The Best Robot Mops

The mop goes over its path several times when cleaning, and while this does prolong each cycle, it ultimately leaves fewer streaks and allows the machine to tackle tough stains more effectively. The SpinWave lifted a dried mud stain off the floor after just two passes thanks to its rotating heads—a task with which several other mops struggled. To clean up a sticky soda spill, I used the mop’s spot cleaning mode, which uses more scrubbing action and works in a spiral pattern covering a roughly 3-foot circle. It went over the spill several times and removed the majority of the stickiness—there was a slight residue left behind, but it was only noticeable if you were looking for it.

The Best Robot Mops, Based On Extensive Testing

An earlier version of this story named the iRobot Braava Jet 240 the “best value robot mop.” Since testing, this product has been discontinued. To determine a new winning budget-friendly pick, we are working on an update to this story.

Thanks to my two messy dogs, there’s a seemingly endless supply of dirt and grime that gets tracked into my house every day. If you have the same issue, you know that using a vacuum isn’t enough to get all the dirt off your floors. But who has time to pull out a traditional mop twice a week? The best robot mops solve this problem, autonomously scrubbing hard floors and leaving them clean—all without you having to lift a finger. After rigorously testing eight different models over the course of several weeks, my pick for the best robot mop is the Bissell SpinWave Wet And Dry Robotic Vacuum, a powerful device that employs rotating mop heads to lift all kinds of messes and stains.

For its unmatched scrubbing power, the Bissell SpinWave Wet And Dry Robotic Vacuum is the best robot . [+] mop you can buy.

Illustration: Forbes / Image: Retailer

The following is a list of all the winners from my testing process:

• Best Robot Mop Overall:Bissell SpinWave Wet And Dry Robotic Vacuum
• Best Robot Mop For Roomba Owners:iRobot Braava Jet m6

“The biggest benefit of having a robot mop is that you aren’t the one mopping, and that you can run it frequently on a timer at your preferred schedule,” says Michael Silva-Nash, executive vice president of Molly Maid of Greater Little Rock, Arkansas. “They can eliminate allergens, dust and other debris from your floors, which prevents them from tracking throughout your home.” However, not all robot mops can handle tough stains—and some actually do more harm than good by simply smearing dirt around. To determine which of today’s popular robot mops are most effective, I put them through weeks of testing, evaluating them on their ease of use, cleaning performance, navigation abilities and more. Here are the best options you can buy.

Best Robot Mop Overall

A Hybrid 2-In-1 Unit With Powerful Scrubbing Pads

Bissell SpinWave Wet And Dry Robotic Vacuum

Water tank: 13.5 ounces | Pad type: Reusable | Vacuuming: Yes | Smart features: Yes | Battery life: 130 minutes | Warranty: 1 year

Best for:

• Everyday mopping
• Removing tough dirt stains
• Occasional vacuuming

Skip if:

The Bissell SpinWave Wet And Dry Robotic Vacuum came out on top for cleaning performance and ease of use. This robotic mop is one of only two models I tested with rotating mop heads—all the others simply pushed a flat mop pad around the floor—and that scrubbing action made a huge difference in its ability to lift all types of stains from the floor. Better yet, the microfiber pads are reusable, meaning you can simply toss them in the washing machine once you’re finished cleaning.

The mop goes over its path several times when cleaning, and while this does prolong each cycle, it ultimately leaves fewer streaks and allows the machine to tackle tough stains more effectively. The SpinWave lifted a dried mud stain off the floor after just two passes thanks to its rotating heads—a task with which several other mops struggled. To clean up a sticky soda spill, I used the mop’s spot cleaning mode, which uses more scrubbing action and works in a spiral pattern covering a roughly 3-foot circle. It went over the spill several times and removed the majority of the stickiness—there was a slight residue left behind, but it was only noticeable if you were looking for it.

The SpinWave can either mop and vacuum, depending on which canister you insert.

This 2-in-1 robot is able to vacuum and mop, and it actually comes with two separate canisters—one for each function. When the vacuum canister is attached, two spinning edge brushes help get dirt out of corners, and debris is sucked up by the rotating brush roll. It cleans low- and medium-pile carpets while vacuuming, but when the robot is mopping, it automatically avoids soft surfaces like area rugs. On its first pass, it would bump into the edge of the rug I set out, but when it came back to the area, its cleaning algorithm “knew” to turn around before it ran into the carpeting.

The Bissell app is very straightforward and easy to navigate, but it doesn’t have mapping abilities and can’t memorize your home’s layout, which means you won’t be able to set up virtual barriers or direct the robot to spot clean one particular area. (It was still able to recognize and avoid obstacles while cleaning, though.) However, you can start and stop the robot remotely, create an automatic cleaning schedule and even monitor when the mop needs maintenance like a filter change.

Alongside the device, the Bissell SpinWave comes with a spare set of cleaning pads and a trial-size bottle of one of its cleaning formulas. (Perhaps unsurprisingly, the brand only recommends using its own formulas in the mop. The manual warns that using another cleaning solution may harm the machine and will void its warranty.)

Best Robot Mop For Roomba Owners

A High-Tech Model That Will Team Up With Your Roomba

iRobot Braava Jet m6

Water tank: 15 ounces | Pad type: Reusable or disposable | Vacuuming: No, but pairs with select Roomba robot vacuums | Smart features: Yes | Battery life: 160 minutes | Warranty: 1 year

Best for:

• Current Roomba owners
• Wet and dry mopping
• Removing tough stains

Skip if:

The iRobot Braava Jet m6 is the brand’s more high-tech robot mop, and I think it’s the best choice for anyone who already owns an iRobot Roomba robotic vacuum. This mop can be paired with select Roombas—during testing, it automatically imported the map created by my Roomba i7+. The two devices will work together, with the Braava mopping after the vacuum finishes cleaning. The mop does an excellent job cleaning, traveling slowly and going back and forth over each spot, and it even overlaps its paths for maximum coverage. It was able to efficiently remove all types of spills and stains during testing, and you can mix the brand’s floor cleaning solution into the water tank for a more thorough clean. Plus, it’s whisper quiet.

