• Existing ban on drones and routers extended to "advanced" robots
• FCC has confirmed that robot vacuums are included
• No effect on products already authorized by the FCC for US sales

The US's latest ban on foreign hardware is coming for an unlikely target: robot vacuum cleaners and likely robot lawn mowers too.

The ban comes via the White House, which has extended its previous ban on foreign-made drones and Wi-Fi routers. The ban now includes foreign-made power inverters and "advanced robots" on the grounds that they pose a national security risk to the US.

If you're finding it hard to imagine Russia rigging your vacuum cleaner, or Iran invading the US via an army of lawnbots... yeah. Us too.

How will the ban on robot vacuum cleaners work?

The ban doesn't outlaw the use of robots that you already own, so you're not going to have to hand over your robo-vac to the authorities. However, it bans the sale of "advanced robotic devices".

The definition of advanced robotic devices refers specifically to "autonomous mobile robots, humanoid robots, and quadrupeds" that can move around, avoid obstacles and weigh 4.4lbs or more including any ground station or docking station. Many robot vacuums and lawn mowers meet those criteria, and the FCC has confirmed to PC Mag that the ban does indeed apply to cleaning robots.

This is bad news for the big robot brands such as Ecovacs, Roborock and Dreame; the top five US robot vacuum brands are all Chinese, and therefore fall under this ban, so we contacted them for comment.

"We are aware of the FCC’s recent update," Eric Villines, Chief Communications Officer at Anker Innovations (the parent company of Eufy), told TechRadar. "Based on our current understanding, the new rule does not affect the continued availability, use or support of products we currently sell in the United States. Those products remain available and will continue to receive updates and customer support,

"Like others across the industry, we are seeking further clarity on how the rule will be applied to future products, and we will keep our customers informed. We remain committed to complying with all regulatory requirements in every market where we operate."

Several other smart home brands declined to comment at this early stage, but we get the general impression that this news might have come as something of a surprise.

Can you keep using your robovac?

There is one bit of sunshine in this cloud, however: the ban is not retrospective, so if a robot already has FCC authorization to be sold in the US that's fine. The ban does not prevent retailers "from continuing to sell, import, or market relevant models approved previously."

That said, PC Mag identifies a separate FCC order that says existing robot vacuums and similar products "may continue to receive software and firmware updates that mitigate harm to US consumers at least until January 1, 2029." If the FCC decides not to extend that then it's just put a countdown clock on any new Chinese-made robot vacuums sold in the US.

For the affected manufacturers, the next step will be to lobby the FCC in the hope of gaining an exemption for some or all of their products: after all, there's a big difference between a self-driving, self-cleaning mop and a robot dog capable of carrying an AR-15. However, so far there haven't been any exemptions for major Chinese drone or router manufacturers so the future is not looking very bright for the affected companies.

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Robot vacuums have been around for many years, and modern bots are cleverer and more helpful than ever. But while they are getting more popular, they seem to be struggling to properly break through to the mainstream. See a robot vacuum in someone's house, and you'd probably still remark on it. The aim for robovac brands must be to at some point overtake manual vacs as the general public's dust-sucker of choice — so why isn't that happening?

I rounded up representatives from some of the best robot vacuum brands to get their take. I wanted to learn more about the misconceptions that brands are still fighting against, how perceptions of these handy puck-shaped home helpers has changed, and what challenges still remain if robovacs are going to truly hit the mainstream.

Get with the times

"Robot vacuums are gradually being accepted and adopted by the public, rather than being treated as a novel and unrealistic concept," insists Michael Meng, president of the robotic vacuum division at Dreame.

"Admittedly, the market share of robot vacuums is still smaller than that of stick vacuums and upright vacuums, but the trend towards automated, hands-free household cleaning is inevitable," he adds. The problem — as all of my interviewees agree — is that people's perceptions are stuck in the past.

"The issue isn't technical — it's psychological," says Faraz Mehdi, a managing director at Eufy. "Many people who've used robot vacuums still associate the category with 'mopping with dirty water' and 'poor carpet cleaning' — real pain points from a few years ago. Today's products are fundamentally different."

"One lingering misconception is that robot vacuums are still novelty gadgets that wander randomly, get stuck constantly, and cannot clean as well as a conventional vacuum. That perception often comes from earlier generations of the category," says Ricky Ma, the general manager for Europe and America at Roborock.

He continues: "The biggest opportunity is helping consumers understand that a robot vacuum is not simply a smaller vacuum; it is an automated, intelligent cleaning system designed to maintain the home every day and free up their time in a way that no other appliance can compete with."

"Ultimately, the industry's continued growth will depend not only on technological innovation but also on helping consumers better understand how far the category has evolved," adds Dreame's Meng. "Bridging the gap between perception and reality remains one of the most important opportunities for the industry as a whole."

Welcome to the real world

So there are unfair assumptions about modern robot vacuum performance, but there are also genuine issues that still need to be solved. As a robovac reviewer, I'm regularly struck by how simultaneously smart and stupid these bots can be — for every bot raising itself majestically over a tall room threshold, there's another determinedly head-butting a French door.

I'm in wholehearted agreement with Reena Patel — a floorcare category manager at iRobot, the brand behind Roomba — when she suggests that autonomy and reliability should be the key focus areas.

"While robot vacuums have become significantly smarter, consumers still expect them to navigate increasingly complex environments, avoid everyday obstacles, handle pet hair effectively, and transition seamlessly between different floor types without intervention," she says.

"The goal is to deliver consistently excellent cleaning results while reducing the need for maintenance, ensuring the robot can truly operate as a set-and-forget solution that fits effortlessly into consumers' daily lives."

