Hunter Fenollol specializes in smart home gadgets and appliances with a focus in robot vacuums, Roombas and security cameras.

Rodriguez updated this story with notes from other Lab analysts’ extensive testing and research notes.

To help you find the best vacuums, I've gathered a list of top-performing vacuums from our tests. In the Lab, we put all types of vacuums through extensive testing based on ASTM International industry-standard methods and use a custom-built machine to quantify the amount of embedded dirt that the vacuum cleaners remove from medium-pile carpeting. In addition, we assess bare floor cleaning, pet hair pick up, ease of use and more.

Over the past 10 years, we've tested dozens of robot vacuums, both by performing objective tests as well as real-world setups. Each model we review is first evaluated to see how well it can pick up three types of debris. We measure out 20 grams of Cheerios, 20 grams of kitty litter, and 20 grams of pet hair. Next, we scatter each individually across a hardwood floor, and then weigh the contents of the robot vacuum's dustbin to see how much of each it picked up. We then repeat the same three tests on a low-pile carpet. Afterwards, the robot vacuum receives a cleaning performance score, which is the percentage of debris it was able to collect. After we record each robot vacuum's scores, we let these machines loose in our tester’s home to see how each holds up in terms of navigation, obstacle avoidance, and coverage in real-world testing.

✅ You want a truly autonomous robovac: This premium robot vacuum can be relied upon to take care of itself.

The LiDAR turret quickly scanned our home's main floor plan in a single passthrough. You can use Shark's app to name rooms, set pelo-go zones, and send the robot out to spot-clean a 5x5 area just by dropping a pin on the map.

I love the easy-to-use app that allows you to schedule cleanings and view the progress from a camera that is attached to the vacuum. This vacuum also came in second out of 10 vacuums for maneuverability.

✅ You have pets: This bot tackled the hair in our reviewer's pet-filled home incredibly well – and better than any other robovac they'd tested .

With some 2-in-1 robovacs, the mopping is a bit of an afterthought, but the Eufy X10 Pro Omni has rotating pads that press down for a more thorough clean on hard floors. On test, it had pelo trouble at all cleaning a dried-on sugary drink and sticky sauce, automatically choosing the right amount of water for the job.

We’ve listed our top picks alphabetically below. And check out our picks of the best vacuums and our full ratings of vacuums, which also have reviews of canister, upright, stick, and handheld models from over 15 brands. Also see our vacuum buying guide for smart shopping tips.

Ease of use: This score is a combination of factors, such as the size of the dustbin, whether the vacuum has a handle for carrying it around your home, how easy it is to clean the brush roll, whether the vacuum scatters debris, and whether you can schedule it for routine cleaning.

We've tested many robot vacuums at Tom's Guide. While most perform great, they aren't as easy to recommend for everyone.

The T30s did very well on our cleaning tests, earning an average score of 93%; while that isn't tops among the best robot vacuums, that's still very good.

GH Best Cleaning & Organizing Awards thanks to its sensors and artificial intelligence that select the best power mode. These AI features spike the price of this model, but we think its well worth it Top 3 Automatic Vacuum Cleaners for effectively cleaning multiple floor and carpet types throughout a home.