Despite the enthusiasm of actors in Swiffer commercials, few people are smiling at the workout that is manually mopping their floors.
If you experience similar dread when faced with vacuuming, the best robot vacuum and mop combos will cross those two chores off of your list (three, if you count digging your old mop out of the closet as a chore in itself).
Are robot vacuums good at mopping?
I'm not saying you can expect a hybrid robot vacuum to scrub your kitchen grout with the same tenacity you would get with a toothbrush, but robot vacuums have gotten much better at mopping over the past few years.
Since 2020-ish, most robot vacuum companies have added at least one hybrid model to their lineup, with prices ranging from $200 to well over $1,000. You can generally expect the mopping technique to get a little more meticulous as price goes up, so the type of mess that your 2-in-1 model will need to conquer becomes a big deciding factor. Are you mostly concerned with wiping up spur-of-the-moment spills, or will you be a stickler about dried-on stains that call for more heavy-duty scrubbing?
Fortunately, both ends of the pricing spectrum provide way more bang for their buck in 2024 than they did in the early 2020s. The past year or so has seen serious strides in the automated mopping department: Brands like iRobot, Roborock, Eufy, Shark, and Narwal are moving far past the bare minimum — the mere presence of mopping gear — with features that actually make autonomous mopping effective, like pressurized and/or spinning mopping pads (rather than lackadaisical, stationary ones), water tanks that refill themselves, and interior compatibility with cleaning solutions for better sanitization than cleaning with just water.
This shift is particularly exemplified in the fleet of new hybrid robot vacs released at CES 2024, where a new standard for the future of mopping robot vacuums was set. The best robot hybrids will also cross post-mopping maintenance off of your list by automatically washing and drying their own mopping pads, turning the self-empty dock into a full self-cleaning station. With one of these self-cleaning models, your robovac will be ready to mop again almost immediately — a clutch change from older, more basic designs that required you to toss soggy mopping pads in the washing machine after every use.
Is Prime Day a good time to buy a robot vacuum?
Yep, one of the best times of year to do so. This is particularly true for more premium robot vacuum hybrids (like the full self-cleaning ones I just mentioned above) — while most 2-in-1 models that wash their own mopping pads usually run you at least $700 (but probably more) any other time, Prime Day is prime time to shave a few hundred dollars off to make the investment a little more digestible.
Aside from one or two straggler models that might be super new or a brand's most premium option, almost every robot vacuum that's worth your time will probably go on sale for October Prime Day — maybe even hit a new record low price compared to Prime Day in July. We're tracking these deals for you, of course.
I've tested 15+ of the most popular robot vacuum and mop combos on my own personal floors, narrowing down your options to the top five robot vacuums that can also wash your floors.