Minimal human intervention is one of the hot robot vacuum trends du jour, but it's easier said than done. Mehdi points out that, in the UK at least, plenty of people live in old apartments or multi-story homes, both of which are "historically a nightmare for robots". Throw in challenges like clutter, low-slung furniture, uneven flooring, and mixtures of different floor types, and it's easy to see why people might assume a robot vacuum wouldn't be able to cope.

There are solutions to some of these problems — albeit mostly confined to the premium end of the market. Today's most advanced flagship robots have features like little stilts for vaulting tall thresholds, sensors that identify and respond to different surfaces, and slimline designs that can sneak under furniture.

However, the challenge is to hone those features to a point where they work consistently and reliably. After all, if, your bot misjudges the height of a space and gets itself wedged, or fails to cross a step on the way back to its dock, and you're not around to bail it out, that can put a pretty abrupt end to the cleaning for the day.

"It’s one thing for a robot to perform well in a demo, but another to perform reliably, day after day, in homes that are busy, messy, and unpredictable," admits Mehdi. "The real issue isn't what the product can do, it's that consumers haven't seen it perform in their own space."

The bigger picture

The robot vacuum market has evolved considerably in the past few years, but so too has what customers are looking for. All my interviewees agreed lofty specs are no longer the route to a customer's heart (or wallet).

"Customers are looking beyond headline suction figures and realize that the performance of robot vacuums is the combination of a lot of features," says Dreame's Meng.

Eufy's Mehdi echoes his sentiments: "A few years ago, the category was often marketed around isolated features like suction power. But consumers are now evaluating robot vacuums much more holistically. People are looking for real cleaning outcomes, not just bigger numbers on a spec sheet."

Expectations are also rising — a number of the brands I spoke to told me that customers increasingly want bots that can mop as well as vacuuming, and are looking for models with self-maintenance features like dust-emptying, water tank refilling, and mop washing.

iRobot's Patel comments that customers are "more willing to purchase premium robot vacuums to deliver a genuinely hands-off experience".

Dreame's Meng argues that the move from cheap-and-basic to pricey-and-advanced bots reflects a change in perceptions. "Users are starting to realize that they can trust robot vacuums to take on more of their household cleaning."

Pricier bots might be becoming more popular, but customers aren't willing to splash their cash on just anything. Mehdi at Eufy describes a demand for "flagship-level experiences… at broader price points", noting that even at the upper end of the market, people are "rational about value".

"The market is shifting towards products that deliver meaningful innovation people can actually use and justify paying for," he explains.

As part of this trend, the early adopters who took a leap of faith with a simpler model a few years ago are now ready for something more advanced. "We have observed a significant shift from 'first-time experimenters' to 'sophisticated upgraders'," Roborock's Ma tells me.

These shoppers are seeking out replacements that solve the issues that frustrated them with their first bot. Thanks to design innovations, many problems that plagued early robot vacuums — hair tangling, poor edge coverage and stinky mop pads — are far less common in modern models.

Not your average robovac

Features and price decisions aside, my interviewees have noticed a broader change in purchasing habits — and it's tied to how people see robot vacuums. "More consumers are treating robot vacuums as long-term home automation investments rather than one-off gadgets," says Richard Mou, co-founder of SwitchBot. "They're spending more time comparing ecosystem compatibility, software updates, and after-sales support before making a purchase."

Mehdi describes a dovetailing of approaches. At the upper end of the market, he's noticed customers going really in-depth with the research and product comparison, while at the more affordable end of the market, the decision-making process is different.

"There, trust can matter more than technical comparisons," he says. "Ratings, reviews, brand reputation, and recommendations from friends or family are often more influential than specs alone."

"That tells us something important about where the category is today," he concludes. "As robot vacuums become more mainstream, people are evaluating them less like gadgets and more like long-term home appliances."

So robot vacuums are getting smarter, customers are starting to embrace the modern advancements now on offer, and brands are working to address the pain-points that still linger when it comes to using a robovac in a real, messy, haphazard home.

The fact that people are viewing their robot vacuums as investment purchases rather than short-lived impulse purchases suggests things are moving in the right direction. Perhaps we will yet see a future where, when we see a robot vacuum in the corner of a room, it'll no longer be worthy of comment.

The world of robot vacuums has come a long way. I've been testing and writing about these puck-shaped home helpers for over two years, and during that time I've watched suction specs skyrocket, bots sprout legs and pincer arms, and docks transform into formidable, self-sufficient cleaning stations. Robot vacuums are looking cleverer and more useful than ever.

I wanted to get an idea of where the industry is headed, and what the next generation of robovacs might look like. So I rounded up representatives from some of the best robot vacuum brands to get their insights — and it's clear from what they told me that this smart-home segment is going to get even bigger… and even weirder.

Complete cleaners

The obvious place to start is with the cleaning itself, and there's one point that my interviewees all agreed on: it's no longer all about the suction specs. "Customers are looking beyond headline suction figures and realizing the performance of robot vacuums is the combination of a lot of features," says Michael Meng, President of Dreame's robot vacuum division.

Nowadays, customers are looking for better cleaning, rather than just outright power, and robovac brands have been happy to oblige, with all manner of inventive solutions.

Roborock, for example, has been working hard to make sure no corner goes uncleaned. "We see a massive push for ultra-slim designs that don't sacrifice power," says Ricky Ma, general manager for Europe and America. "People want a device that can finally clean the forgotten spaces under low-profile furniture — couches, beds, and cabinets — where dust and allergens traditionally accumulate and remain out of reach for bulkier robots."

