The Best $300–$600 Robot Vacuums (They Beat the Flagships!)

What are you really missing out on going with a mid-tier robotic vacuum instead of a flagship? In this video, I've got seven robotic vacuums priced from $300

to $600 from Yuthi, Roomba, Switchbot, ThreeI, Dream, MUA, and Robbo Rock. and

I'm going to test and compare their performance with the best flagship options that I've ever tested in each area, including carpet and hard floor vacuuming, hair pickup and tangle

avoidance, hard floor mopping, and object recognition to see how they compare. And as always, there are no

compare. And as always, there are no sponsored reviews on this channel.

Starting with vacuuming performance, flagship vacuums usually advertise their suction in Pascals. And compared with my current top-of-the-line recommendation, the Robot Rock Sorrowos 10R is 22,000

Pascals, these mid-tier vacuums range from about 7,000 to 19,000 Pascals. But

in my experience, carpet vacuuming performance isn't directly correlated with suction. And to test their actual

with suction. And to test their actual performance, I mix 10 g each of salt, flax seeds, and rice to simulate dust and debris of different sizes. I

sprinkle that mixture onto my high pile carpet and then I send the vacuums on a two pass single room cleaning on their highest suction setting. I weigh their dust bins both before and after the run and then again after the auto empty

process. Starting with the least

process. Starting with the least expensive vacuum, the Yuthi OmniC20 typically sells for around $349 and it has a single traditional brush roller with rubber and soft bristles, a fixed

side brush, and 7,000 pascals of suction. And in my testing, the Yuthi

suction. And in my testing, the Yuthi cleaned for 31 minutes and used 24% of its battery to pick up 55.5% of the flour, salt, rice, and flax mixture. And after the auto empty

mixture. And after the auto empty process, it had 1.2 g left in its dust bin, which was mostly flour stuck in its mesh pref filter and caked into the main

filter pleat. After that, for $398

filter pleat. After that, for $398 is the Roomba Plus 405, which is part of Roomba's new lineup, which has adopted a more traditional robotic vacuum design.

Abandoning Roomba's patented dual brush rollers in favor of a single soft roller brush, a fixed side brush, and 7,000 pascals of suction, the Roomba cleaned for 11 minutes less than the Yuthi at 20

minutes total, but it used 2% more battery to clean up just 50% of the debris mixture. And after the auto empty

debris mixture. And after the auto empty process, the Roomba had 3.2 2 g left in its dust bin, which included some flour caked into the filter, but also a significant amount of loose debris in

the bin. Then for $399 is the SwitchBot

the bin. Then for $399 is the SwitchBot S20, which uses a single rubber main brush, a fixed side brush, and it's got 10,000 pascals of suction. And the

Switchbot cleaned for just 16 minutes, but used 28% of its battery pack to pick up 53.8% of the flour, salt, flax, and rice. And after the auto empty process,

rice. And after the auto empty process, the SwitchBot had 1.3 g left in its bin.

and the auto empty process did a great job of clearing all the fine flour out of its extra-large air filter. Next for

$474 is the 3II P10 Ultra, which also has a traditional single roller brush with rubber and soft bristles. And it's

got a fixed side brush and 18,000 Pascals of suction. And the 3i had the longest cleaning time yet at 35 minutes, but it only used 24% of its battery and

picked up 59.8% of the mixture, moving it into first place so far. And after

the auto empty process, the 3II had just 1.5 grams of debris left in its bin, which was almost all flour caked into the air filter. After that, for a

typical price of $499, is the Dream L40S Ultra CE, part of Dream's very confusing L40 lineup, which all have very similar names, but completely different

features. The L40S Ultra CE that I'm

features. The L40S Ultra CE that I'm testing in this video includes Dream's Tricut brush to help avoid hair tangles.

