, iRobot says the disposable dust bags can hold 30 days worth of dirt and debris, which means if you use your robot vacuum every day, you’ll only need to worry about emptying it once a month.
