Christine Sirette: I'm Christine Sirette and you're listening to the Wire Cutter Show. Hey there, it's Christine. We cover a lot of cleaning advice on this show, probably because we have a ton of great advice and recommendations on our site, and our listeners also seem to have lots of questions about cleaning. Today, I'm talking with wire cutter writer Evan Dent about one of the most iconic cleaning tools of the past few decades, the robot vacuum. Picture it, the discshaped bot that can roll around your home vacuuming up pet hair and Cheerios and dust while you're running errands or at work. If you have a robot vacuum, maybe you love it, maybe you hate it, maybe you're somewhere in between. And if you don't have a robot vac, maybe you've considered getting one. Wherever you land, the robot vacuum as we know it is probably going away, or at least evolving into a new type of bot that combines vacuuming and mopping. I thought it would be a great time to talk with Evan now because one of the best times to buy a vacuum is during a big deals event like Black Friday, Memorial Day, or Prime Day, which is coming up next week from June 23rd to the 26th. Evan recently wrote a piece about how robot vacuums are changing, and he's going to walk us through what to know if you already own one and you want to extend its life, and which models are worth looking for deals on next week and beyond. I'm here with Evan Dent who tests all types of vacuums and floor care tools for Wire Cutter. Evan, welcome to the show.

Evan Dent: Thanks for having me.

Christine Sirette: It's great to have you here. You have tested a lot of vacuums, including dozens of robot vacuums. Many people love or at least appreciate their robot vacuums because they clean automatically, if not always perfectly. I've seen plenty of these in the office bump into furniture non-stop. So I know that they have their errors, but robot vacuums as we know them are really changing. Tell me what is shifting and how is it shifting?

Evan Dent: So in the last couple of years, all these companies that are making robot vacuums have really shifted to these combination robot vacs. There's no like good way to say those, but Robo combo vac mops. Something like that.

Christine Sirette: Sounding.

Evan Dent: Yeah. They vacuum and they mop. So, it looks kind of like your typical robot vacuum, but there's a pad or these spinning things on the back of them or a roller mop underneath it and they will go and and sort of vacuum and mop at the same time. You can set them to do different things, but a vacuum only robot is a rarity now. I think one or two companies still make them.

Christine Sirette: So, if you're going out to buy a new robot vacuum at this point, it's most likely that you're going to get one of these combos. Those are the ones that are like the most available right now.

Evan Dent: Yes. Even the base level thing is going to have some sort of mopping on it.

Christine Sirette: Why are manufacturers phasing out this category that just does the vacuuming and adding this mop feature?

Evan Dent: Part of it is if you have one, you're probably not going to get another one until it breaks. And then if it breaks, you might just say, "I'm done with these entirely." The bottom of that market dropped out so much that a good one is around $200. So there's not a ton of profit incentive for them to keep making better vacuums. So they can advertise advancements more easily with the mopping and say like this has the newest self-washing mop system that we can charge you a thousand bucks for $1,500 for whereas just a vacuum they're kind of topped out at around 200.

Christine Sirette: Is this manufacturers basically phasing out something that they're not making a lot of money on anymore and trying to add features to these mop vacs so that they can make more money and get people to buy new ones? Like what? Why? Because surely there are people that still just want the vacuum.

Evan Dent: They would say that they're making a better product. They're adding functionality so that oh, this is better at mopping now and now I can do two things in your home. But it is probably trying to make more money off the product and getting people to buy things more frequently.

Christine Sirette: Cuz these are pretty expensive at this point. Our recommendation right now is around $600.

Evan Dent: Yes. And that's totally middle of the pack. On the highest end, like the newest of the new things that come out, I've seen as high as $1,700.

Christine Sirette: Wa. That's so expensive. You can buy a really really nice canister vac or upright vac that cleans incredibly well for

Evan Dent: You could buy two.

Christine Sirette: You could buy two. Yeah. Okay. So, these have been out for a few years. I remember us first reviewing them and our first take on the robot mop vax was we didn't like them. We thought they were kind of bad, but clearly things have been developing over the last few years. I got to know, what do you think about them now? Are they decent? Do you think that they're doing a decent job of vacuuming and mopping?

Evan Dent: Decent's the exactly right word for it. They're good enough. It forstalls bigger cleans. If you like having a shiny looking floor, that's sort of what the mop is going to give you. It's not going to get deeper set stains or even grimy kitchen areas. I'll go over after one's done and sort of put my own elbow grease into it and find that I'm still picking up stuff. So, it's not perfect. It's more of a maintenance cleaner. That's the same for vacuuming and mopping. and actually the mopping makes them worse at vacuuming because they're slightly higher off the ground to fit that mop. So maintenance cleans in between things or if you're just super busy like I've talked to plenty of parents who are just like I don't have time to do XYZ or you know quite literally one of my colleagues is like my kids spilled an entire bowl of milk and cereal and it's like we had to go so I just set the robot off and eventually it picks it up. Like if you sat by and watched it, you'd be frustrated because it's going around the whole room and not getting everything. But if you don't have the time and you're going, it's fine to just leave it and then you come back and it's pretty much gone.

