The best budget robot vacuums

Today’s robot vacuums are becoming a bit like cars: with all the features, upgrades, and fancy trimmings available these days, it’s easy to forget that they can just be simple machines that get us from point A to point B. Yes, some bots blow hot air on their bums (mop pads), deftly navigate dog poop, and have arms to pick up your socks, but there are plenty of basic budget robot vacuums that just do a decent job of cleaning your floor autonomously — as long as you tidy up first.

Fancier models have obstacle recognition, and some even use AI-powered cameras to tell popcorn from poop and avoid the latter. If you want one of those, check out my best robot vacuum buying guide. But if you think you can manage the task of picking up after yourself (and your puppy), a budget bot will save you a lot of money and still do a good job cleaning your floor.

Suction power: 5,300Pa / Dustbin capacity: 300ml / Self-empty dock option: Yes / Mopping option: Yes / Mapping: Yes, lidar / Keep-out zones: Yes, virtual / Runtime: 100 mins, 2,600mAh battery/ Brush style: Single rubber bristle hybrid / Works with: Amazon Alexa, Google Home

For around $300, TP-Link’s Tapo RV30 Max Plus is a very capable robot vacuum and mop with some key features typically found only on vacuums that are more than twice its price. These include room-specific cleaning, multiple suction and water levels, smart lidar-based navigation, and an auto-empty dock.

Thanks to lidar navigation, the RV30 did an excellent job of navigating my house, cleaning the perimeters of the rooms, and then using a mesh grid to clean inside the rooms. I did have to tidy up before it ran, though, as there’s no camera on board or AI-powered obstacle detection — so cables and socks will trip it up.

Its 5,200Pa suction power is impressive on a bot at this price, and ably sucked up Cheerios and dry oatmeal on hard flooring. It left some of the finer dust and debris, as its single bristle / rubber brush isn’t super effective. It fared less well on carpet. However, in the app, I could set it to clean a room three times for each job, after which it generally picked up all visible debris.

Mopping was better than average for a mop with no pressure or oscillation. It has a wide mop pad, and the bot has a big 300ml tank (which also incorporates a 300ml dustbin), so it applies enough water for a good surface clean.

Another unique feature for a budget robot is the ability to set customized cleaning for each room, choosing from five suction levels and three water levels as well as three rotations.

The Tapo app is very simple to use, with an easy-to-edit map that lets you add virtual walls and no-go zones, add furniture, and designate carpet areas. There’s no carpet sensing, so you need to tell it where carpets are if you don’t want it to mop them. You can also set the cleaning direction and build up to four maps — again, features usually only found on higher-end robots.

It’s also easy to start a clean from the app, and I really like that you can tap on the map to send the robot to that spot.

The biggest downside of the Tapo is its tiny battery, which is just 2,600mAh. That is half the size of most vacs, and it couldn’t clean my entire 800-square-foot downstairs without needing to go back and recharge. It also takes a while to charge and occasionally has trouble repositioning itself on its dock.

You can get the RV30 without the auto-empty dock for around $80 less if you prefer an even simpler robot vacuum setup. This way, it will fit under a couch or bed, but you’ll have to manually empty its bin.

Suction power: 10,000Pa / Dustbin capacity: 600ml / Runtime: 150 mins, 5200 mAh / Brush style: single bristle / rubber hybrid / Auto-empty dock option: yes / Mapping: yes / Keep-out zones: yes / Works with: Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Siri Shortcuts

Roborock’s Q10 S5 is a step up from the Tapo RV30, thanks to double the suction power, a much larger battery and longer runtime, AI-powered obstacle avoidance, and the ability to automatically detect carpet. It also has a vibrating mopping system that does a better job at scrubbing your floors, and it can lift its mop up to 8mm to pass over low-pile carpets.

It has a more advanced lidar-based mapping and navigation system, which, like the Tapo, lets you set specific rooms to clean, create no-go zones, and customize cleaning schedules. But unlike the Tapo, it moves more intelligently around the house and is less prone to getting stuck.

However, the robot vacuum alone costs more than the Tapo with the auto-empty base. If you upgrade to the Q10 S5 Plus, which includes an auto-empty base, you’re looking at over $500. It is frequently on sale, however, which makes it worth considering if you want a budget bot with better vacuuming and mopping.

One downside is that the bot is much larger and wider than the Tapo, so it may not fit into some tighter spaces. The Roborock app is more fully featured than Tapo’s, giving you lots of options for almost infinite customization.

Suction power: unknown / Dustbin capacity: 500ml / Runtime: 120 mins / Brush style: single bristle / rubber hybrid / Auto-empty dock option: yes / Mapping: yes / Keep-out zones: yes / Works with: Amazon Alexa, Google Home

The Shark Navigator RV2120 is a basic vacuum-only bot that’s a step up from my previous Shark pick, the Shark Ion, thanks to lidar navigation. This means it can map your home without bumping and rolling around blindly like the Ion. Mapping lets you send it to clean specific rooms and add keep-out zones to prevent it from going where you don’t want it to.

There are no bells and whistles like AI-powered obstacle detection or room-specific cleaning settings, but the RV2120 does the basics well. It has a nice big bin, a simple app experience, decent battery life, and good repairability. It’s also fairly bullish, pushing through fabric skirting to go under beds and sofas, something not all lidar bots will do. It is very loud and rattly, even at its lowest power level.

Unlike many budget bots, it uses a hybrid roller brush that’s both bristle and plastic and doesn’t get as tangled as standard bristle brushes.

But the best thing ‘bout this bot is its tank-like wheels that will roll right over anything in its path, including high transitions between rooms, obstacles like lounger chair legs, and other furniture traps that regularly stump other bots.

The Shark RV2120AE model includes an auto-empty dock. I love that Shark’s auto-empty docks don’t require replacement dust bags — which saves money in the long run. However, the RV2120AE is more expensive than the Tapo RV30, even after factoring in the cost of bags for the latter.

One benefit of Shark vacuums to consider over the Tapo is that they’re very repairable. You can buy replacement parts for almost everything on the bot, unlike with the Tapo.

Suction power: 2,000Pa / Dustbin capacity: 600ml / Runtime: 100 mins / Brush style: single bristle / rubber hybrid / Auto-empty dock option: no / Mapping: no / Keep-out zones: no / Works with: n/a

The Eufy 11S Max is a rarity — a robot vacuum that doesn’t use Wi-Fi at all. There’s not even an app. Instead, you just press the button, and off it trundles. It also comes with a remote if you’d rather not get up off the couch, and you can use that to program it to clean at a specific time.

The 11S is super slim, 72.5mm high, with no lidar tower, so it will get under most couches. It has a big 600ml bin, and I was very impressed with how much it got up off my hardwood floors, even with its relatively small 2,000Pa of suction. There are three cleaning levels, and at the lowest, it registers around 55db, which is quiet enough to run in a home office.

It does have a smallish battery — only 100 minutes of runtime — but it will go back and recharge. For $200, this is the perfect budget bot for those wary of or who don’t want to deal with an app or Wi-Fi. It’s a bump-and-roll bot, meaning there are no real navigation skills. But it has plenty of replaceable parts, including the battery and wheels, so you can keep it going for a long time.

Update, January 27th: Adjusted pricing and availability. Added new picks, including the Shark Navigator RV2120 and Roborock Q10 S5. Sheena Vasani also contributed to this post.