It's got a fixed side brush and 13,000 pascals of suction. And the Dream cleaned for 23 minutes and used 25% of its battery to clean up an impressive 76% of the debris mixture, easily moving

it into first place. But after the auto empty process, the Dream had 3.7 g left in its dust bin, which was all just debris caked in its air filter, which lacks a pre-f filter mesh. Also for $499

is the MUA P50 Ultra. And to make everything even more confusing, MUA is a sister brand of Dream and shares a lot of the same designs and technology. The

MUA P50 Ultra has a traditional single rubber roller brush, a lifting and extending side brush, and 19,000 Pascals of suction. And after cleaning for 28

of suction. And after cleaning for 28 minutes and using 26% of its battery, the MUA P50 Ultra picked up 77% of the flour, salt, flax, and rice mixture, putting it in first place ahead of the

Dream by 1%. But after the auto empty process, the MUA had 5.3 grams of debris left in its dust bin, which shares the exact same design as the Dream, and it would really benefit from a mesh pref filter. And last, the most expensive

filter. And last, the most expensive vacuum in this video is the Robbo Rock Curivo S5V, which typically sells for $549, and has Robbo Rock's Duo Divide brush roller system, a fixed side brush,

and 12,000 pascals of suction. And the

Robbo Rock cleaned for just 16 minutes and used 17% of its battery to pick up 64.5% of the debris mixture, putting it in third place overall. But it also struggled with auto empty and had 5.3 g

of dust left in its bin after the process, which was all flax and flour caked into its air filter. And that

means that compared to all the other vacuums that I've tested, the MOA P50 Ultra and Dream L40S Ultra CE are going to move into first and second place overall, overtaking the Eavax X8 Pro

Omni, which previously held the lead with a carpet pickup score of 75.5%.

Meaning there are actually no compromises at all when choosing a mid-tier vacuum when it comes to carpet vacuuming performance. Next, I also

vacuuming performance. Next, I also tested hard floor vacuuming performance using that same 40 g mixture of flour, salt, flax, and rice. And historically,

all robotic vacuums performed pretty well on this test, and this batch was no different with all of the vacuums picking up between 99 and 100% of the debris. So then, after combining the two

debris. So then, after combining the two vacuuming scores, the MUA P50 Ultra and Dream L40S Ultra will also take the first and second place, overtaking the previous combined vacuuming score

leader, the Robbo Rock Soros 10R, by over 3%. But to me, that's not super

over 3%. But to me, that's not super surprising. And I've always thought that

surprising. And I've always thought that the traditional single brush roller designs were the best at raw vacuuming performance. But recent flagships are

performance. But recent flagships are equally focused on hair pickup and tangle avoidance. So to test this, I

tangle avoidance. So to test this, I started with a reasonable task of picking up 30 individual 12-in strands of real human hair on my bathroom floor.

And after setting each vacuum on a single pass run, I carefully inspected both the floor and the robot for any hairs that didn't make it into the dust bin. And most flagships that I've tested

bin. And most flagships that I've tested have absolutely no problem with this test and end up with either zero tangled hairs or just one random straight hair.

But out of these vacuums, only the Dream L40S Ultra CE and Robbo Rock Q Revo S5V performed at that level, thanks to the Tricut brush on the Dream and the Duo Divide Roller System on the Robo Rock. I

also perform a much less reasonable stress test using 1 g of synthetic 16-in blue hair and two cotton balls separated into toughs to simulate pet fluff. And

after a one pass vacuum only run, I collect any hair and fluff that's left on the carpet. And I closely inspect the robots for tangles. And in this test, the best overall pickup performance came

from the Dream L40S Ultra CE, which picked up the majority of fluff and hair. And its try cut brush was

hair. And its try cut brush was moderately effective at cutting the synthetic hair into smaller pieces that could then be sucked into the dust bin.

But it did have a fairly significant amount of hair wrapped in its wheels.

The Robber Rock was the next best and did an okay job with the Pet Fluff, but left the majority of the synthetic hair matted into the carpet. However, the

reason that I put it in second place was that it had almost zero hair tangled in the robot itself thanks to its Duo Divide brush roller. The 3II did a great job picking up almost all the synthetic hair from the carpet. However, even

though the 3II's base station has a hair cutting blade that's supposed to cut any tangled hair around the brush before the auto empty process, the bristles on the three brush were completely matted with

hair after this test. And those matted bristles made it unable to pick up a lot of the pet fluff. Similarly, the Yuthi did a decent job picking up the hair and debris, but the traditional soft bristle brush was completely tangled. The