The Braava Jet m6 is extremely easy to sync up to your phone—its setup process was the quickest of all the mops I tested. The mop did a great job cleaning all around the edges of the room, but it did get hung up on the area rug at one point, somehow ending up underneath the corner. It eventually freed itself without any assistance, and on a subsequent run, the robot knew to avoid that area.

The one potential negative that I found with this robot mop is that it lacks any vacuuming abilities. It can be used to “dry mop,” which helps collect dust and hair, but when I tested this function, it needed a new dry pad halfway through cleaning, as it was bogged down with pet hair. You need to clean your floors to remove large debris and hair before this mop can do its job—otherwise, it will end up pushing the hair or dirt around the floor. For this reason, I mostly recommend this mop for people who already own a Roomba, as the two devices can work together.

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Other Robot Mops I Tested

In the face of the winning models, the following robot mops didn’t quite make the cut.

Roborock S7+ Robot Vacuum And Sonic Mop: While the Roborock S7+ is one of the best 2-in-1 models I tested, thanks to its wide range of settings, it didn’t deliver the same mopping power as my other top picks. During testing, the S7+ would often make a full lap around the room before it started getting the floor wet, and while it avoided obstacles and lifted sticky stains, it didn’t fare as well against the mud. I also found the app to be a bit clunky.

Dreametech Bot W10: While the design seemed promising with self-cleaning mop pads and the ability to fill its own water tank from a reservoir of clean water in the base, the Dreametech Bot W10 didn’t live up to expectations. The app isn’t very user-friendly—I experienced pop-ups that blocked the screen and got lost in complicated menus. Plus, the robot frequently gets stuck places, and its cleaning performance wasn’t as good as other mops I tested.

Neabot N2: The Neabot N2 is a good robot vacuum, complete with a self-emptying dust bin, but its mopping abilities leave something to be desired. It simply drags a wet pad across the floor, and while you can adjust how much water it uses, the robot just didn’t do as good of a job as some of the other mops.

Eufy RoboVac X8 Hybrid: While it works well as a vacuum, I wasn’t impressed with the mopping performance of the Eufy RoboVac X8 Hybrid. It left streaks on the floor and mopped right over an area rug, and the water tank leaked on the floor when we left it attached to the robot overnight.

Eufy RoboVac L70 Hybrid: Similar to the other Eufy model I tested, the L70 Hybrid didn’t wow us with its mopping abilities. It has a larger water tank, but it still failed to remove stains from the floor and mopped straight over an area rug, leaving behind streaks of dirt.

Also, since testing, the iRobot Braava Jet 240—my original pick for the best value robot mop—has been discontinued.

How I Tested The Best Robot Mops

When selecting products to test, I looked for highly rated robot mops from well-known brands, including iRobot (the maker of Roomba), Bissell and Eufy. Because robot mops are newer to the market and are somewhat less versatile than robot vacuums, there are fewer models to choose from.

I began by evaluating each mop on how easy it was to unpackage and set up. All of the models I tested connected to an app via either Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, so I also noted how easy it was to sync each one to my phone. Then, I put it to the test in a 200-square-foot room with linoleum flooring. “Robot mops typically work best on hard floors with lots of open space and minimal obstacles,” says Samson. To challenge the mops, I set up several obstacles for them to avoid, including a small area rug and dining room chair. The mop also had to navigate around things like curtains and the occasional dog toy.

To test each model, I ran the device four or five times, depending on the different settings they offered. On the first cleaning cycle, I let the mop run on its default settings. I noted how well it covered the floor, if it was able to avoid obstacles and how loud it was. (For units that can also vacuum, I ran a vacuuming cycle before as well.) On subsequent runs, I added different spills and stains for the mop to tackle, including ½ cup of water, ¼ cup of soda dried onto the floor and dried mud stains. I then evaluated how well each mop was able to handle these situations, all the while making notes on the robot’s battery life, app design and other features.

How To Choose A Robot Mop

To help you find the best robot mops on the market, there are a few different factors that you want to take into consideration.

A selection of the robot mops I tested, from left to right: the Bissell SpinWave, the iRobot Braava . [+] Jet m6, the iRobot Braava Jet 240 and the Roborock S7+.

Room Size

As you shop for a robot mop, it’s important to think about where you plan to use it. If you’re going to put the device in a large room or open floor plan, you need a model with a long battery life or the ability to recharge itself and continue cleaning. “You will want to evaluate the battery life of your robot mop,” says Jessica Samson, a cleaning expert at Maids.com. “The longer the battery life, the less hassle it will be for you to charge it and keep it operational.”

Mop Style And Settings

There are two main styles of robot mops available today. The best robot mops have rotating pads on the bottom of the robot (the Bissell CrossWave and Dreametech Bot W10 use these). The most common design, which you can find on both Braava models, uses a flat mopping pad that’s pushed back and forth across the floor.In general, rotating pads are more effective at removing tough stains, but flat pads can be just as effective if the mop does multiple passes over the same area.

You may also want to look at the mopping settings offered by each robot. Some robot mops, such as the Bissell SpinWave and Braava Jet m6, allow you to select how much water they use or how hard they scrub—a useful feature when it comes to removing mud or stains from your floors.

Vacuuming

There are quite a few robot mops that can also vacuum. While it’s undeniably convenient to have one gadget that does both, my testing revealed that 2-in-1 models typically don’t perform quite as well when it comes to deep cleaning. If you do want a model that does both, I recommend the Bissell SpinWave, which has separate attachments for vacuuming and mopping. Otherwise, be sure to look at the water tank capacity of the robot mop—it can range anywhere from 5 to 15 ounces—and see if it can be used with a floor cleaning solution. You also want to look at whether the gadget knows to avoid carpeting when it’s mopping; otherwise, it may track dirty water over your area rugs.