The brand's newest bots use an innovative navigation system that doesn't require a raised puck to sit on the top surface. Roborock — alongside Dreame — has also experimented with pucks that can extend or retract, periscope-style, depending on the vertical height available.

Mopping functions have been the subject of much attention, too. Wet cleaning is nothing new — in fact, these days you might struggle to find a model that can't mop — but I've been seeing an increasing preference for roller mops rather than flat mop pads (either of the D-shaped or disc-shaped variety). The benefit of a cylindrical mop is that the dirty water can be scraped off, and clean water added in, as the robovac goes about its mopping business.

"One development that particularly excites me is the introduction of roller mop technology, which helps ensure floors are continuously cleaned with a fresh mop surface," says Reena Patel,

Floorcare Category Manager at iRobot, the brand behind Roomba.

Faraz Mehdi, managing director at Eufy, agrees. "Users increasingly care about whether the robot is actually cleaning with a clean mop and truly removing dirty water, rather than just spreading mess around," he says. "Real-time self-cleaning mopping makes a meaningful difference."

Eufy is also looking into improving filtration. In manual vacuums, Dyson has popularized multi-step filtration systems, which make use of cyclones to separate waste particles of different sizes. However, that hasn't really carried over into robot vacuums, which typically have a much more basic setup.

Eufy's AeroTurbo filter setup is significantly more complex. "We’re interested in airflow and dust-separation systems that help deliver more sustained suction performance, especially in homes with carpets and hair," explains Faraz. "One of the biggest pain points in the category is that cleaning performance can fall over time as filters clog, so technologies like multi-cyclone separation matter because they improve long-term consistency."

Dreame has made particular strides in innovations focused on getting right into edges and corners. "No matter how powerful a robot vacuum is, dust and debris collect in corners and along edges where brushes simply can't reach. It's one of those problems that sounds minor until you actually look at how dirty those corners get," says Michael Meng.

Its newest bot — the X60 Pro Ultra Complete — has 'UltraExtend technology', which enables the mop pad to kick out up to 7 inches / 18cm from the robot body, and the side sweeper brush to unfurl, E.T.-style, to reach up to 4.7 inches / 12cm.

The design is inspired by human limbs. "When you extend your forearm, your reach increases significantly," Meng explains. "We applied that same principle to our robotic arm design — engineering it to fold and unfold in a way that mimics natural arm movement."

Intertwined with cleaning performance is battery function. "A robot vacuum that runs out of power mid-clean is more frustration than solution," says Meng. "Consumers with larger homes or open-plan layouts need a robot that can complete a full clean in a single charge — or intelligently return to dock, recharge and resume exactly where it left off. Battery efficiency, combined with smart charging and resume functionality, has become a key purchasing consideration for households of all sizes."

Mind the (performance) gap

Even with all the performance advancements, it's still the case that a robot vacuum-mop won't clean as well as a manual vacuum could. Robovacs are winning on convenience, but not on cleaning power. The long-term aim is to catch up. "The first step is to close the cleaning performance gap — reaching, and eventually surpassing, handheld devices," says Faraz from Eufy.

Longer-term, he sees things progressing to a point where robot vacuums can tackle not just vacuuming and straightforward mopping, but a wider range of cleaning demands.

"Technologies like roller mopping, steam cleaning, and multi-cyclone systems are maturing," he points out. "In the next five to 10 years, robot vacuums will take on true deep-cleaning capabilities — thorough carpet washing, high-temperature steam disinfection and floor sanitization. The kinds of tasks that currently require dedicated equipment or professional services will gradually fall within the robot vacuum remit."

The trump card robot vacuums already hold over manual cleaning appliances is that they take care of the job on their own. It makes sense, then, that continuing to improve automation is a key focus for all the brands I spoke to.

"In the 12 years we have existed as a company, trends have shifted constantly," says Roborock's Ricky Ma. "Currently, the primary trend is 'zero-maintenance and zero human intervention', where users expect a robot to not only vacuum and mop but also self-clean, self-dry, and navigate complex environments without human intervention."

"The biggest challenge is making advanced automation feel completely effortless," adds SwitchBot's co-founder Richard Mou. "Our goal is to reduce the number of times users need to think about their robot."

iRobot's Reena Patel points out that this focus on autonomy is reflected in iRobot's sales patterns. "We've seen consumers become more willing to purchase premium robot vacuums to deliver a genuinely hands-off experience," she tells me. "Consumers are increasingly prioritizing features that save time, such as self-emptying and self-cleaning docks, advanced mopping systems, and intelligent obstacle avoidance."

A big part of the equation when it comes to true autonomy is maintenance. "People increasingly expect higher automation," says Eufy's Faraz Mehdi. "Features like auto-emptying, mop washing, drying, and anti-tangle systems are becoming much more important because users want a robot that genuinely reduces housework, rather than creating a new maintenance routine."

The ultimate aim is robovacs that don't require you to get involved at all — as Mehdi puts it, "zero manual intervention, end to end", including "full-chain self-maintenance, so the user never needs to maintain the machine itself."

Self-maintenance is one thing, but for a robot to operate without a human chaperone present, it also needs reliable navigation and object avoidance skills. These are essential if it's not going to get lost, stuck or tangled in something.

"Accurate navigation is the foundation of an effective robot vacuum," says Dreame's Michael Meng. "Advanced LiDAR and AI-powered object recognition allow modern robots to avoid obstacles in real time.... Smart robots should not be trapped or stuck easily, so they can work on their own without users to rescue them."

I've never met a robot vacuum that's not desperate to jam itself up by chowing down on any charge cable it can get its wheels on, so here I'd like to put in a personal appeal for more focus on low-level object avoidance.