Roomba, MUA, and SwitchBots rubber brush rollers functioned exactly how they're designed to, and they funneled all the hair into the side and then ultimately inside the brush. And depending on the amount of hair in your house, this brush

roller design needs to be cleaned out about once a month. And of those three vacuums, the Roomba's overall carpet pickup seemed the best, but it also then expectedly had the most hair stuck in its roller. And if you compare these

its roller. And if you compare these vacuums to current flagships, the Narwhal Flow is the current king of resisting hair tangles. and it not only managed to pick up 100% of the synthetic hair and fluff off of the carpet, but it

also completely resisted any hair tangles on the brush roller itself thanks to its conicle design. And after

finishing this test, the Narwhal only had a single blue hair stuck in its wheel. Last, to finish out vacuuming

wheel. Last, to finish out vacuuming performance, I tested each robot's ability to clean into corners and close to furniture using their side brushes by putting a pile of breadcrumbs in four hard-to-reach spots in my kitchen. And

for this test, I gave the vacuums one point for partially cleaning a pile of crumbs and two points if it was completely cleaned. And in this test, we

completely cleaned. And in this test, we would expect the Mua P50 Ultra to do the best since it's the only robot that has an extending side brush to reach into the corners. But in practice, the fixed

the corners. But in practice, the fixed brush on the Robot Rock that they call their flexi arm side brush design combined with better navigation led to the best score of 7 out of eight. And it

completely cleaned all of the piles except for the one under the refrigerator, which only got partially cleaned. The 3II P10 Ultra also

cleaned. The 3II P10 Ultra also performed very well, scoring six out of eight points, completely cleaning three of the piles using its elongated side brush design, but missing under the

refrigerator completely. The Yui OmniC20

refrigerator completely. The Yui OmniC20 also did very well and leveraged its very compact size to wedge itself under the cabinets and into the corners while rotating the entire body of the robot.

And I really thought it was going to clean under the refrigerator also for a perfect score, but at the last minute, it decided to change its cleaning strategy and skipped right over it. As I

mentioned, the MUVA P50 Ultra has an extending side brush that should theoretically allow it to clean deeper into corners than other robots can. But

because it used that extending side brush, it didn't do the same stop and rotate method that helped the other robots fit into the corners. And

overall, it ended up with a corner brush score of five out of eight points. The

Dream L40S Ultra CE also had the same sort of lazy approach of getting into corners, but without the extending side brush of the MUA. It had a lot more partially clean piles for a score of four out of eight. The SwitchBot's

biggest problem was that it was too big to fit under the stool, and its brush wasn't long enough to get all the way inside the inside corner, which left it with a score of four out of eight. And

the Roomba was just big and clumsy and randomly decided to just skip over the majority of the cleaning area, not even attempting to clean two of the piles for a score of two out of eight. And if we compare these scores to flagships, you

can see that the Robbo Rock Quro S5V tied the best score ever recorded on this test, which was from the Robbo Rock Soros Z70, which also has a flexi arm design that includes a motorized arm extension. But that still wasn't enough

extension. But that still wasn't enough to completely reach under the refrigerator to clean up that pile. So,

here's a quick vacuuming recap. In terms

of traditional vacuuming performance, you actually get better performance in this $300 to $600 price range than you do with a flagship. For hair pickup and tangle avoidance, the Dream L40S Ultra had a good combination of pickup

efficiency and tangle avoidance. The

Robbo Rock QRE S5V's Duo Divide brush roller performed similarly to the flagship Robot Rock Soros 10R, and neither of those came close to matching the nearly perfect hair pickup and tangle avoidance score of the Narwhal

Flow. And for corner brush performance,

Flow. And for corner brush performance, the Robot Rock Quro S5V matched the corner performance of the flagship Soros C70, even without an extending arm.

Next, moving on to mopping performance.

I try to simulate a realistic test in my house, which is when wet mud gets tracked in on shoes and feet and then dries on the floor. So, to do that, I spread 10 ml of Florida mud over a 2ft x

two ft square and dry it with a haird dryer. Each vacuum then gets set to

dryer. Each vacuum then gets set to maximum water flow in two passes on a combined mopping and vacuuming run. And

after those are done, I spray the area with two sprays of water and wipe it clean with a paper towel. And then I set the paper towel aside to air dry. And in

between each test, I mop the floor with a traditional wet mop and hand dry with a towel. And to say that I was surprised

a towel. And to say that I was surprised by the results of this test would be a massive understatement because both the MUA P50 Ultra and Dream L40S Ultra CE ended up with almost completely clean

paper towels, which is something that I had previously only seen from the much more expensive Narwhal Flow. I also

tested each robot's corner mopping ability by putting a smear of hot sauce in five separate locations in my kitchen and scoring each robot's mopping performance by awarding one point for a partially clean spot and two points for

