DEEBOT N8+

This is my 5th robot cleaner, I'm officially a convert.I have had several models and now use one on each floor of my home and my office.This one is the best yet. It has a whole host of really good features, and only a few minor niggles.Self Emptying - this is a major one. You don't have to empty the vacuum. As soon as it gets full, it returns to its Dock, empties itself and then carries on. I have found that in our circumstances I still have to clean the filter out about every bagful, but that's OK. The waste empties into a disposable bag. The bags are cheap enough, but I do feel they could have made it bagless if I had to find a fault.Room Mapping - Rather than bumping into everything to build its map, this robot uses LIDAR to map the room out. It's a massive upgrade and means the robot knows where it's going before you get there.App - The app is again a big upgrade from other robots I have had so far. You can add virtual walls within the app. Rather than having to block doorways so that the robot stays in one room, you can just go into the app, draw a line, done.Mopping - again another feature I'm pretty impressed with. I would say the mopping itself isn't quite to the same standard as getting out the mop and bucket yourself, but it is comparatively a lot less effort. My main criticism of this feature would be that it specifies not to use any cleaning fluids. I have this far just ignored this and added a small amount of floor cleaner. I'd rather I had to replace some parts or seals later on but that it cleaned the floor more effectively today.All in all its very impressive, and shows just how far these robots have come in a short number of years.Whilst there are a few minor criticisms, I'd still say this is overall a 5 star purchase.

This is pretty much my new favourite thing. While the set-up took some figuring out, once it's up and running, this is a very good bit of kit at a very reasonable price.The bot itself is easy to run and clean, and picks up cat hair, litter, and dust really well with the sweeping arms. The mop is really only for a better clean - it won't get rid of stains - but it's good for our concrete floor. The sensors are very clever, and it's only got stuck on wires once - as soon as I put a block in the app on that area, we've had no problems since, and I even ran it every day while we were out of the country on holiday and it started, cleaned, and returned to base with no issues.It did struggle with our thick rug, which I've had to since mark off on the map, but works really well on regular carpets. Unlike past upright vacuums I've had no problems with hair tangling the brushes. The self-emptying charging station is also great for people with allergies, as it means you don't need to empty the bin by hand.The noise of the vacuum running is quieter than the average vacuum, but be prepared for it to get very loud when emptying the dustbin - it sounds like a plane taking off for about 30 seconds, so I wouldn't run it overnight!We have the charging dock set up downstairs, and it runs downstairs daily. Once a week I'll manually take it upstairs and set it to run via the app. The app is very simple to use.Would really recommend this vacuum to anyone considering a robot cleaner. It's made a huge difference to the cleanliness of our house (three indoor cats!), and gives me one less thing to worry about with regards to cleaning.

I have now got two of these robots, one for upstairs and one for downstairs. They vacuum very well, provided that you remove obstacles you have learned the robot will get stuck on, such as cables or thick mats. The auto-emptying does not seem always to fully work so sometimes I have to manually empty the dust compartment, perhaps because I have dogs with long hair. This is a pain because you pay quite a bit extra for the auto-emptying feature.The mop does wipe the floor but there is no brush action so I find that marks will often remain. It lacks the vigour for the mopping job, but the main reason I got the robot(s) for is vacuuming.In terms of vacuuming it does a very good job. The drop-detection does not work well so I block the stairwells so it doesn't take a dive. Once you set everything up the robot will vacuum tirelessly, with the lights off, recharge when the battery gets flat, and carry on to finish the job. Lights off is good because you can clean at night. You can program cleaning schedules on the App. It has already picked up a considerable amount of dust and hairs. The dogs treat it with wary respect but it has not yet attempted to vacuum either of them up. It also does a good job of mapping the room(s) and then cleaning subsequently in a striped pattern for efficiency. It is fascinating to watch the laser system map out the room, then after it has mapped, the robot does the cleaning in neat rows. It's quicker if you lift up the chairs but if you don't it will work its way around all the legs. It can also get under beds, where dust can accumulate due to the difficulty of getting it out. The robot is very quiet, so if I am working it may come cleaning around my ankles while I am at the computer, but it is not intrusive. The robot, like all vacuuming robots, struggles with steps. I have a one-inch step it will not go up, so I just bought some wood and I am going to make a ramp: I think this will work because the propulsion is solid and powerful, and it only stops because the bumper regards the step as an obstacle - a ramp will not trigger the bumper.All in all, I like this robot for vacuuming and it has saved a huge amount of work. I think if you want a robot mop you probably need to get a separate one that only mops, but I didn't go for this because it works out very expensive to have multiple machines.