Time to step up

When it comes to robot vacuums making their way around unassisted, the ultimate hurdle to overcome is stairs. The more premium of the current fleet of bots tend to come kitted out with something akin to small stilts, which raise up the body of the vacuum and enable it to maneuver over tall room thresholds.

However, traversing an actual flight of stairs requires an altogether more involved approach. "It sounds like a simple problem, but for anyone living in a multi-story home, it's one of the biggest limitations of robot vacuums today," Meng notes.

As far as I'm aware, there are just three brands who have offered some kind of stair climbing solution, and they're all represented in my pack of interviewees. For Dreame, it's the Cyber X — essentially a stair-climbing pocket into which a robot vacuum can dock when it needs to change floors. Think of it like a stairlift for robovacs. Eufy's MarsWalker takes a similar approach.

Roborock's Saros Rover is rather different, with its two long, spindly legs that enable it to scale not just steps but all kinds of uneven terrain. Ricky Ma sees it as a major breakthrough in bots that don't require human intervention. "The future of this category is exciting and we can't wait to show everyone what we have to offer," he enthuses. I saw the Rover in action at CES 2026, and it was a complete departure from any robot vacuum I've seen before. At that point, it was still at prototype stage — I'll be watching with interest to see how things develop.

Future-gazing

So far, I've been focusing on developments that have already started to take root. But what about the longer term? I asked my interviewees their predictions for what the robovac market might look like in five to 10 years' time, and they had some intriguing answers.

Eufy believes autonomous decision-making is going to change the game. "Robot vacuums will reach a level of intelligence where they can genuinely understand the home environment, identify different types of dirt, and autonomously choose the optimal cleaning strategy," Faraz Mehdi predicts.

Roborock is planning along similar lines. "Robovacs are rapidly shifting from an appliance to a smart cleaning partner. The most important shift will be greater physical intelligence," says Ricky Ma. "The ultimate goal is to build an intelligent cleaning partner that can spot the need to clean even before the user has time to ask the product to do so."

Further to this, a few of the execs I interviewed envision about a future where robot vacuums are no longer lone rangers, but work seamlessly alongside other smart appliances.

"Rather than operating as standalone devices, they will become increasingly connected with the wider smart home ecosystem, working more intelligently with other devices," says Dreame's Michael Meng.

Meng also sees a future where robovacs are far from the only autonomous helpers in the home. "While the familiar robot vacuum will remain an important form factor, its capabilities will extend well beyond floor cleaning," he says. "Advances in technologies such as robotic manipulation and embodied AI will enable these robots to interact more naturally with their surroundings and take on a broader range of household tasks."

SwitchBot's Richard Mou has an even more fully formed vision for the future: "I think we'll stop thinking about robovacs as a standalone category and instead see them as part of a broader family of home robots," he tells me.

"As embodied AI and humanoid robotics continue to mature, robot vacuums will contribute proven capabilities like autonomous navigation, environmental perception, and home mapping, while future humanoid robots build on those foundations to take on a much wider range of household tasks. At SwitchBot, that's exactly how we see the future — creating intelligent home robots that work together as one ecosystem rather than isolated devices."

Prepare yourself for the home robot takeover — and for an even cleaner home.

I've been testing and writing about robot vacuums for nearly a decade here on TechRadar Australia and one of the standouts for me in the past 12 months was (if you'll excuse the pun) an absolute dream machine.

If you read my in-depth Dreame Aqua10 Ultra review, you'll know just how impressed I was with its overall performance, and my nitpicking complaints were mostly to do with how its battery gets used, which honestly isn't even a complaint — perhaps more of an observation.

It is, however, a premium model that I've only very rarely seen discounted. Its slightly cheaper sibling, the standard Dreame Aqua10 Roller, though, is almost as good and also currently 44% off on Amazon, and just AU$69.35 more than its Prime Day price from earlier this July.

That's still a sight better than having to pay nearly three grand for the Ultra version.

The differences between Aqua10 Roller and its Ultra sibling may seem like a long list, but trust someone who's still using the latter in her own home — it's overkill and not worth the extra cash.

So what are those differences? Well, for starters, the LiDAR turret doesn't lower itself automatically on the standard Roller version, but that's not unique to it, especially at this price. It also misses out on the 3D mapping that the Ultra version does but, again, a 2D map is pretty much all most people will need (floors, after all, tend to be pretty flat). And it gets a single-compartment soap dispenser instead of the dual-slot one in the Ultra which, again, isn't necessary unless you want to use an odour-neutralising solution as well.

For your money, you're still getting a whopping 30,000Pa of suction which, going by how well my Ultra version utilises it, will do very well on carpets and I am in awe at how well the roller mop works on the Dreame. There are plenty of intelligent features available on the Aqua10, including intelligent stain removal, so if you think your robovac has forgotten its navigation path and is circling, that's likely just its sensors picking up extra dirt in a small area and getting the bot to clean repeatedly for a thorough job.

It's also a machine that promises excellent edge cleaning, since it uses the exact same side brush and extending roller mop as the Ultra model. And the Roller even has the same automatic mop cover, which comes on as soon as it detects carpet to keep the mop head clean and your carpet dry.

While the Roller doesn't quite match the Ultra's ability to move over thresholds and steps up to 8cm tall, it's capacity to tackle heights up to 6cm is still above average, and means it can potentially head into patio areas if your sliding door frames aren't very high.

If it performs anywhere as well as my Ultra model, I think the Dreame Aqua10 Roller will be hard to beat at its current discounted price.

