The vacuum wars continue as we put three top-tier robot vacuums in a head-to-head cleaning battle to see which is the best at being an actual vacuum.
After all, a clean home is a happy home, and a robot vacuum is supposed to help provide that service at the end of the day. But sometimes it’s hard to get past the spec sheet. Features, processing power, and battery life are all important, but it’s the basics that can easily be forgotten when these other distractions are in the way. After all, a robot vacuum is just another vacuum when you break it all down.
So which robot vacuum cleans the best? We’re putting the ECOVACS DEEBOT OZMO 950, the Roborock S5, and the iRobot Roomba i7 together in a head-to-head challenge of cleaning abilities to see which actually cleans your home the best.
Our Vacuum Wars series is designed to show you the best robot vacuums and how to get the most of your money from your purchase. If you’re looking for the best features or which one is the smartest robot vacuum, head on over to our Smartest Robot Vacuum challenge. There you’ll be able to see which one really qualifies as a real robot.
We’re breaking the cleaning battle down into four categories today and seeing which performs best in them all.
The Big Test
The first category covers the challenge of the gaps in floors. Anyone with hardwood floors knows that those annoying gaps in between wood slats can collect a lot of junk in them. Those are terribly annoying to clean because they require such meticulous attention. A robot vacuum can provide that meticulous cleaning opportunity, but some are definitely more meticulous than others.
The second challenge tackles the question of corner cleaning. All three vacuums have a round shape, which means their shape simply doesn’t fit into a 90-degree wall corner without some clever engineering. Do the dual side-brushes on the DEEBOT OZMO 950 provide double the cleaning power? How about the dual rollers on the iRobot Roomba i7? The results might surprise you.
The third category covers mopping, which is something relatively new to robot vacuums. Two of the three here ship with a mopping accessory and can mop your non-carpeted areas right after vacuuming them without any extra steps.
The last area is carpet cleaning, which is always a tricky subject. Carpets come in many different shapes, sizes, and thickness, and it’s that pile thickness that presents the biggest challenge for most vacuums. We used a ½-inch pile area rug to test four different kinds of debris (ground coffee, cereal, dried beans, hair), and that was probably the most surprising result in the entire test.
Was the DEEBOT OZMO 950, the iRobot Roomba i7, or the Roborock S5 the winner? Find out in our video below!
DEEBOT OZMO 950 - Amazon