How we test

Measured lanes of flour, rolled oats, rice, and pet hair on sealed hardwood and on mid-pile carpet. Each robot runs the lanes twice; we weigh what's recovered from the bin versus what was laid down. The percentages quoted in reviews come straight from these runs.

A porcelain tile grid with twelve standardized dried messes — coffee rings, soy sauce, orange juice, and footprint grime — aged 24 hours. One pass, then a targeted second pass. We photograph the grid before and after and count clears. Drag-pads, spinning pads, and jet sprays all face the same grid.

A USB cable, a phone-charger brick, a sock, a shoe, and a simulated pet accident, arranged in a fixed pattern, run thirty times in bright light and in darkness. We log every collision, every avoidance, and every false alarm. Mapping speed and coverage completeness are tracked over the same runs.

After the lab, each robot runs a real household for at least three weeks: pets, crumbs, school mornings. We track how often it needs rescuing, how loud it is, how gross dock maintenance gets, and whether the app helps or fights you. Reliability problems that only appear in week three show up here.