Eufy Omni S2: two-minute review

Eufy’s latest flagship robotic vacuum and mop, the Omni S2 is a hugely impressive appliance that combines excellent mopping with brilliant vacuuming to create one of the best home cleaning systems you can buy. It also self-cleans so thoroughly that, after several weeks of daily use, the dust bin, rollers and mop still looked like new.

The Omni S2 uses warm water to clean its spinning mop as it goes, while also scraping away dirt and using cyclone technology to whisk dust more efficiently into the onboard bin, instead of leaving it to clog up the filters. Water is ozonated in the base station to further improve cleaning performance, and there’s an integrated detergent system too.

The robot itself can even be fitted with a fragrance diffuser, which makes your room smell nice after every clean; three different scents are included in the box and, along with the detergent, and can be replenished from Eufy’s website.

It navigates well, mostly avoiding contact with walls and doors while driving very closely to all manner of obstacles without pushing them around, driving over them or ingesting them. The S2 is good at climbing over raised carpets, rugs and door thresholds — something the Omni S1 struggled with – and the app does a great job of quickly mapping your home, with a simple editing system for labeling every room correctly, and even adding virtual furniture.

I was impressed by how quiet the Omni S2 is, even with its powerful Cyclone mode engaged, and how the base station doesn’t sound like an Airbus when emptying the robot. It’s a very expensive product, but one that looks good and performs extremely well.

Eufy Omni S2: price and availability

• List price: $1,599 / £1,599 / AU$2,299
• Launched: March 2026

Just two years on from the launch of the Omni S1 Pro, Eufy now has the Omni S2. This is now the company’s flagship robotic vacuum and mop, with a price, performance and feature set to match.

It carries a recommended retail price of $1,599 / £1,599 / AU$2,299, making it £300 more expensive than the S1 pro, which remains on sale. That’s an awful lot of money for a vacuum cleaner — especially when

Eufy’s own range of robovacs starts under the £150 mark, and one of my favourites — the X10 Pro Omni vacuum and mop — is a comparative snip at £599.

What does the extra £1,000 get you with the S2? More power, of course, with greater suction thanks to Eufy’s new AeroTurbo 2.0 tech, improved intelligence, greater threshold clearance, a more powerful mop, better computer vision, a self-cleaning mop, electrolysed water, integrated detergent and even a built-in fragrance system with three included scents to pick from.

An additional cost to bear in mind is Eufy’s replacement parts kit. The brushes, bags, mops and rollers of all vacuum cleaners need replacing, so ongoing costs aren’t unusual, but Eufy likes to charge plenty. A complete kit for the S2 is £79.99. Premium parts for a premium robovac, I suppose. More welcome is Eufy’s new two-year warranty, which applies to all robot vacuums launched in 2026 and doubles the previous coverage.

• Value score: 3.5/5

Eufy Omni S2: specifications

Eufy Omni S2: design

• Docking station with charger, dust bag, water tanks and mop drying
• Rotating, self-cleaning mop
• Integrated detergent and fragrance supply

The S2 has a similar but more refined look than its S1 predecessor. The subtle bronze tint to sections of the robot and docking station give it a premium aesthetic that blends nicely with the futuristic lighting in both the clean water tank of the dock, and the robot’s onboard dust bin.

Taller than many docking stations, but significantly more elegant than most, the Omni S2’s appearance helps to justify its lofty price tag — and that’s further aided by the display and touch controls on top of the dock. These are handily located to press without stooping down to the robot itself, while the screen is useful for checking on the robot’s status and spotting error messages.

Short of making you a cup of tea while the robot cleans up, the S2’s docking station does absolutely everything. It charges the robot, empties its dust bin, replenishes its water supply (and even ozonates fresh water before it’s fed to the mop), cleans the mop with water heated to 70 degrees centigrade, dries it with hot air, refills the detergent tank, and has enough dust bin capacity for up to a claimed 68 days between bag replacements.

The robot itself is almost circular, with a central roller that’s claimed to be 100 percent tangle free, a pair of spinning side brushes, and a roller mop that self-cleans, slides outwards by 1.5cm to reach into corners and even an onboard fragrance supply to make your home smell nice. The S2 includes three different fragrances in the box, but these are a bespoke design so replacements can only be bought from Eufy itself. The same goes for the detergent bottle too, while thankfully the 2.5-litre dust bags are generic.

I like how the Omni S2 looks. Its design is more sophisticated than that of the S1, and I can imagine it neatly complementing the lavish houses of its deep-pocketed buyers. And while tall, at 670mm (26.4 inches), the docking station is relatively slim.

The robot is also relatively short, at 85mm. This compares favorably against taller, bulkier robovacs like the Dyson Spot+Scrub AI, which towers over the Eufy at 110mm and is less capable of cleaning beneath low furniture.

A welcome design upgrade for the Eufy Omni S2 is its ability to now clear door thresholds up to 4.2cm tall, up from just 2cm for the Omni S1. I was often left frustrated by that robot’s inability to drive up from exposed floorboards to a carpeted neighboring room, but have had no such issues with the S2.

• Design score: 5/5

Eufy Omni S2: performance

• Impressive vacuuming
• Excellent mopping
• Strong improvement over the S1

From the setup process and mapping, to vacuuming, mopping, navigation and self-cleaning, the Omni S2 is a triumph. You might say it should well be for the massive price tag, but even in 2026 it’s rare for such a complex new product to impress so universally. Where the Eufy Omni S1 struggled in some key areas — navigation, threshold clearance and sometimes even vacuuming — the S2’s performance is close to perfect.

