As for the mopping feature, we were especially pleased with how well the programming transitioned between hard floors and carpets. Impressively, the water usage was just enough for floors to feel clean, but without leaving pools of water behind.

A big bin means you don’t need to empty it as often. The largest I’ve seen is 800ml, but anything over 500ml is decent. With many bots now pulling double duty as mopping robots, plus the popularity of self-empty dock / charging bases, it’s getting harder to find small robot vacs with big bins.

Price-wise, it's not cheap – although we couldn't fault the build quality or engineering, and these kinds of do-it-all docks do always come at a price. But if you have lots of hard floors and mopping is your priority, it's worth the investment.

Spacious homes require vacuums with robust battery life and effective navigation. Models like the MAMNV T7S Combo with its 180-minute runtime, and the Shark AI Ultra with mapping, allow for fewer interruptions and wide coverage. Self-charging ensures they continue seamlessly, even across multiple cleaning cycles.

❌ You've got lots of low furniture: The raised puck makes this a taller option in Roborock's range.

On test, we found it did a fantastic job of clearing spillages. We were also impressed with the comprehensive docking station, which helps ease the burden of the maintenance tasks involved with mopping robot vacuums.

) The SmartScrub feature that tells the robot to wiggle its butt to scrub your floors works surprisingly well, but it’s really only effective on small areas, making it good to run in hallways and around pet bowls for an Em excesso clean.

We'll dig into the app and gauge how well-designed, usable and intuitive it is, and how much control it offers. We'll also test any specific performance claims made by the manufacturer, as well as checking out any special features like built-in voice assistants and camera surveillance.

The Shark PowerDetect AZ4002 offers both strong cleaning performance and convenient features. It’s stellar at cleaning bare floors, making it the ideal vacuum for kitchens, bathrooms, and hardwood floors. It also earned near-top-level Top 3 Automatic Vacuum Cleaners scores in our carpet cleaning tests and automatically adjusts the speed of the brush rolls depending on the floor type.

These are crucial if you have delicate objects or areas in your home that regularly trap robots. Most robots use variations on simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) technology, such as lidar or vSLAM.

But there’s no hot water washing or hot air drying of the mop as there is on similar Dreame and Roborock models, so you’ll want to throw the pad in the washing machine every now and then.

Combo models might also have mops that can kick out from the side of the vacuum to get closer to the sides of rooms.

Choose an automatic vacuum that aligns with your priorities: for low maintenance and extended cleaning, the self-emptying Shark AI Ultra excels; for apartments and pet hair, Lefant M210 hits the mark.

Narwal’s obstacle detection is also only okay; there’s no camera, and it routinely eats cables. Its three lasers can identify objects as small as a sock and move around them, and it did pass my fake pet poop test.