Best cheap robot vacuums

This robot vacuum has powerful suction (4,000Pa), carpet detection, and if you have a mix of flooring, chunky rugs or raised thresholds, it can cope well with a bit of climbing.

It has some features you won’t find on every model either, such as voice notifications: the D10 Plus will let you know what it’s doing as it’s doing it.

The mapping is detailed and accurate and will allow you to vac, mop, or simultaneously vac and mop individual rooms, rooms in a particular sequence, the entire area, or a specific zone in a room.  You can also customise suction and mopping settings for different rooms.

You’ll get 45 days of cleaning before you need to empty the charging base, but the base is larger than many featured in this round-up, so you’ll need to find room for it.

This is a newer model, with good navigation and strong suction. It can distinguish between hard flooring and carpets, and when it reaches a carpet it’ll ramp up the suction for a more thorough clean.

We found its mapping to be accurate, and you’ll be able to make maps for different floors or areas of your home and customise cleaning.

It comes with an auto-empty dock, which means you can set a cleaning schedule and forget about it – for up to 3 months.

It mops as well, but you’ll need to fill the onboard tank and fit the mop pad by hand, as well as wash the mop pad afterwards.

This is an older model that’s come down in price and it’s a good option for pet owners, with strong (4,000Pa) twin-turbine suction and an anti-tangle roller brush – although we think you’ll still need to remove some hair by hand.

We found its laser navigation to be solid, except that it struggled to spot low objects and, while it would carefully stop short of taller obstacles, it ploughed into low pet bowls.

Mapping was accurate: you can merge and section off rooms, and set custom cleaning settings for each room, choosing the water level (when mopping), suction power, and whether it cleans the room once or twice.

The auto-empty base is compact but holds a 2.5l antibacterial dust bag, which will allow you up to a month and a half of cleaning before you need to change it.

Mopping isn’t quite as hands-off. You’ll need to fill the onboard tank and fit the mop, but you can then specify mopping levels for each room. One thing to note is that it will leave a slightly damp trail behind after mopping, so you might want to specify carpeted areas as no-go zones.

This is another slightly older model that you can now get for less. As with many similar models, the compromise is less advanced mopping features.

The N8+ has impressive suction, decent mopping and a brilliant mapping system that’ll allow you to set up sophisticated cleaning schedules, with no-go areas marked up.

Its carpet auto-detection means it’ll automatically ramp up the power when it encounters a rug or carpet, saving power for when it needs it.

On the minus side, the N8+ isn’t the best climber and got itself stuck more often than many of the robot vacs we test.

The Proscenic X1 vacuums, mops and has an auto-empty dock. The X1 also has carpet detection and will boost power to the vacuum when needed.

You can make and store up to five maps and set room-by-room cleaning schedules. It has a shorter battery life than many models, however, at around 30 minutes.

It’s not the best climbing robot, and got stuck a few times during our testing.

We also found the app connection to be a little buggy at times, and the app features some poor translation, but the X1 comes with a remote which you can use in place of the app if you prefer.