Yes, it’s an ultra-premium product with a price to match. This is right up there with your Leica camera, Rimowa suitcase and five-figure turntable. I imagine the typical Omni S2 owner is the sort of person who wouldn't blink at splashing out on a pair of Apple AirPods Max 2 at the airport because they forgot their first-gens at home. They’d probably deal with a flight delay by picking up a new Swiss watch, too.

And that’s absolutely fine. Whatever the product, there’s always something that happens to sell the most expensive one, and for robotic vacuums that just so happens to be Eufy with the Omni S2. That doesn’t inherently count against it, because there are always customers happy to pay a premium for the one they like, or not really care about the cost because the S2’s spec sheet, design and feature set already put it at the top of the market.

What matters is how it performs in the real world, and how that compares to user expectations. Naturally, mine were at an all-time high and the S2 mostly delivered. The vacuuming performance is noticeably better than with the S1, and after a month of testing I still smile at the neat stripes vacuumed into my lounge carpet — and at how pleasant the S2’s fragrance system makes every room smell.

Eufy has improved navigation since the S1, and now the S2 is smart enough to not vacuum over the tasselled ends of a rug. It also automatically detects rug and carpet thickness, then raises itself by up to 50mm (1.97 inches) to prevent getting stuck in deep-pile fabric. In my testing, the S2 flagged a potentially tricky bit of carpet — which was actually an integrated but deeply contoured door mat — so I could tell it to ignore the concern or permanently avoid it.

Navigation and map creation is generally good. The robot only once got stuck and called for help, and I was impressed by how quickly the S2 mapped the ground floor of my home and did a decent job of detecting room boundaries. I used the app to fine-tune these, and was pleased to see how the S2 had added 3D cupboards, sofas, tables, chairs and other bits of furniture to the map. This isn’t strictly necessary, but it’s nice to see how the S2 correctly understands its environment.

Eufy claims a maximum suction of 30,000Pa, which is a huge upgrade over the 8,000Pa of the Omni S1 and other Eufy robots like the X10. There are four suction modes — Quiet, Standard, Turbo and Max — three options of cleaning intensity, three water levels, and the option of performing each cleaning task once or twice. As with the S1, the S2 returns to base whenever it needs to empty its bin, clean the mop, replenish its water supply or charge the battery. A mode called AI Automation promises to adjust cleaning strategy based on room type, floor material and cleaning frequency.

The Omni S2 deeply impressed during the first few weeks of general use, keeping hard floors and carpets clean — even after a cockapoo puppy joined our household, and his insistence on helping with garden projects brought a lot of dirt into the house. It was a joy, quite frankly, to have the S2 on hand, ready to clean up after every chaotic evening of dog zoomies.

I also loved how the S2 kept itself clean. Not only is the mop cleaned and dried with every use, but the cyclone-style dust collection ensures the onboard bin is practically spotless after each empty, and the filters don’t get clogged up. The rollers also looked like new after many hours of use, thanks to an anti-tangle design that actually works.

The mopping system works as well as the S1’s — evidenced by the absolutely filthy water collected in the waste tank of the docking station. I’d recommend owners empty this frequently, because if you wait a couple of weeks or so until it’s full, pouring it away is a seriously stinky process.

During TechRadar’s standardized robovac tests the Omni S2 continued to perform very well. These tests include two rounds of vacuuming on both carpets and hard floors, plus an obstacle avoidance test and a mopping test.

Pleasingly, the Omni S2’s vacuum performance is better than its predecessor, the two-year-old Omni S1. Vacuuming up oats from carpet was particularly impressive, with not a single piece being missed (except where I set the target zone in slightly the wrong place).

Before vacuuming

After vacuuming

During these tests I found the quickest, least powerful mode, called Quiet, was indeed very quiet (just 55 decibels on carpet), but the S2 performs best when suction is upped to the Standard or Turbo modes, cleaning intensity is increased from Fast to Standard, and the S2 is asked to perform two passes of the target zone or room, instead of one.

A crumb mix made of flour and crushed biscuit was completely lifted from a wooden kitchen floor using the S2’s standard intensity and suction settings, while on carpet I found Turbo or Cyclone (the most powerful suction mode) was best.

Crumb mix before first pass

Crumb mix after first pass

With that enabled, plus the intensity increased to Deep and the number of passes upped to two, the robot did a superb job.

Crumb mix after first pass

Crumb mix after second pass

The oat test is usually tougher, because robovacs tend to flick larger debris across hard floors with their spinning side brushes. The Omni S2 fell foul of this too, but as ever my advice is to set the robot to vacuum the entire room twice, instead of aiming for a target and kicking it everywhere.

With the right settings applied, the S2 picked up every single piece – and passed the same test with flying colors on carpet too, where flicking debris is less of an issue.

Before vacuuming

After vacuuming

I tested the mopping system with a dried smear of ketchup, which was promptly removed from the wooden floor. The cylindrical mop spins and pivots outwards to reach into the edges of the room, while the robot scrapes it clean and washes it while driving. The mop is then dried with hot air at the base station, which takes several hours but is very quiet.

Before mopping

After mopping

Meanwhile, the S2’s obstacle avoidance saw it drive neatly around a shoe, a sock and a USB cable strewn across the floor. I was impressed by how close it got to each, with moving or ingesting anything.

Overall, the Eufy Omni S2 performed brilliantly. I would recommend using Standard intensity and Standard suction with two passes most of the time, then up the suction to Turbo or Cyclone for a deeper clean. The latter hitting just 70 decibels was also impressive — for context, my Dyson V10 stick vacuum is 90 dB at medium power.

I only encountered one serious problem with the S2, and unfortunately it led to a replacement unit being provided by Eufy. The first S2 performed perfectly for a month, but developed a fault where the robot and docking station lost their connection. Several reboots and lots of advice from customer services failed to find a solution, so a second S2 was delivered and the original went back to Eufy for an inspection.