Through Bissell’s easy-to-use app, you can set up automatic cleaning schedules and adjust the . [+] SpinWave’s scrubbing intensity with ease.

Smart Features

You can sync many of today’s best robot mops to your smartphone via an app, a feature that makes them much easier to operate. “The number one feature I recommend consumers invest in is app integration,” says Andrii Gurskyi, owner and operator of HomeClean. “I can’t tell you how convenient it is to have a phone application to control and manage your robotic mop from wherever you are.”

When your robot mop has smart features, you’re able to put it on a set cleaning schedule, start and stop it from your phone and even monitor when it needs maintenance. Additionally, some apps offer “smart mapping,” which means the robot will create a virtual map of your home. Once the map is complete, you’re able to create virtual barriers and no-go zones for your mop and even direct it to clean a specific spot on the floor.

Noise Level

One common complaint about robot vacuums is that they can be quite noisy during operation, so this is another factor to keep in mind as you shop. In general, robot mops are quieter, as they’re not using suction, but combo units can be quite loud and may interrupt your daily activities.

“Some robotic vacuums are noisier than others, so keep that in mind if you want something quiet,” says Gurskyi. “Also, since robotic mops require more time to clean a space, you want something that fits your lifestyle in terms of noise.”

Maintenance

Most robot mops require some maintenance before and after use. Before you run the mop, you need to pick up power cords, toys and other items on the floor, as well as fill the water tank. “You have to make sure that you have your floors decluttered,” says Samson. “The robot will get confused if there are too many things on the floor. They also have small water tanks and need to be constantly refilled.”

After the robot has finished mopping, you may need to wash or change the pad, depending on whether you have a model with disposable or reusable mopping pads. If you have a model that vacuums, as well, you may also need to empty its dust bin, unless it has a self-emptying design.

My Expertise

I’ve been a professional product tester for more than seven years, and I’ve written for publications including Consumer Reports, The Spruce and Business Insider. I have firsthand experience testing a wide range of cleaning products, including robot vacuums, robot mops and regular mops. During the testing process, I also spoke with cleaning experts, including Jessica Samson (cleaning expert at Maids.com), Andrii Gurskyi (owner and operator of HomeClean) and Silva-Nash. Each of them provided insights on the benefits and limitations of robotic mops, how to use the cleaning devices effectively and what to look for when shopping.

Do Robotic Mops Actually Work?

It’s true that certain robot mops are more effective than others. In general, robot mops that have rotating cleaning heads and can be used with floor cleaners will do a better job of removing dirt and stains from your floors. Models that just use water, on the other hand, don’t do as thorough a job when cleaning and are better suited for everyday maintenance than cleaning tough messes.

Additionally, most robotic mops are best suited for everyday maintenance and small cleanup jobs—not big spills or messes. “Some downsides to cleaning with robotic mops is that they aren’t particularly effective at cleaning big messes,” says Samson. “You will still have to vacuum and mop big messes because if you just let the robotic mop clean it, it will likely just smear the mess around and do little to clean it up.”

The best robot mops are adept at avoiding obstacles, such as area rugs.

Are Robot Mops Safe For Hardwood Floors?

You can use robot mops on virtually any type of sealed hard flooring, including hardwood, tile and laminate. Additionally, some models, such as the Bissell SpinWave or iRobot Braava Jet m6, can be used with a special cleaning solution specifically designed for hardwood.

Most manufacturers only recommend using specific brands of cleaning solution in their robot mops, so consult your user manual before pouring in your favorite floor cleaner. If you use a non-compatible cleaning solution, you may end up damaging your machine and voiding the warranty.

How Do You Clean A Robot Mop?

Like any cleaning tool, robot mops can get fairly dirty after repeated use, and there are several maintenance steps you can take to ensure your gadget continues working as intended. In addition to emptying the dust and/or water tanks, wash all reusable pads according to the manufacturer’s instructions or dispose of single-use pads. On most robot mops, the water reservoir doesn’t need to be emptied after each cleaning, but if you’re not planning to use the mop again for some time, it’s a good idea to empty the water tank and let it air dry to prevent any mold from forming.

If you purchase a model that doubles as a robot vacuum, you also need to check the brush roll and edge-cleaning brushes to ensure there’s no hair or other debris wrapped around them. You also want to periodically clean off the mop’s sensors and charging station by gently wiping away any dust or dirt.

The Best Robot Mops

Some of the recommendations in this guide may be outdated or unavailable.

We plan to test several new robot vacuum-mop combos soon and will update this guide with the results.

A good robot mop is like an automatic Swiffer: It won’t make your floors sparkle, but it will wipe up splatters and some grime, and it can be a handy, low-effort tidy-up tool for busy areas like your kitchen, bathroom, and mudroom. We tested 10 different bot-mops, and we think that the first one you should consider is the small, simple, smart-enough iRobot Braava Jet 240.

Everything we recommend

Our pick

iRobot Braava Jet 240

Great for kitchen and bath

This small, quiet bot automatically wipes down one or two rooms at a time, with less fuss and better results than other robot mops. It also costs less than most, and it may be more durable. If you run it regularly, your busiest rooms will never get too grimy.

Buying Options

May be out of stock

Upgrade pick

iRobot Braava Jet m6

Smarter, cleans multiple rooms

With many of the same great qualities as the smaller Braava Jet 240, the Braava Jet m6 has a bigger battery and water tank, plus a sophisticated navigation system that lets it clean larger areas and even specific rooms on command. It struggles with rug edges and thresholds, though.

