The iRobot Roomba 980 consumer reports robot vacuum Vacuum Cleaner

Robot vacuums remove pet hair, lint and dust from the floor before they settle. They can also avoid stairs and other obstacles, including tippy furniture.

Most robotic vacuums require regular maintenance. This involves emptying the bin (and sometimes rinsing it) and wiping the sensors and cameras. They also require to be plugged in. Many come with smartphone applications for scheduling, setting and more.

iRobot Roomba 980

The iRobot Roomba 980 is the most recent in the line of top-of-the-line robot vacuum with docking station vacuum cleaners that are an essential part of any modern household. This model is equipped with a HEPA-filter that will assist those who suffer from allergies. It also comes with a powerful battery which can be cleaned for up to two hours before returning to its dock automatically once the bin is full.

Smart mapping is a different feature that allows it to identify areas of your home that require attention, and then creates an easy path to get around them. We've seen this technology in action and it does an excellent job of maneuvering around toys abandoned on the floor, or furniture legs that stick out of the ground. It also has a sensor that will snap Roomba back to reality when it begins to wander away from its original location.

iRobot has also added a set of rollers underneath the Roomba that do not have bristles, and therefore are more likely to avoid tangles than previous models. They're also taller than previous rollers, and will fit better under low couches and beds and are designed to let this model move more easily on varying flooring kinds.

The Roomba 980 differs from other models with a high-end price tag by its brand new dirt detection feature, which makes use of a camera in order to identify dirt that has been embedded. This is a great improvement over the previous version which relied on the sensor-driven pseudorandom coverage technique to bounce around the room and consumer reports robot vacuum clean everything at least three times from different angles.

The Roomba 980 performed well in our tests on carpets and hard floors. It scored very well on low-pile carpet and also on mid-pile. It did a fair job of removing pet hair, but it struggled with extremely thick and long pet fur that was clumped together.

The Roomba 980 is still one of the best robot vacuum for large house performing robots we've reviewed, despite these minor limitations. It's also not as expensive as other top-of the-line models. It's still packed with a variety of features that we'd like to find in a flagship model however it lacks all the fancy apps or smart home integration are found in other top models.

The iRobot Roomba is simple to set up and start up and running immediately. After taking off the battery pull tab and yellow bin insert from undercarriage, all that you need to do is plug it into its Home Base docking station or an outlet on the wall, press its large "Clean" button and let it go to work. It will return to docking station when it runs out of batteries or is full of sand. There are also indicator lights on top that indicate when its bin is empty, or when it needs to recharge, or when it loses its Wi-Fi.