Naturally, this is disappointing for such an expensive product. But I was impressed by Eufy’s customer service department — which I approached as a customer and not a journalist — and how quickly the problem was resolved. The second unit performed perfectly throughout the rest of my test.

• Performance score: 4.5/5

Eufy Omni S2: app

• Easy to use
• Lots of configurability
• Also handles Eufy security products
• Option to charge at night — great if you have an EV tariff

The Eufy app gets better with every revision, and today it’s one of the best robovac apps I’ve ever used. Everything is logically laid out, with just the right amount of adjustability on offer to keep both newcomers and power users happy. The app is quick, responsive and presents everything in a way that’s easy to understand.

I especially like how it adds virtual furniture to your floor maps, which makes it easier to understand the layout and visualize where the robot is. Editing floor plans also works well, with simple tools for splitting, combining and renaming rooms after the robot has created an initial (but not always accurate) map of your home. Multiple floormaps can also be created, making it easy to save a second map for your bedrooms upstairs, for example.

Another feature I like is how pre-defined tasks can be created. I have one called “After dinner”, which tells the S2 to vacuum and mop my kitchen a certain way. A single tap of this from the Eufy app home screen, and the robot gets to work.

Since getting a puppy I’ve come to value Eufy’s child lock function, which disables the buttons on top of the robot – handy for both inquisitive children and dogs alike. I also like the off-peak charging function, where you can configure the S2 to only charge its battery at certain times of day. Since I have an electric car and an EV tariff, I’ve set the robovac to only charge at night, when my electricity is much cheaper.

• App score: 4.5/5

Should you buy the Eufy Omni S2?

Buy it if

Don't buy it if

How I tested the Eufy Omni S2

I lived with the Eufy Omni S2 for several weeks before writing this review. During that time it was used exclusively to vacuum the carpets and mop the floors of my house. I tested its cleaning abilities, tried some of the included fragrance diffusers, and noted how its self-cleaning systems fared after many hours of use.

I then carried out a number of specific tests to understand how well it cleans different types of debris from carpet and hard floors, how effective its mopping system is, how good it is at avoiding obstacles, and how loud it is.

First reviewed July 2026

Amazon's Prime Day sale has delivered another very tempting robot vacuum deal, with the Dreame X50 Ultra dropping to just AU$1,479. That's a huge discount from its AU$2,999 launch price last year, and well below the usual AU$2,000 price we've seen it discounted to in recent months.

It isn't a budget buy, even at AU$1,479, but this is the lowest price we've seen for this robovac so far and, given it scored an impressive 4.5 stars in our Dreame X50 Ultra Complete review, we think it's worth considering at this price.

This isn't just another robot vacuum with a mop attached to the rear. The Dreame X50 Ultra is built to be a proper hands-off floor cleaner, with a self-emptying, self-refilling and self-cleaning dock, 20,000Pa suction, extendable mop pads and a side brush designed to reach into edges and corners.

In our review, the Dreame X50 Ultra was described as setting "a new standard" for the best robot vacuums, with the reviewer praising its cleaning results and low-maintenance design.

The model reviewed was the Complete version, which means it comes with an accessory bundle, but the core robovac and dock is the same X50 Ultra you'll find in this Amazon Prime Day deal.

The X50 has a lot of clever features that make it more capable than previous models. Its navigation puck can retract so the robovac can clean under lower furniture, while its small threshold-hopping legs help it clear raised room dividers and other tricky transitions around the home.

Our review also highlights its mopping and vacuuming performance — especially its ability to make use of its extending side brush and mop pads.

However, our reviewer found the X50 Ultra's object avoidance wasn't always as reliable as expected, and its pet-waste detection needed the right settings to work properly in testing. Despits these shortcomings, it still scored very well in our tests, which is saying something.

If you've been waiting for Dreame's top model to fall to a more tempting price, Prime Day has delivered exactly that.

More Amazon Prime Day deals in Australia

• All the best Amazon Prime Day 2026 deals
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• The best robot vacuums we've tested

I've reviewed a few robot vacuums in the last year sister site Tom's Guide, but I'd yet to try one from powerhouse brand Ecovacs Robotics. With several excellent reviews already on TechRadar, including those by my colleague Sharmishta, who swears by the brand and rated the Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni very highly, I was eager to get stuck into my own assessment of the Deebot T90 Pro Omni, which launched in March this year.

On paper, it came across as the perfect pet-friendly robot vacuum. It touted an impressive 30,000Pa suction power across hardwood and carpeted floors, and as a mum to two Border Collies, cleaning up fur every day was my #1 priority.

It also didn't help that I fell pretty hard for The T90's looks (more on that below), but I was anxious about its price — $899.99 / £899 / AU$2,299 seemed rather steep, especially in Australia where I'm based, for a T-series Deebot that's typically been the more mid-range option to Ecovacs' X-series flagships. But then you get what you pay for, right? Or so I thought.

After using it for three months, I was left with an expensive robot vacuum that still looks lovely in its corner but doesn't quite fulfil the rest of its promises.

It's a looker

If you’ve often considered a robot vacuum, but have been put off by the large, rather unsightly docking stations, then you’ll be pleased to learn that the Deebot T90 Pro arrives with the newly enhanced Ecovacs station. The dock and station's combined footprint is slim, and it can easily be placed under a counter or table if you want to store it away. But given its Nordic-inspired, fabric-like design, Ecovacs clearly didn't intend for the T90 to be hidden, especially in homes with minimalist aesthetic settings. Personally, I quite liked the new off-white color as it complemented my apartment decor.