Buying Options

Also great

Roborock S5 Max

Vacuum and mop combo

The S5 Max is one among loads of great robots that can both vacuum and (kind of) mop, but Roborock has a better reputation than other combo-bot brands. If you’re looking into getting a robot vacuum anyway, and your mopping needs are modest, the S5 Max could be a good choice.

Buying Options

May be out of stock

May be out of stock

Things to know

We tested 10 different models at home over five months, and we analyzed more than 6,000 owner reviews for further insights.

The best robot mops work about as well as a wet Swiffer: great for stains and splatters, and decent on some greasy, grimy stuff.

Our pick

iRobot Braava Jet 240

Great for kitchen and bath

This small, quiet bot automatically wipes down one or two rooms at a time, with less fuss and better results than other robot mops. It also costs less than most, and it may be more durable. If you run it regularly, your busiest rooms will never get too grimy.

Buying Options

May be out of stock

The iRobot Braava Jet 240 is slightly more effective at removing stains and grime than other robot mops we tested, and it’s a little simpler to use, too. You attach a cleaning pad (disposable or reusable; iRobot makes both types), fill the small reservoir with water (and, optionally, cleaning solution), plop it down near the edge of the room you want to clean, and press the start button, and it handles the rest. The small bot—measuring only 7 by 6.7 inches—moves quietly in an orderly back-and-forth pattern and usually doesn’t miss any patches of flooring. The Braava Jet 240 isn’t as quick, clever, or controllable as some other robots; it’s meant to wet-mop only one large room or two small rooms at a time (something like 150 to 200 square feet), and you can’t program how it navigates. But in a lot of homes, it’ll be all the robot you need, because you probably don’t need to mop most of your rooms often. iRobot also has a very good reputation for making durable, repairable products, as well as for keeping spare parts available for ages. Like all robot mops, the Braava Jet 240 is safe to use on any kind of sealed hard flooring.

Upgrade pick

iRobot Braava Jet m6

Smarter, cleans multiple rooms

With many of the same great qualities as the smaller Braava Jet 240, the Braava Jet m6 has a bigger battery and water tank, plus a sophisticated navigation system that lets it clean larger areas and even specific rooms on command. It struggles with rug edges and thresholds, though.

Buying Options

If you want to use a smart-home app to control when and where your robot mop cleans, or want to be able to mop multiple rooms at a time (up to 1,000 square feet), you could upgrade to the iRobot Braava Jet m6. It’s essentially a smarter, larger version of the Braava Jet 240. The navigation system is the key upgrade: The m6 uses a camera that helps it learn the layout of your home after two or three cleaning sessions per level (and it can learn multiple levels). After it’s been “trained,” you can use an app to tell the bot to clean specific rooms while skipping others. You don’t have to use these advanced navigation controls if you don’t want to, though it’s also kind of the point of paying to upgrade to the m6. (A few other robot mops have smart navigation systems that work well, too, though those models either cost much more or don’t clean as well as the m6.)

Like any robot mop, the m6 is not quite an auto-magical, hands-off experience: You still need to change the pads and fill the reservoir after every cleaning session (and remember to sometimes order fresh supplies or wash the reusable pads). Rugs and thresholds can also trip up the m6 as it tries to navigate between rooms—a side effect of its above-average cleaning performance, since the cleaning pad hugs the ground tighter than on other bots. There are a host of reasons why the m6 might end up disappointing you, but if you have a home that’s well suited to its limitations and you buy it with appropriate expectations, it can be worth the price.

Also great

Roborock S5 Max

Vacuum and mop combo

The S5 Max is one among loads of great robots that can both vacuum and (kind of) mop, but Roborock has a better reputation than other combo-bot brands. If you’re looking into getting a robot vacuum anyway, and your mopping needs are modest, the S5 Max could be a good choice.

Buying Options

May be out of stock

May be out of stock

You can find plenty of combined or hybrid vacuum-mop robots. But don’t count on a combo bot to wipe away most splatters and greasy buildup: They don’t apply as much downward pressure or scrubbing action as a dedicated robot mop does, and most models are meant to work only with water—no detergent. But if your floors tend to stay pretty clean, or if you mop or Swiffer by hand regularly anyway and just want some help staying tidy between those deeper cleanings—and you’re looking for a robot vacuum anyway—you could consider a combo. Look for a model with lidar navigation (you can recognize this feature by the circle-shaped bump on top of the bot’s body), which is excellent for speedy, whole-home navigation.

The Roborock S5 Max is a notable example of a combo bot, with ever-so-slightly smarter navigation and greater control than on many others like it, from a brand with a decent track record for customer support. But there are plenty of other combo models that are very similar, and we don’t have a strong preference for any particular one.

The research

• Why you should trust me
• What to expect from a robot mop
• How to choose the right mop for you
• How we picked and tested
• Our pick: iRobot Braava Jet 240
• Flaws but not dealbreakers
• Upgrade pick: iRobot Braava Jet m6
• Also great: Vacuum-mop combo robots with lidar
• Other robot mops we tested
• What to look forward to

Why you should trust me

For this guide, I tested 10 robot mops. Six of them were dedicated mop-only robots, while four were vacuum-mop combo robots with more advanced mopping features than on typical combo robots. Most of the testing took place between late spring and early fall of 2021, though I had tested a few of these gadgets earlier.

I also drew on my experience testing about a dozen other vacuum-mop combo robots for Wirecutter’s guide to robot vacuums, which I’ve written since 2013. I’d treated those robots as vacuums that happened to have optional mops, and I tried out their mopping features from time to time but didn’t pay too much attention to them.

I’ve also written or edited Wirecutter guides to a bunch of other floor-care products, including traditional vacuums of all types, carpet cleaners, and (coming soon) upright vacuum-mop combos.

