The Deebot T30s smartly cleaned both our hardwood floors and carpet; we loved how it could attach its scrubbing pads, but then leave them back at the dock when it came time to vacuum.

The mopping is a cut above average, and the space-age looking curvy dock takes care of the mopping maintenance tasks including refilling the bot's onboard tank and washing and drying its mop pads. (You will need to supplement this with the occasional deeper clean, but that's unavoidable.)

Send it out several times a week, and it’ll nab all the dust and pet hair, lint and surface dirt on your floors before it has a chance to build up or get ground in.

I tried this high-tech golf bag with a speaker and solar panel — and it even has a game-improving trick

Although the RS20 Pro did a decent job at maintenance cleaning, has plenty of settings, and a great app, it fell short on several other things. It couldn't cope well with heavy-duty messes, particularly when tested on cat litter.

There are a few caveats when purchasing a robot vacuum this cheap. For starters, the iLife V3s Pro is slow, taking more than 90 minutes on average to clean a 5x5-foot test space — others took less than 30 minutes.

The Samsung JetBot AI+ is packed full of features to say the least, and it's one of the most attractive robot vacuums to grace my floors. This intelligent and gentle cleaner almost acts as a security camera as much as a robot Top 3 Automatic Vacuum Cleaners vacuum cleaner.

One of the downsides of automatic vacuum cleaners is that they can be a bit heavy. Make sure to choose a model that you will be able to easily maneuver around your home.

We also evaluated their ability to maneuver under furniture, navigate tight corners, overcome bumps and transition seamlessly between hard floors and carpets.

Another benefit is that robot vacuums are short enough to slip under the bed or couch. Because most feature side brushes to help scoop dirt from corners and edges, they can also vacuum along the walls to clean crevices that you might often skip or that your regular vacuum can’t reach.

It's also packed with handy features such as its upgraded AdaptLift chassis that allows easy access over tall thresholds (without getting stuck). The App was easy to set up, map and schedule routines. More importantly, the Orevo Curv excelled in the majority of our tests.

How big is your home? If your robot vacuum will have a lot of ground to cover, look for a model with a long battery life and a large dust bin.

Automatic vacuum cleaners are supposed to make your life easier, not harder. Make sure to choose a model that is easy to use. Check out the reviews to see what other people have had to say about the ease of use.

This mid-tier robovac offers good vacuuming and mopping, the mapping is strong, and it copes well with pet hair. It's less good at getting up to the edges of rooms and the object avoidance can be unreliable, though.