Unlike some other Ecovacs' robot vacuums, the T90 Pro Omni's bot neglects a turret completely, opting for a LiDAR sensor at the front of the machine, so it can get under furniture without issues. In place of a turret sits a loosely placed fabric-like lid that can, sadly, get dislodged when bumped into with some force.

However, the fact that both water tanks are fully concealed within the dock is a big tick for me, as it means I never once had to catch sight of dirty water throughout the day. The trade-off to this is that you can't see if either tank is full or empty. If you set the robot vacuum to clean everyday, then you’ll need to regularly check the tanks to see if they need filling or emptying.

I found I was consistently emptying and refilling the water tanks after every other clean despite its 4L capacity and the mopping area in my apartment is the living, dining and kitchen (my bedrooms are carpeted). I'm also a little surprised that the dirty-water capacity is so much lower, I was expecting it to be around 3L. What that means is, if you live in a large family home, you'll likely need to clean out the dirty mop water between each session too — beats the purpose I think.

Looks can be deceiving

It's lovely design aside, the T90 Pro struggled from day one, starting with its initial floor mapping. As I've already mentioned, my single-storey apartment has a mixture of carpeted and hardwood floors and a relatively straightforward floor plan, which most robovacs I've tried can get right the first time. Nevertheless, it took six mapping sessions to finally achieve an accurate map of my home.

I'll take some of the blame here, as the one map error was my fault after leaving my built-in wardrobe open, but I wanted to believe that after considerable daily use, the bot would update the floorplan on its own — I suppose I was expecting too much from Ecovacs' software there.

Even after the T90 had mapped my home accurately, I still had to make significant edits in the app to get all the rooms marked out correctly, something I've not had to do with other brands.

I made sure all carpet areas were marked out and, despite that, the T90 Pro Omni repeatedly mopped the bedrooms when in Auto mode to do a full-house clean. The only way to avoid this was to start setting up Room or Zone cleans every single time. In other words, the Auto Mode, for me, was redundant.

Aside from the copious amounts of remapping and wrong floor recognition, the T90 faltered when it came to vacuuming up pet hair. Despite its high suction power, I found that the T90 consistently left pet hair on even my hard floors (struggling even more on carpets), and I had to do a follow-up clean with my Dreame U20 which, even as affordable cordless option without a lot of suction, does so much better.

This really was my biggest disappointment because Ecovacs' Blast suction promises improved airflow for the best clean and I saw no evidence of that here. Moreover, a lot of the pet hair got entangled in the central bar brush and its wheels, meaning the bot itself required constant maintenance.

Mopping was a rather unfortunate experience too, especially after all those trips to and from the tap. My wood floors were left streaky and some spills were ignored by the AI stain recognition. My colleague Sharm much prefers the roller mops to the rotating discs on robovacs, but I'm not convinced... yet.

Random starts was another issue I had to face with the T90 Pro Omni — it would just start cleaning on its own, even when there was no voice command or a schedule set up.

There was a silver lining in all this, though: despite being a little basic compared to other robot vacuum apps I've used, the Ecovacs Home app was fairly easy to use (after the remapping shenanigans of course) to set up custom cleaning routines, schedules, suction and waterflow rates.

The easy-to-use app doesn't make up for everything else that went wrong though.

So, what now?

Look, I'll be honest — I was hard-pressed to find something positive to say about the Ecovacs Deebot T90 Pro Omni. A nice design and a decent app will only take my over user experience so far.

I wasn't looking for perfection; I just needed a robot vacuum that do the daily cleanup so I didn't have to and, in that one task, the T90 failed as I had to vacuum again anyway.

And this isn't the first time a Deebot has disappointed — my colleague Sharm wasn't particularly enthused by the older Ecovacs Deebot T50 Max Pro Omni either. TechRadar's recently published Ecovacs Deebot X12 Omnicyclone review also doesn't look very encouraging.

So what's going on at Ecovacs Robotics, one of the pioneering robovac brands? The company's been pumping out new models in quick succession over the last few years, with three alone announced at CES 2026, but it just feels like software and performance issues aren't being fully tested before release to market. Maybe it's time for Ecovacs to slow down, take a beat, and perhaps learn from its mistakes before releasing another suite of subpar products.

I'm still keeping faith that the brand will impress me one day, it's just not going to be with the T90 Pro Omni.

Robot vacuum deals this year aren't quite as good as they used to be; as interest wanes due to lofty list prices and continued difficulties to raise the bar of cleaning quality, robovacs can be a tough sell. That being said, some are outstanding, and this year for Amazon Prime Day, the best robot vacuum I've personally tested is on sale.

• See all of today's best Amazon deals

Right now, you can save big on the Dreame X50 Ultra Complete, which launched at $1,799 last year before its price drop to $1,149.99; and right now it's $884.99 at Amazon. In the UK it launched at £1,199, then dropped to £749, and it's now £659 at Amazon.

While the list price drops contribute massively to the savings, a $265 / £90 discount is still noteworthy. That being said, it's still an expensive purchase, and if you don't need an "all the bells and whistles" robovac, you could be better off with one of the below models under $500 / £500.

Best Dreame X50 Ultra Complete deal today

Dreame's X50 Ultra Complete was the best robot vacuum I tested last year, earning it a near-perfect 4.5-star rating in my review, and at this hugely discounted price, it's the deal to beat this Prime Day in the premium robovac category.

If you don't need something as high-specced as the Dreame X50, check out my top three picks below, which have all been tried and tested by team TechRadar.

Best budget-friendly alternatives in the US

Best budget-friendly alternatives in the UK

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