In addition, Wirecutter recently analyzed more than 6,000 Amazon customer reviews for 10 different robot mops and vacuum-mop combos (most of which we also tested), with the assistance of an artificial-intelligence-driven tool called FindOurView. It gave us loads of detail about the features that owners appreciate most, as well as a statistical breakdown of the kinds of features and bot behaviors that owners tend to find especially delightful or frustrating.

What to expect from a robot mop

This is a diverse category, with a few different approaches to cleaning and navigation. But regardless of the differences, all robot mops should be pretty good at the following:

Orderly navigation: Most robot mops move around a space in an orderly, deliberate pattern, without missing patches of flooring. This means that you can mostly count on the bot to clean an area thoroughly, which is what you want for a messy, high-traffic room (like a kitchen, bathroom, or mudroom). We recommend only those robot mops with some version of an orderly navigation system.

A few bots navigate randomly, which can be frustrating if you want your dirtiest rooms wiped down reliably. If you can’t close the doors on the room you’d like to clean (to prevent the robot from wandering off), you’ll need to give the bot a lot of time to get the job done—and it won’t always succeed in a single session. With so many better navigators available for just a bit more money, we don’t think these random-nav robot mops are worth it. (Astute readers might notice that Wirecutter recommends some robot vacuums that use random navigation. We stand by that advice because aimless vacuuming isn’t as pointless as aimless mopping.)

Among robot mops with orderly navigation, some can navigate from room to room and clean larger areas, while others are better for cleaning a single room at a time. Both types have value, depending on how you plan to use yours.

If you just want a robot to clean a couple of busy, messy rooms (kitchen, bathrooms, mudroom) a few times per week, and don’t mind carrying the bot between those rooms, you can get a simpler robot, like our top pick, the iRobot Braava Jet 240.

If you’d prefer something closer to a hands-off experience, with the option to automatically clean any (or every) room at any time, you need a bot with a bigger cleaning pad and reservoir, a longer-lasting battery, and a navigation system that’s smart enough to learn your home’s layout, like our upgrade pick, the iRobot Braava Jet m6, or a vacuum-mop combo robot with a lidar navigation system like the Roborock S5 Max. (You can recognize lidar bots by the bump on top, which is actually a turret that shoots invisible lasers to find walls and some obstacles.) These bots can be especially great in homes with predominantly bare floors and flat, unobstructed transitions between rooms.

But homes with lots of rugs or thresholds are trickier for most robot mops to handle, even the higher-end models. Mop-only models, including the Braava Jet m6, struggle the most in this environment. Those obstacles might as well be walls or stairs: There’s no way through or over. The bots can only navigate around the obstacles via rug-free, level paths, and some bots cannot self-navigate to any rooms or patches of floor that are cut off by these common features. Combo bots are better at crossing rugs and thresholds, but they get rugs a little damp in the process and still don’t always work flawlessly. So the more rugs and thresholds your home has, the weaker the case for upgrading to a higher-end robot, because it won’t be able to work to its full potential.

Stain and grime removal: Most robot mops wipe floors with absorbent cleaning pads, and the best ones also use detergent, a jet to squirt the cleaning solution in front of the bot, a scrubbing motion of some sort, and downward pressure on the floor with the pad. These models are able to wipe away many stuck-on stains and some grimy buildup.

If you aren’t counting on your robot mop to wipe away really tough stains—maybe just a little mud, say, or splashes of black coffee—you can get away with a weaker system. We like some robots that use only water and a one-pass, low-pressure wiping motion that’ll work fine for this level of cleaning.

Even if you have to pay extra for a bot and supplies from a reputable brand, you may save money in the long run because you get to use the same robot for longer.

Affordable, readily available supplies: Most robot mops have a similar cadence of care: Remove the used pad or dump the dirty-water tank shortly after the end of a cleaning session, refill the reservoir with water and maybe a small amount of concentrated detergent (good luck trying not to spill a little!), and attach a fresh pad. Then there’s the rigmarole of washing the pads (if they’re reusable) or ordering replacements for disposable pads and cleaning solution anytime you run out. Our take is that no robot mop model has a real advantage in ease of maintenance.

What does differ is that it’s easier with certain brands’ bots to find and buy extra pads and cleaning solution, or even spare parts. Some brands barely support their models beyond the initial sale—and sometimes they even vanish from the internet after a few months, so you might have a hard time finding fresh supplies for those bots. Don’t overlook this point! Even if you have to pay extra for a bot and supplies from a reputable brand, you may save money in the long run because you get to use the same robot for longer.

Durability: This is a big unknown, because most of the robot mops you can buy today haven’t been around for long. iRobot (which makes the Braava line) is one exception, so we gave its bots a bit of an edge in our assessments because of that. The company has a good track record for making durable and repairable products, as well as for keeping replacement parts in stock for a very, very long time. (iRobot still sells supplies for the original Roomba robot vacuum, which came out in 2002.) The other reputable labels (such as Roborock) have been common in the US for only a couple of years; we simply don’t know what to expect from them, let alone the slew of lesser-known brands.

I brought in 10 robot mops with some idea of what would make them good, and then I figured out during testing what actually made them good. These are the ones I tested:

• Bissell SpinWave Wet and Dry Robotic Vacuum
• EcoVacs Ozmo Pro Mopping System (a clip-on accessory for some EcoVacs Ozmo models)
• iLife Shinebot W450
• iRobot Braava 320 (a now-discontinued version of the Braava 380t)
• iRobot Braava Jet 240
• iRobot Braava Jet m6
• Narwal T10
• Roborock S7
• Samsung Jetbot Mop
• Shark AI Robot Vacmop RV2001WD

Over the course of about five months, I used each of these models for at least a week at a time as my primary mop at home, to clean my tiled bathroom and my vinyl-floored kitchen/mudroom. If a model worked well, I’d use it for a few more weeks, at which point I’d try it on wood floors, too. Once I narrowed the list down to the best few models, I did some side-by-side testing to see how well they each dealt with tough stains like stuck-on globs of marinara, maple syrup, or goopy egg.

