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You don’t have to spend a fortune to have a robot clean your floors. Here’s our pick of the most cost-effective bots you can buy right now.
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) and deftly navigate dog poop, 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.
While higher-priced, higher-powered robot vacuums clean better, budget bots do a perfectly good job, especially if you run them regularly. The biggest downside of cheaper models is they get stuck on cables, socks, shoelaces, and other paraphernalia you leave lying around. If you’re home and can untangle it, great, but if you’re not, then it will just sit there stuck until its battery dies, and you have to charge it up again before it will clean your floors.
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.
Here’s a list of my favorite robot vacuums that don’t cost a fortune and will still get the job done.
