Need a robot vacuum that actually works on carpet? These 3 performed the best in my home.

The Roborock Saros 10R would make the most sense for people who are serious about deep cleaning and the hands off cleaning experience as a whole — serious enough to invest in one of the priciest vacuums on the market.

With way-above-average suction power, self-sustaining mopping pads, highly perceptive small obstacle avoidance, and a livestream pet camera, the Saros 10R is an exhaustive floor suite that would flourish in lived-in homes with complex room layouts, heavy foot traffic (or paw traffic), and a high possibility of stuff on the floor at any given time.

The smartest, yet thinnest Roborock robot vacuum actually isn't the one with a grabby arm that popped off at CES 2025. Rather, that superlative goes to the Roborock Saros 10R. After several weeks of testing, it also won the title of being the most reliable robot vacuum I've ever tested.

The Saros 10R's 20,000 Pa of suction power schools most other robot vacs out there, even doubling the suction power of my previous top pick, the Roborock Qrevo Master. Strong suction obviously plays a huge part in carpet cleaning, especially when it comes to reaching into plush carpeting to unearth mushed-down pet hair. The split DuoDivide brush underneath mitigates the tangling that often happens when a robot vac just has one large roller brush.

Though not a direct facet of carpet cleaning, a thorough mopping system will still play a big part in keeping homes with pets feeling barefoot ready. The 10R's spinning, swiveling pads do a better job than what one big, flat pad can do, especially when it comes to corner scrubbing.

But just as importantly, the Saros 10R's navigational brainpower supplements the hell out of its actual suction power. It trades the traditional LiDAR turret for Roborock's StarSight 2.0 tech with next-level 3D scanning for more precise small obstacle detection and maneuvering in homes with tricky turns or furniture arrangements. The Saros 10R has aced pretty much every obstacle course my apartment has thrown at it, including successfully dodging shoes, pet bowls, and random junk on the floor; weaving through the danger zone that is my under-bed storage; and vacuuming my bath mats without scrambling them up.

Shoppers looking to squeeze the longest feature menu out of a sub-$1,000 budget should look to Eufy's newest flagship model. With small obstacle avoidance and a fully self-sufficient mopping system, the X10 Pro Omni is way more autonomous than the similarly-priced Roomba Combo j7+ or Roborock Q8 Max+. The X10 Pro Omni has amazing battery life even when using its highest suction mode, making it ideal for tackling lots of square footage or multiple stories without needing to charge.

If your home is anything like mine — where a chaotic underbed storage situation and rogue extension cords make it tricky to run many robot vacuums when you're not home — you'll want to prioritize AI-powered small obstacle avoidance, like Eufy has given the X10 Pro Omni.

Not to be confused with the (less impressive, more expensive) Ecovacs Deebot X2 Omni, the Eufy X10 Pro Omni is the brand's first self-emptying hybrid model that also self-refills the water tank and self-washes and dries the mopping pads, all within that same self-empty dock. That fully self-sufficient mopping system is a feature I've seen before, but never really seen before below $1,000.

Eufy's carpet cleaning deserves equal attention. On paper, 8,000 Pa of suction is beastly at any price point. During in-home testing, it successfully cleared a thick, purposefully-spilled heap of rice from a medium pile runner and soil from a flat weave rug. It did struggle on deep cleaning spilled flour and getting into corners, but then again, more expensive vacs do, too.

I came across one quirk that hinders Eufy's impressive suction power from cleaning to its full potential. Its obstacle avoidance camera was working so hard to not get stuck that it mistook a small fluffy bath mat for clothing and gave up on one section of the bathroom altogether, leaving strewn kitty litter untouched. Unfortunately, Eufy's app doesn't let you dismiss a perceived obstacle as "incorrect," so the bath mat needed to be moved.

Read my full review of the Eufy X10 Pro Omni.

For those who can settle for a less intense carpet clean if it means they aren't spending more than a few hundred dollars, the Shark Matrix RV2300 is a solid budget option that's still decently powerful for the price.

Though there's a standalone version that goes for under $200 on sale, the version with the self-emptying dock is so affordable at full price that it's kind of a no-brainer. The dock is so compact that it barely requires over a foot of free wall space, making it an easy squeeze into a tight apartment or other small space. While it does smart map, it doesn't mop, so the ideal buyer would have little hard floors that require wet cleaning — or they just aren't pressed about mopping in general.