My house is busy, with two adults working from home full-time, a child with a strong independent streak (but whose manners are still a work in progress), and an aging long-haired cat. As I’ve learned from testing robot vacuums, this is a challenging home for many robots to navigate, with tall, wide thresholds that bots often get stuck trying to climb over (MP4). I also have a few area rugs that are big enough to cover most of the floor in a room but small enough that they leave islands of bare flooring that are particularly tricky for robot mops to navigate around.

Our pick: iRobot Braava Jet 240

Our pick

iRobot Braava Jet 240

Great for kitchen and bath

This small, quiet bot automatically wipes down one or two rooms at a time, with less fuss and better results than other robot mops. It also costs less than most, and it may be more durable. If you run it regularly, your busiest rooms will never get too grimy.

Buying Options

May be out of stock

The iRobot Braava Jet 240 is a great robot mop because it’s simple to use, less expensive than most, and still smart enough and effective enough to do a good job tidying up the rooms that you need to mop most often, such as kitchens, bathrooms, and entryways. You can buy a smarter, faster robot if you want one, but you probably don’t need it.

After testing 10 robots, we found that the Braava Jet 240 was as good as any of them at mopping floors. It works like an automatic version of a flat spray mop (basically a Swiffer WetJet), tidying up floors through the combined efforts of a textured and absorbent pad, water, detergent, and a few different kinds of scrubbing action (downward pressure, vibration, and a back-and-forth motion). It can’t suck up solid debris or puddles of liquid, but we found in our testing that it can remove most food-based or other biological splatters, and even some stuck-on grime. (In our testing, we mostly used the blue wet-mop pads, which automatically set the Braava Jet 240 to its strongest cleaning mode—more details on the pads and modes shortly.)

Upgrade pick

iRobot Braava Jet m6

Smarter, cleans multiple rooms

With many of the same great qualities as the smaller Braava Jet 240, the Braava Jet m6 has a bigger battery and water tank, plus a sophisticated navigation system that lets it clean larger areas and even specific rooms on command. It struggles with rug edges and thresholds, though.

Buying Options

The iRobot Braava Jet m6 is like a bigger, smarter version of the Braava Jet 240, with the same cleaning ability and some similar elements in its navigation system and interface. In the right home, it can cover more ground and work more automatically than the smaller Braava thanks to smart, app-supported navigation. But the upgraded features can’t solve every problem that the Braava Jet 240 has, and this bot may be a straight-up disappointment in homes with thresholds and lots of area rugs.

If you want to mop large areas regularly, though, the m6 can be a worthy upgrade. Compared with the Braava Jet 240, the m6 has a wider cleaning pad, a larger reservoir, and a longer-lasting battery, so it can clean more space, faster. In a single session, iRobot claims, the m6 should be able to clean about five times the area of the Braava Jet 240 (1,000 square feet versus 200). So if you want to mop your kitchen, and your dining room, and the kids’ playroom, and so on, weekly or even a few times per week, the m6 can do that much more easily than the Braava Jet 240, which is built to clean only one room at a time. We suspect that most people don’t need to wet-mop that many rooms that often, so the extra capabilities might be overkill, but it’s an option if you need it.

The upgraded navigation system in the m6 holds the promise of greater control and even automation. In practice, however, it’s a mixed bag.

The Braava Jet m6 (left) is much larger than the Braava Jet 240, so it can cover much more ground per session, which can be useful if you’d like to mop multiple rooms relatively quickly. Photo: Michael Hession

The m6’s water reservoir lifts out of the bot for easier fill-ups at a sink, and the opening is wide enough for you to comfortably add the detergent. Photo: Michael Hession

The black oval near the back of the bot is a camera that (optionally) helps the m6 learn your home’s floor plan, so after some setup, you can use an app to tell the bot to clean specific rooms. Photo: Michael Hession

The Braava Jet m6 (left) is much larger than the Braava Jet 240, so it can cover much more ground per session, which can be useful if you’d like to mop multiple rooms relatively quickly. Photo: Michael Hession

The navigation system uses a camera to learn the layout of your home, which it then turns into an interactive “smart map” in the iRobot app. From the app, you can command the m6 to clean specific rooms and skip others, and it’ll handle all the navigation on its own—you don’t need to carry it around like the Braava Jet 240. It’s a clever system, and we’ve found in our own testing as well as analysis of customer reviews that it works well in most homes most of the time. (It’s the same system as in some of iRobot’s higher-end Roomba robot vacuums, which have been available for years and have largely positive reviews.) You can train the m6 to learn multiple floors in your home, too, and you don’t need to purchase multiple docks (though the engineers haven’t figured out how to get it to climb stairs yet). You can also adjust a few cleaning settings through the app, such as the amount of water the m6 sprays per squirt.

iRobot suggests that the m6 will navigate most homes seamlessly, but in the real world it often falls short of what owners have been led to expect.

However, the m6 can struggle to travel between rooms when it has to cross thresholds or maneuver around rugs. Basically, any kind of height transition is a problem for the m6 (probably because it hugs the ground so tightly in order to clean better). You should count on it to clean only flat areas with contiguous bare floors. (You could consider a combo bot like the Roborock S5 Max if you want a model that’s better at handling height transitions, but such bots don’t clean quite as well.) The app includes a tool that you can set up to try to help the m6 cross thresholds. But in our AI-assisted review analysis, 15% of owners who wrote reviews on Amazon (out of 1,000 reviews we analyzed) complained that the bot still couldn’t cross them.