Christine Sirette: So this is like a something is better than nothing situation, which I've been there with young kids. It's definitely a reality. So what kind of homes are these vacs good for? Like if you have a lot of carpeting, is it going to work in your home or do you need to have all hardwood floors?

Evan Dent: Mostly hardwood floors. And I would say not a lot of level changes on your floors cuz you're going to have to sort of pick that thing up and move it along. But they've gotten better at recognizing where a carpet is and not mopping it. I won't say it's perfect. I have a little thin thing in my kitchen that nine out of 10 of them don't recognize and it just mops it. It's not the end of the world, but you know, if you had a nicer rug or carpet, you might be annoyed by that.

Christine Sirette: I was reading one of your pieces about these machines and you had mentioned that they are kind of designed for homes in Asia and Europe. Tell me more about that because I thought that was pretty fascinating.

Evan Dent: So all the manufacturers now are based in China and the United States is sort of far ahead of the rest of the world in terms of carpets and rugs as opposed to more Asian European homes which don't have those as much. So it's definitely designed for those Asian and European homes. And then when they port it over to the states, it's kind of fitting a square peg into a round hole. That's probably part of why the carpet detection took so long. It just wasn't something that they were focused on.

Christine Sirette: And when you say that the US is far ahead in terms of carpet, what does that mean? Like

Evan Dent: just like more we have way more carpets and homes than the rest of the world.

Christine Sirette: Yeah. All right. You mentioned these don't handle stairs very well. Tell me more.

Evan Dent: The companies are trying these kind of increasingly silly ways to make it so that you don't have to pick up your robot and bring it up the stairs. So three companies have put out these sort of modules that your robot vacuum will go into and then tank tread up the stairs. very slowly, not cleaning the stairs, just going up them. And then that thing will wait at the top of your stairs while it cleans upstairs and then go back down. I saw one company that had a drone for it, which extremely loud. Like I could hear it from across the convention and not work well there. So I don't think it will work well in homes, but they are thinking of ways to do it.

Christine Sirette: So it sounds like at this point if you want to get one of these, just think about it for one floor, right? or you're going to need multiple for many floors, but it probably like the floor that gets the most traction.

Evan Dent: Yeah. I mean, they have capability to save multiple maps. So, if you wanted to take the effort to carry it upstairs and let it go, it'll do that, but then you're just going to have to keep doing that or get to, which is it's kind of ridiculous, but

Christine Sirette: So, can you explain how they can map the different rooms and the different areas that they should be going on in a floor?

Evan Dent: They can take hints from what they run into in rooms and figure out what those rooms are. So, like if it goes into a bed, it'll say bedroom. If it runs into like a dishwasher, it'll say kitchen. So, it'll map your home, mark off the different rooms, and then you can set different cleaning schedules or different modes for each of those rooms. So, you know, if you have a hightraic entryway, you could say double mop this. If you have a room with like a really nice carpet in it, you could say skip this entirely. But they're fairly good at that now.

Christine Sirette: I think that these robot mop vacs have some kind of large sort of like housing that they return to, right?

Evan Dent: Yeah. So, the old Roomba used to have this teeny little dock that you could even put under your couch or your table and it would just hide under there when it was done. But now it's this sort of takes up at least a corner of your room. It's a big dock that washes the mops and then dries them and then it has a clean water tank, a dirty water tank, and most of them now also have a a dust bag in them. So, it's nice because you don't have to empty them all that often. Maybe like once a month depending on how often you're using them, but it's not something you can hide away. If it wasn't my job, I wouldn't really love having one in my home just because it takes up such a big portion of the room it's in.

Christine Sirette: Yeah, that's been what's held me back because I have a relatively small apartment. If I had a bigger house, I wouldn't think twice. I would just do it. But yeah, that's definitely something to keep in mind. Okay, Evan, we're going to take a quick break and when we're back, we're going to talk about the Robo Vax and mops that you recommend and what you don't recommend. Stay tuned. Welcome back. We're talking about RoboVax with Wire Cutter staff writer Evan Dent. Evan, if someone wants to buy a robot vac either for the first time or to replace an older model, what do you recommend getting?

Evan Dent: So, for a new simple vacuum only robot, there's the Robbo Rock Q7 M5 Plus. That is a bit of a mouthful. It does technically have a mop on it, but it's completely optional. It's an excellent, excellent robot vacuum. It does as well as a $1,000 plus machines just at vacuuming.

Christine Sirette: And that one's about 300

Evan Dent: 300 full price and it often goes on sale. If you have a robot vacuum that you like now, I would just buy extra parts for it while you can. These companies talk a big game about keeping those parts in production, but at any moment they could sort of go off their website and be harder to find. So stock up on extra filters, brushes, that sort of thing, and you can prolong the life of the current robot vacuum you have. And then if you're interested in kind of dipping your toe in a robot vac, and you want something kind of close to the cutting edge, so the biggest thing of the past couple years has been this roller mop that is selfcleing. So it goes down, hits the floor, picks up something dirty, and then cleans itself before it goes back down. So you are technically always cleaning with clean water, which I think is a lot of people's worry about traditional mopping. So there's a cheaper version of that called the Yuthi Robot Vacuum Omni E25. Is it going to change your life? No. Can you set it out and then look at your shiny fors after and sort of contentedly sigh? Yes. And it's not going to totally break the bank.

