The iRobot Roomba 980 best robot pet Vacuum Cleaner

Robot vacuums remove pet hair, lint and dust from the floor before they can settle. They can also stay clear of obstacles like furniture that is tippy and staircases.

Most robotic vacuums require maintenance, like emptying (and occasionally rinsing) the bin, and wiping cameras and sensors. They also need to be connected. A lot of them have apps for smartphones to schedule, adjust settings, and more.

Roomba 980 from iRobot

The iRobot Roomba 980 is the most recent in the line of top-of-the-line robot vacuum cleaners that are an essential part of every modern household. This model comes with a HEPA filter that can aid those suffering from allergies. It also has an extremely powerful battery that can clean for two hours and returns to its dock automatically once the bin is full.

It also comes with a feature called smart mapping, which makes use of multiple sensors to help it suss out the areas in your home that require attention and create a cleaning route around them. We've seen this technology in action and it does a good job of maneuvering around toys that have been left scattered on the automatic floor cleaner or furniture legs that stick out from under things. It also has a camera that snaps the Roomba back to its original position when it starts to drift from its intended location.

iRobot has also included a set of rollers underneath the Roomba that do not have bristles, and are therefore more likely to withstand the best vacuum mop combo tangles that previous models. They are also taller and can be placed under beds or couches with low sides. They're designed to make the model more movable on various kinds of floors.

What sets the Roomba 980 apart from other models of this class, though, is its integration of the new dirt detection feature, which uses a camera to spot particles of dirt embedded. This is an improvement over the previous model which relied on a sensor-driven pseudorandom cover method to bounce around the room and scrub everything three times at different angles.

In our tests of its performance, the Roomba 980 did well on carpets and hard flooring. It scored extremely well on carpets with a low pile, and on mid-pile. It did a good job of picking up pet hair, but it struggled with extremely thick and long pet fur that was clumped together.

The Roomba 980 is still one of the top performing robots in our list despite the slight limitations. It's also less expensive than other top-of-the-line models. It comes with many of the features we would expect from a top model, but it doesn't have all the fancy apps or smart home integration that you'll see in other top models.

The iRobot Roomba can be set up quickly and is available for use immediately. After taking off the pull tab for the battery and yellow bin insert from the undercarriage, all you have to connect it to its Home Base docking station or a wall socket, hit its large "Clean" button, and let it get to work. It will return to its dock when its battery runs out or it's full of debris. It also has indicator lights on the top to indicate when its bin is full, it's time to recharge or if its Wi-Fi signal has gone out.