The Braava Jet m6 has pads for a dry dust-mopping mode (white) and a wet-mopping mode (gray). Both types come in disposable (left) and reusable (right) versions. Photo: Michael Hession

When you clip a pad to the bottom of the m6 before a cleaning session, it automatically activates the proper bot behavior for the job. Photo: Michael Hession

The Braava Jet m6 has pads for a dry dust-mopping mode (white) and a wet-mopping mode (gray). Both types come in disposable (left) and reusable (right) versions. Photo: Michael Hession

Even if your home is conducive to smooth, hands-off navigation, you still have to touch the bot nearly every time you use it to replace the cleaning pads and top off the reservoir. It’s not some kind of magical machine, and the advanced mapping system can’t automate away the mild tedium of maintaining the robot.

It’s concerning that there are so many negative reviews for this robot: 34% of the 1,000 most recent reviews on Amazon came with a lowly one-star rating (out of five), and another 21% rated it just two or three stars. We dug into the specific complaints, and the dissatisfaction with the m6’s general navigation stood out: 13% of m6 reviewers wrote that it got stuck a lot in general (triple the number of Braava Jet 240 owners who said the same), while 9% wrote that the m6 struggled to clean all the areas they wanted it to clean (about double the rate for the Braava Jet 240). iRobot suggests that the m6 will navigate most homes seamlessly, but in the real world it often falls short of what owners have been led to expect.

However, in the right homes and with the right expectations, the m6 is actually really good at what it does. Like the rest of our picks, the Braava Jet m6 comes with a one-year warranty.

Also great: Vacuum-mop combo robots with lidar

Also great

Roborock S5 Max

Vacuum and mop combo

The S5 Max is one among loads of great robots that can both vacuum and (kind of) mop, but Roborock has a better reputation than other combo-bot brands. If you’re looking into getting a robot vacuum anyway, and your mopping needs are modest, the S5 Max could be a good choice.

Buying Options

May be out of stock

May be out of stock

If you’re thinking about getting a robot vacuum cleaner anyway, you might consider buying a hybrid or combo vacuum-mop. They’re essentially robot vacuums that come with an optional clip-on mop and a water reservoir. Most of these models just drag a microfiber cloth across the floor as they vacuum, using only water (no detergent) dribbled into the pad from a reservoir (instead of being sprayed onto the floor).

This type of combo robot can be good for wiping up the occasional drink splatter or thin layer of dust that a broom or a weak vacuum tends to leave behind. Essentially, they’re best in homes where the floors don’t get very dirty very often: Maybe you don’t cook on the stovetop much, or the people (or pets) in your household aren’t especially messy, so you rarely need to scrub away stuck-on food or grime.

Tons of these robots are available. We’d recommend a model with lidar-based navigation (a circular turret on top of the bot is a clear sign it uses lidar); it’s a quick and accurate system that relies on invisible lasers to help the robot navigate your home in an efficient, orderly pattern, avoiding many obstacles along the way. The customer reviews for bots with lidar navigation systems are overwhelmingly positive, with a noticeably higher rate of satisfaction than those for robot vacuums and mops with other types of navigation systems, according to the AI-assisted analysis we ran.

And Roborock as a brand has earned a solid reputation for making above-average robot vacuums, with above-average customer service relative to other brands that make affordable lidar bots.

The Roborock S5 Max has several tweakable settings. It lets you control the mop’s moisture level, room by room, through the smartphone app and you can ramp it up to the highest level in the kitchen, for example, and then turn it off in rooms with rugs. The bot will still drag the damp cloth across the rug, but we’ve found that it’s not very troublesome—you might notice that your rugs feel a little damp if you walk across them in bare feet right after the robot crosses, but they aren’t soaked, and they’ll dry quickly. (Many other combo units have this moisture-adjustment feature, but several do not. Without the control, water drips into their pads at a steady, non-adjustable pace—which can mean more dampness on rugs if the bots cross them, though it’s still not a catastrophe.)

Most combo bots (including the Roborock S6 MaxV, pictured here) wipe floors with a washable microfiber pad, which attaches to a bracket that clips onto the bottom of the robot behind the vacuum brush and air intake, beneath a water tank. Photo: Michael Hession

Combo bots don’t scrub as thoroughly as dedicated robot mops do, but the system works fine for wiping away light splatters and dust. Photo: Michael Hession

Most combo bots (including the Roborock S6 MaxV, pictured here) wipe floors with a washable microfiber pad, which attaches to a bracket that clips onto the bottom of the robot behind the vacuum brush and air intake, beneath a water tank. Photo: Michael Hession

The main downside is that combo robots don’t clean as well as dedicated robot mops, since the combos are meant to use only water and usually don’t scrub back and forth or with much downward force. Drips of coffee and a dusty footprint? Sure, a combo bot will work fine. But anything oily or grimy, not so much. You’ll still need a stronger mop for those kinds of soils, whether it’s a robot mop, a Swiffer, or a traditional mop. In customer reviews, only a few percentage points’ worth of combo-bot owners even comment on the mopping features, and it’s usually just a neutral acknowledgement that the mop exists and works okay but doesn’t replace a real mop.

A bunch of combo bots have mopping features that are more advanced than those of the Roborock S5 Max and others like it, aimed at boosting the bots’ utility as all-around floor-cleaning machines. These features, such as vibrating pads or pads that lift themselves away from rugs, tend to make a small, positive difference, but it’s a stretch to say that any of them are worth paying extra money for. A dedicated mop of any sort—robot, Swiffer, string mop, whatever—just cleans much better, and with less fuss, than trying to adapt a combo bot for dedicated mopping duty.

The top-of-the-line Roborock S7, for example, automatically lifts its mop a few millimeters when the robot senses that it’s on a carpet. The feature technically works most of the time, though I still felt some isolated dampness around the edges of my rugs after using it—a lot like I did with other vac-mop combo bots.

Certain higher-end combo bots also add a little extra scrubbing action, such as a vibrating pad (Shark AI Robot Vacmop, Roborock S7) or a more deliberate wiping pattern (too many to list). These tricks make the combo mops slightly more effective than simpler bots. But they still don’t clean stuck-on soils, and they leave plenty of grime that stronger cleaning bots pick up easily.