Christine Sirette: And if you were going to go with the first category, let's say you were going to go with that Robo Rock Q7 M5 Plus, would you also recommend going ahead and buying extra parts at this point?

Evan Dent: I think it's always good to get extra parts right at the outset, but I wouldn't worry about it too much with that particular model.

Christine Sirette: Okay, so I want to talk about a personal obsession, how to get a deal on something. So part of the reason we're covering this right now is that Prime Day is coming up. These Amazon sales events and other sales events are oftentimes a good time to buy vacuums in general. So, I'm curious if somebody is in the market for a mop vac or just a vac, what do you think is a good price point to be looking for around a deals event?

Evan Dent: Yeah. So, for specific models, I would say the Robo Rock U7 M5 Plus, our deals team says $220 or under is going to be sort of the best price you're going to get on that. And that is a wonderful value. the Yuthi robot vacuum on the E25, $600 or below. Again, that's very expensive, but as new models come out, they sort of push these ones further down. So, I I anticipate that that will keep dropping, but 600 below is going to be a good deal for that UI robot vacuum.

Christine Sirette: If somebody, let's say they are curious, they they are thinking about buying one of these, maybe they're not ready to buy it right now. When are like other good times to buy?

Evan Dent: Black Friday is a good one. And then I would also say when new products release. So, it's almost like a car dealership where last year's model immediately becomes cheaper when the new one comes out, but it's the most accelerated timeline that I've ever seen. I was told once that they come out every 3 months, and I kind of scoffed at that. And then 3 months later, I went to a trade show and I saw all new robots. So, they are really expensive. You know, you mentioned earlier that the the top-of-the-line ones are 1,700. Even our main pick is 600, and that's just sort of the middle of the road, middle of the pack. Why are they so expensive?

Evan Dent: That's a good question. It is very advanced tech at the highest level in terms of object recognition. So, sort of the newest, most expensive ones will will go around and it can see what's on your floor, tell you about it. If you lost an object, maybe it could find it for you. but also just in terms of being able to navigate around messes that it can't clean up or like deciding to take on a second pass or a third pass because it can't handle that stain in one pass. So, just the sort of knowledge on the machines and then the the robotic parts that go on it. And I would say it's almost Appleike in terms of signaling a very high level of tech. when you see the actual things that are being introduced, they're not that impressive, like UV lights under the robot that detect hidden stains and they're trying to signal that this is the best of the best and they set that price even higher. So, I would say even a year ago, it seemed like 1,600 was sort of the high and then we're going up to 17. So, general inflation and tariffs and also sort of a signal that these are advanced

Christine Sirette: and probably like a lot of tech, the prices will eventually come down.

Evan Dent: Yes, you can sort of see a trickle down. The stuff that was, you know, the biggest advance in years eventually comes down to a model that's definitely less than $1,000 and further and further down. So, that I was talking about is sort of the lowest you could get for the roller mop and it's still coming down from there with a bunch of different companies.

Christine Sirette: Evan, with these new robot mop backs, are there any issues or concerns around repairability?

Evan Dent: That's the other problem with introducing all this mopping. It introduces so many more parts that can fail. So the warranties on these things are typically one to two years, especially when you buy something so expensive, it's it's disappointing. So I would say if you are proactive about cleaning your sensors, changing your filters, like taking care of it, you can expect it to last a few years past that warranty. But in general, between the computer parts, the mopping parts, plus the vacuum, there's just a lot that can fail.

Christine Sirette: So, if someone's mop vac fails, let's say after the warranty, can you fix it or is it so complicated, there's not much you can do, and it might be more expensive to fix it than to just buy something new.

Evan Dent: It will depend on the problem you're having. If it's a robotics or electricity problem, I don't think you'll be able to fix it yourself. If it's just a simple part, you can usually find a replacement and sort of some brands are better than others in terms of repairability at home. So something like UI or iRoot actually, usually it is simple enough to open up the robot and sort of switch out a part, but again there's so much more complicated stuff with these higherend robots that the chances of having a problem that you can't fix or that is more expensive to fix than just getting a new one are higher.

Christine Sirette: All right, Evan, thanks for joining us today. We want to have you back to do more of a vacuum deep dive. So we'll look forward to that.

Evan Dent: Thanks so much for having me.

Christine Sirette: We'll drop a link in the show notes to Evans reporting on Robo Mops and of course to all the products we talked about today. You can also find out more on our website. That's it for this week. Thanks so much for listening. The Wire Cutter Show is executive produced by Rosie Garin and produced by Abigail Keel. Engineering support from Mattie Maziello and Nick Pitman. Today's episode was mixed by Katherine Anderson. Original music by Dan Powell, Marian Lozano, Rowan Nemoto, Katherine Anderson, and Diane Wong. Cliff Levy is Wire Cutter's deputy publisher and general manager. Ben Freeman is Wire Cutters editor-inchief. I'm Christine Sirette. Thanks for listening.