❌ You're on a budget: This is a premium robovac, and while we think the performance justifies the price, there are cheaper alternatives if it's out of your budget.

If your priority is size, though, this is a solid choice. Our reviewer felt it would be a great choice as an 'upstairs' robot vacuum, away from the tougher challenges of kitchens and living rooms.

But they’re worth considering — especially if you have carpets and pets. I love self-empty docks, but sometimes you don’t have space for them, and if you like your robot to be out of sight (living under your bed or sofa), you’ll want a big bin and no dock.

This pint-sized but powerful robovac is perfect for small homes – and it just dropped to less than half price

That’s the big selling point here; this bot is basically hands-free. Fill the S8 MaxV Ultra’s clean water tank and empty its dirty water once a week and change out the dust bag every couple of months. The robot will take care of the rest.

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After at least two weeks of testing, we consolidate our findings and use them to judge who (if anyone) we'd recommend the robot vacuum to. We also compare the features and build quality to the price, to assess if the robot vacuum is good value for money.

Staying on top of routine robot vacuum maintenance, such as regularly emptying out the dust bin and filter, and clearing the brush roll of hair, will help ensure that your robot vacuum stays in tip-top shape as long as possible.

iRobot’s app is also a bit of a pain point. While I appreciate its simplicity, I miss the deeper cleaning customization options that most other high-end robot vacuum apps offer.

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It fared less well on carpet. However, in the app, I could set it to clean a room three times for each job, after which it had generally picked up all visible debris.

The impressive suction pulled huge volumes of hair from carpet, and handled hard floors extremely well too. We had pelo issues with the hair clogging the self-empty mechanism, and a larger-than-usual dock dustbin also means you won't need to replace the dust bags too frequently.

There are some downsides, Top 3 Automatic Vacuum Cleaners though. The suction power is low for the price bracket – in fact, generally, you're paying a premium for the small size here.

❌ You want something that mops well: The mopping here is just dragging a wet wipe across the floor, and not worth bothering with.