The most basic robot vacuum in Shark's Matrix line still runs cleans circles around the older Shark ION vacuums and the most basic Roombas. This one has LiDAR-power smart mapping and can clean specific rooms in the house, defying the outdated stereotype that cheap robot vacuums navigate by blindly bumping around and hoping for the best. I didn't experience any major navigational blips with the RV2300 in my few months with it as long as I made sure to pick up any cords or cat toys in its path.

What I really appreciated is the Shark Matrix RV2300's attention to detail when spot cleaning carpets in Matrix cleaning mode, where it vacuums in a crosshatch pattern to pull up any debris that may still be hiding in carpet or rug fibers after the first pass. While more powerful robot vacuums I've tested (plus my Dyson stick vacuuum) would do a more thorough job, I was surprised that I could actually trust this Shark to sufficiently clear a crushed chip or kitty litter off my rugs and bathmats. I couldn't say the same for the similarly-priced Roomba 692.

Any robot vacuum is unlikely to ruin your carpet, especially if the entire room is carpeted and sealed at the walls and under a doorway threshold. Rugs and bath mats pose slightly more of a risk for being gobbled up, but certain robot vacuums are more careful than others. There are two ways to go about protecting your rugs from being eaten by a robot vacuum:

• Ensure that the robot vacuum you're buying has smart room mapping, which will allow you to draw virtual boundaries in the app to keep the robot vacuum away from those areas.

• Opt for a robot vacuum with large wheel system dedicated to hoisting the vacuum up and over thresholds and bumps, including the edges of thick carpet.

People in homes with combination flooring may be considering a robot vacuum that mops — and in that case, carpet getting ruined by getting wet during mopping will be just as big of a consideration.

• If you're shopping for a cheap to mid-range 2-in-1 model without floor type sensors, use the app to keep the vac out of carpeted rooms, or draw a no-go zone around rugs. (At this point, even the super budget-friendly picks you're considering should have smart mapping capabilities.)

• If you're open to spending more on a premium robot vacuum, most of these have a built-in mop that lifts and lowers depending on floor type, only pressing down and allowing water to flow on hard floors.

Carpets and rugs are where pet hair, crumbs, and dust go to die, so beefy suction power is, of course, key for homes with a lot of stubborn floor coverings. Aim for at least 6,000 Pa of if you have just one rug or two that gets moderate foot traffic, but you'll want to scale up to 10,000 Pa if your home has several carpeted rooms or large rugs — especially if multiple pets are in the picture. For perspective, the most powerful robot vacuum coming out in 2025 offers 22,000 Pa of suction power, with a few other models already out offer between 12,000 Pa and 18,500 Pa. (Note that not all brands measure suction power in Pascals and will instead compare each robot vacuum's suction power to other robot vacuums in their own lineups. Shark and iRobot are two examples.)

However, those quantifiable suction power stats only matter if the robot vacuum is implementing it methodically depending on what each room needs. The best robot vacuums for carpet should be able to accurately sense the difference between carpets, rugs, and hard flooring, then automatically increase suction on the carpet or rug. Select robot vacuums also have debris sensors that tell the vac to spend extra time on spots that are dirtier, while some simply make a double pass on all detected carpets and rugs regardless of perceived debris level.

The brush roll system underneath the vacuum also needs to be considered, as it's the number one aide to the airflow the vacuum is creating. As a general rule of thumb, two brushes are better than one. The best setups use two long brush rolls (ideally at least partially made of rubber) that spin toward the center of the vac to create a pinching motion that grabs debris and pulls hair out of carpet fibers.

Past the act of cleaning itself, automatic dustbin emptying is a crucial maintenance in carpet-heavy homes. If a robot vacuum is actually doing its job on carpet, the small dust bin on board the robot vacuum is going to fill up quickly — often, on a daily basis. Rather than you having to manually dump the bin into the garbage and wrestle wrapped hairs with your bare fingers, a self-emptying robot vacuum empties itself into a larger dustbin in its charging dock after each cleaning session. These larger bins can typically hold weeks of dirt without needing to be emptied themselves.