Vacuum and mopping robots should clean the floor and vacuum while you can have a good time yourself. That sounds promising. Warentest reveals whether you can actually rely on the technical helpers.
If you don't enjoy cleaning up your apartment yourself, you can have a vacuum and floor mopping robot help you out. Or even better: Never vacuum or wipe yourself again, after all, that's what the cleaning robots promise.
Stiftung Warentest regularly checks what the devices can do on hard floors or carpets, how thoroughly they wipe and what they are good for in practice. This time, ten vacuum-wipe robots and four pure vacuum robots at prices between 160 and 1400 euros were examined - some of them with service stations. For some models, a service station is offered that goes beyond charging the battery. It sucks the dust from the small dust box in the robot into a larger bag inside the station. Some also fill up the wiper water tank. Some even clean the wipe or rotating mobs underneath the unit.
Result? No floor crawler is really good at everything. Above all, consumers should look at which surface they focus on, how to clean it and then make their choice.
But at least six devices were rated as "good" in the overall rating. Four were "sufficient", the rest "satisfied". Test winner in the vacuum and floor mopping robots is the "Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra" (1400 euros, grade 2.4). He was particularly convincing when vacuuming on hard floors and with a service station and good handling. The Medion X40 SW vacuum wiper device "X40 SW" is also "good" (2.5), but only costs 300 euros. It vacuums hard floors very well and at least wipes satisfactorily.
The four pure vacuum robots - without a water tank and wiping cloth - all perform "well". The "iRobot Roomba j7" (830 euros, 2.5) is the only device in the test that vacuums both hard floors and carpets well. For this, its handling is rated only mediocre. The "Neato D8" for 400 euros was rated a bit better with a grade of 2.3, which was cheaper and had a slightly better overall result.
(This article was first published on Wednesday, November 16, 2022.)
