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Best budget robot vacuums, tested on real floors
Six machines, three floor types and a month of pet hair. Only one held up.
DH
Daan Hofman
1 September 2026 · 7 min read
Budget robot vacuums fail in predictable ways: navigation, brush tangling, and dustbin size. Our test was designed to find which failure arrives first.
How we tested
Each machine ran daily for a week across the same route, covering low-pile carpet, tile and wood, with a deliberate obstacle course of cables and chair legs.
Navigation separated the field immediately. Three of the six needed rescuing at least once a day, which defeats the purpose of the device entirely.
Daan Hofman
Technology reporter
Daan writes about gadgets, energy use and the quiet ways devices cost you money.
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