Best robot vacuum and mop for hard floors

ECOVACS's big promise is a roller rinsed with fresh water while it mops, so yesterday's dirt never gets smeared back across today's floor. On wood, that's the claim that matters, and it holds. In Vacuum Wars' dried-stain test the T90 earned 157, where that review's average was 108. The same lab weighed only 0.35 g of water left behind it. A three-month home test found the roller free of hair and the self-emptying strong.

It's good at the rest of the job too. It dodged 23 of 24 obstacles in the same lab, so the phone cable by the sofa isn't a death sentence. Pet hair flattened into that lab's carpet came up completely, and long hair never wrapped around its brush. The box quotes a 0.9 in (24 mm) climb, yet in testing it cleared a 1.3 in (32 mm) sill. A maker underselling its own robot is rare enough to frame. At 3.7 in tall with no turret, it slides under most sofas, and it can vacuum the whole floor before it starts mopping.

The roller reaches out about 0.6 in (1.5 cm) toward the baseboard, but the side brush doesn't extend. Nobody has tested how the US model copes with corners, so a kitchen full of cabinet corners is where we'd watch it first.

The catch is thick rugs. ECOVACS says the roller lifts 0.6 in (15 mm) on carpet, but nobody has tested whether that keeps a deep rug dry. Even ECOVACS's own sponsored three-month video admits it sometimes jams on a thick rug. Thin and medium rugs are fine. The shag in the den is not its friend.

The evidence is one lab, a three-month home test and owners. No second lab has weighed its mopping yet, so know it rests on one lab's numbers.

If your floors are wood, LVP or tile with thin to medium rugs, we'd buy it. Our full T90 review has the rest.

Roborock says that on carpet the roller lifts 0.6 in (15 mm) and a shield drops over it. That kind of feature usually works only in the brochure, but this one held. In The Hook Up's seven-robot run onto carpet, it was the only robot that left the rug dry. Its patch of dried mud also came up clean enough to pass a paper-towel check.

Then Vacuum Wars' dried-stain test gave it 25, in a review where the average was 112. Both results are real. That lab measured just 0.2 g of water left behind, under a fifth of its average. Tom's Guide saw streaks at the default water setting that vanished when it turned the flow up. Out of the box it mops with a light hand, and the testers and owners who ran it wetter got the clean floors.

It reaches edges by sliding the roller out. Roborock says that gets within about 0.4 in (10 mm) of the wall; nobody has measured it. It has no mop-only mode, and at 4.7 in tall it won't go under a low sofa. It climbs only about 0.75 in (19 mm), so a raised doorway stops it cold.

The catch is pet waste: its camera doesn't reliably spot it. In The Hook Up's test it rolled across the fake dog mess more than once.

It suits a single-level home with flush doorways and rugs that can't take a soaking. If your pets never slip up indoors, we'd buy it.

The X60's box boasts of mop pads washed at 212 °F (100 °C). I spent years being handed readings taken at the most flattering point in a system. This is the same trick: Dreame's own fine print puts that temperature at the heater, not the mop. RTINGS probed the wash area and drain and read 77–86 °F (25–30 °C). Another tester found the hottest spot on a freshly washed pad at 94 °F. The kettle is real. It just never meets your floor.

What the X60 does brilliantly is reach. The Hook Up found its swing-out pad mopped up to the edges far better than the eufy S2's roller managed. Baseboards and the toe kicks under cabinets get scrubbed instead of skipped. Dreame says vacuum-only runs leave the pads at the dock, which is how deep rugs stay dry; on a mixed run it wet the rug like the rest. It gets over a 2 in (51 mm) sill and slips under furniture as low as 3.1 in. RTINGS found it reliably avoids pet waste.

The catch is the mopping itself. Vacuum Wars' coffee-stain test gave it 136, where that review's average stood at 93. Yet RTINGS called it sub-par on dried stains in every configuration. On The Hook Up's dried mud it cleaned little beyond the seams of the planks. It also left 1.4 g of water. A superb robot that mops like a good one on its better days.

It's for deep rugs on hard floors, a dog that sheds hard and baseboards you're tired of wiping. For that home, we'd buy it. Our X60 review covers its carpet and pet-hair record.

Roborock's page waves a certificate for "0% hair tangling". Read the small print and it covers the side brush, which is like boasting your spare tire has never had a flat. The main brush wrapped 62% of Vacuum Wars' long test hair. Only 43% of the pet hair pressed into that lab's carpet came up, about half its average. Not for a home with a shedding dog.

On a hard floor it's a different machine. Its spinning pads scored 149 for dried stains, with 108 as that review's average. It left 1.15 g of water, a little above that lab's norm. That's fine on tile and sealed LVP, and worth watching on older wood. Roborock rates its wash water at 167 °F, and to its credit a footnote says that's measured at the heater. The pads don't swing out, so a three-month home test found edges and corners left behind.

The catch is that it's blind to small things. It avoided 5 of 24 obstacles, and the home test watched it run over a cable and toys. It needs a floor someone has picked up.

For tile or sealed LVP with barely a rug down and no shedding dog, we'd buy it.

eufy says the C28 "intelligently avoids obstacles". It tries with a line laser and no camera. The result sees the outline of your living room but not what's lying in it. It scored about average on Vacuum Wars' obstacle course, and in a three-month home trial it drove straight across fake dog poop and cables alike. For some homes that's the point. There's no camera or microphone on board, so nothing in the bedroom gets filmed.

Its roller is the quiet surprise of this page. It left 0.25 g of water, about a quarter of Vacuum Wars' average. It earned 119 in the dried-stain test, a little over the 108 its review gives as average. Wirecutter found it fine for daily mopping but nothing special on deep-set stains, and a step behind eufy's E25 at edges. Of the pet hair Vacuum Wars pressed into carpet, not a strand was left. eufy's user guide sets a limit of 0.7 in (18 mm) for rug thickness and asks you to tuck tasseled edges under. There's no mop-only mode.

The catch is the one you've chosen. It can't see mess, so it's for house-trained pets and floors someone clears first.

If nothing on your robot should be able to film your home, we'd buy it.