The most advanced model we tried was the Shark AI Robot Vacmop, which picked up more sticky, grimy stuff than the other combo bots did. But in following Shark’s dosing recommendations, we found that it also left behind a ton of residue. And it still didn’t work as well as dedicated mops, we think, because it didn’t scrub with as much downward pressure. The Shark also doesn’t cross rugs at all with its mop bracket attached, so that can pose a navigational challenge in some homes.

Other robot mops we tested

Narwal T10

The Narwal T10 promises to be even more automatic than a regular robot mop, and it basically delivers on that promise. If your budget is large, and you really want to do as little work as possible to keep your floors wiped, the Narwal might be worth the investment. But it’s pretty rough around the edges for something that’s so expensive (normally $1,100). You could buy an excellent robot vacuum and an excellent robot mop for less money total than the Narwal, and they’d be almost as automatic and much more effective.

As with the iRobot Braava Jet m6, you’ll get the most out of the Narwal if you want to regularly mop a large area (more than just the kitchen, bathroom, and mudroom). What’s unique about the Narwal is the giant dock, which holds two 1.3-gallon water tanks: one for unused cleaning solution, to dampen the robot’s microfiber pads prior to cleaning, and one for dirty liquid, sucked out of those same microfiber pads after cleaning.

Here’s how it works: The dock soaks the bot’s pads with fresh cleaning solution. The bot drives away, cleans a small area (50 to 70 square feet), and then returns to the dock, which sucks the now-dirty liquid off the pads and replaces it with fresh cleaning solution. The bot drives back to where it left off and repeats the process until it can’t find any new areas to clean. (Or, if you’ve set up the smart-map system, until it finishes cleaning the rooms you told it to.) Once it returns to the dock, a quiet fan runs at a low speed to dry the pads.

This pad-replenishment system helps the Narwal avoid a few of the problems that most robot mops (including all our picks) have: The pads get too dirty or damp to be useful after cleaning just one or two rooms, and you must remember to replace them after every session. In general, the Narwal can clean the same types of messes as other robot vacuums but over a wider area, because it keeps replenishing its cleaning pads.

The navigation system also does a great job of plotting an efficient and accurate path around your home, and—at least in theory, after some setup—it gives you a ton of control, through an app, over where and when and how the robot cleans.

But in the real world, the nav system has some serious flaws. The app that controls much of the advanced navigation features is glitchy, laggy, and unintuitive next to other bots’ apps. Despite the high price, the Narwal robot has no built-in carpet-awareness features, so it’ll just mop your rugs unless you draw “keep-out zones” in the app by hand, guessing—to a pixel—where your rugs lie on the low-resolution, 2D map. Plenty of robots that cost a lot less than the Narwal make it much easier to avoid carpets.

As with any other dedicated robot mop, you’ll still need to pre-vacuum. The Narwal does come with a vacuum attachment, but it has no brush roll, so the pickup is mediocre (especially on rugs). Also, since you need to manually install that attachment every time you want to use it, the whole system feels a lot less automatic.

For some people, it might be challenging to fill and empty the tanks, which weigh about 8 pounds each when full. And, as with any robot from a small company, we’re worried that it might be hard to find spare parts or even replacement detergent strips for the Narwal as time goes on.

The competition

It’s fun to watch the Samsung Jetbot Mop glide across the floor on its rotating pads, rarely getting stuck, never following a path that makes sense but looking so whimsical while it works that you might not care. That might explain why the owner ratings for the Jetbot Mop are actually a tick higher than those for most of the other robot mops we’ve looked at—it looks good, even though it does very little. The Jetbot Mop can barely clean any stains, at least not when it’s used as directed. You’re not meant to use any detergent, and the scrubbing action from the pads is weak, so it barely makes a dent on food splatters or stuck-on grime.

Unlike most robot mops, the iLife Shinebot W450 cleans with a spinning brush roll and suction, and it has a built-in reservoir filled with cleaning solution, plus a tank for dirty water and debris. We found that in some ways, it cleans a little better than the pad-type robot mops (including every other model we’ve covered in this guide). The Shinebot certainly left floors looking shinier than the other robot mops we used, probably due to the brush roll’s polishing action, and because it sucks up some of the cleaning liquid from your floors, rather than smearing it until it gets absorbed. There are two main problems with this robot: First, the navigation is unreliable. In some rooms, it’s thorough and orderly. In others, it misses huge patches. We found this in our own testing, and it’s echoed in customer reviews. (We were never able to connect the W450 to Wi-Fi to use the companion app, either.) Second, maintenance is a pain. There’s no great way to thoroughly clean the dirty-liquid tank, which also fills up with solid debris like hair and there’s a foam filter you’re supposed to wash regularly, but it’s easy to overlook.

You can also find loads of vacuum-mop combo robots with random navigation, which is okay for vacuuming small spaces but not ideal for mopping. We selected one of these models, the Bissell SpinWave Wet and Dry Robotic Vacuum, for testing because it had the best mopping specs of the field, including rotating scrubber pads and compatibility with detergent rather than just water. It cleaned fine but tended to leave a little residue behind when we used detergent. The real downside is the random navigation system, which is an inefficient way to clean a must-mop area like the kitchen. It also had trouble with rugs, sometimes getting hung up on the edges and sometimes climbing right up onto the rug and then mopping it (not what we wanted).

What to look forward to

In recent months, there has been a flurry of new robot vacuum-mop combos. We plan to test several of them, including the Roborock S8 Pro Ultra, the Eufy Clean X9 Pro, the iRobot Roomba Combo j7+, and the EcoVacs DEEBOT T20 Omni, which all come with obstacle- avoidance technology, self-emptying stations, and voice assistance.