We think this one wins when it comes to looks. The sleek and compact white design would fit perfectly in modern homes and shouldn’t take up a lot of space either. It comes with sweeping brushes that stick out the side to sweep in and suck up dirt in corners, which is fairly effective. And it’s very quiet, so won’t disturb you if you’re watching TV. It also comes with a virtual wall, so you can block off areas you don’t want cleaning and a remote control. Our only annoyance was having to charge and put the battery pack in ourselves, which we found a little bit fiddly. For the price though, it does a decent job of vacuuming and is worth considering.
This is the most advanced machine ( as IROBOT ROOMBA 880 )from the robot vacuum specialist, utilising the same navigation technology Google puts into its self-driving cars. It uses lasers to scan the room it’s cleaning, noting any obstacles and then returning to the same spot from which it started, which can be useful for storage. It has good suction, the power of which can be increased by switching on the turbo mode (this increases the machine’s speed and noise, too). It didn’t get stuck on the large rug in the middle of our testing room, which was a problem for some. The app, available for iOS and Android devices, means you control the vacuum’s actions from wherever you are, whether that be the office or the supermarket.