a completely clean one. And in this test, we would expect the MUA P50 Ultra, 3 IP10 Ultra, and Robot Rock Quro S5V to finish on top since those are the robots that have extending mopping pads. But

only the Robbo Rock was able to combine its extending mopping pad with effective enough navigation to clean all the stains. While the Dream L40S Ultra CE

stains. While the Dream L40S Ultra CE managed to score nine out of a possible 10 points through careful edge rotation to push its mopping pad along the edge of the floor. The 3II and MUA also

performed fairly well, scoring eight out of a possible 10 points. But the Roomba, Switchbot, and Yuthi did extremely poorly and mostly just ran over the stains with their side brush, creating a huge sticky mess on the rest of my

kitchen floor. And the last test for

kitchen floor. And the last test for mopping was to see how well each robot could lift their mopping pads to prevent them from tracking dirty wet water onto my carpets. And all the robots in this

my carpets. And all the robots in this video got at least some water on the carpet when I forced a mopping session before vacuuming. But the robot rock S5V

before vacuuming. But the robot rock S5V and 3i10 Ultra both have options to vacuum the carpets before getting their mopping pads wet. And as a result, they were able to keep carpets completely

dry. The Dream and MUA also have a

dry. The Dream and MUA also have a similar option in their app, but they still clean their mopping pads at the base station before starting their clean, resulting in wet carpets. And in

this test, the Roomba was by far the worst vacuum that I've ever tested in terms of mop lifting. and it absolutely soaked my carpets during its combined vacuum and mop run. And if you compare these results to a flagship, a pretty

common feature that all these vacuums are missing is the ability to leave their mopping pads at the base station while they're cleaning carpets, which is the only surefire way to completely avoid getting your carpets wet. So then,

as a mopping recap, the MUA P50 Ultra and Dream L40S Ultra CE have flagship level performance in terms of mopping ability and are actually the two best spinning mopping pad robots that I have

ever tested. For corner mopping ability,

ever tested. For corner mopping ability, the Robbo Rock Curivo S5Ve performed just as well as any flagship that I've ever tested, and it joins the Robbo Rock SOS 10R as the only robotic mop to score a perfect 10 out of 10 score. But

unfortunately for mop lifting, none of these mid-tier robots have the ability to leave their pads at the base. But the

Robbo Rock and 3i do have cleaning algorithms that keep the mop pads dry until the carpets are cleaned. And

historically, one of the biggest differences between flagship and mid-level vacuums is their ability to recognize and avoid objects that could potentially cause problems. So, to test this, I set up my living room with a

pair of untied shoes, some rubber dog poop, and a loose extension cord. And to

score their object avoidance, I give them two points for avoiding an object completely, and one point for moving it with no catastrophic outcomes like getting stuck or running over dog poop.

And for these vacuums, the only two decent scores came from the 3i P10 Ultra that avoided the dog poop and the shoes, but ran over the extension cord. And the

SwitchBot S20 completely avoided the dog poop and only gently nudged the shoes and extension cord while cleaning around them. While every other vacuum ran

them. While every other vacuum ran directly over the dog poop and moved both the extension cord and the shoes and the Yuthi even managed to get stuck on the extension cord, scoring only one out of a possible six points. And again,

compared to flagship vacuums, these are not strong scores. And several vacuums, including the MUA V50 Ultra, Dream X50 Ultra, and Robbo Rock S8 Max V Ultra, have all scored perfect scores of six

out of six on this test. If you're

planning on running these vacuums while you are at home, the noise level may be important to you. So, here they are from the loudest to the quietest.

And last, if we take a look at their apps and smartome features, all these vacuums, with the exception of the Roomba, have very similar apps with a lot of great options for mapping, spot cleaning, and cleaning customization.

However, while the Roomba app that works with this newest generation of robots is better than their old app, it still is significantly worse than every other app on the market, and it manages to be both oversimplified and over complicated at

the same time. And while the app features are generally the same for all the vacuums within a brand, one feature that's becoming pretty common on flagship vacuums is the ability to drive the robot around using its front-facing camera. But in this group, the only

camera. But in this group, the only vacuum that has that option is the 3IIP P10 Ultra, despite most of the vacuums having front-facing RGB cameras that could technically be used for this feature. Overall, I would say that

feature. Overall, I would say that Smartome integrations are pretty hit and miss right now. But all the brands have at least some form of Amazon Echo support with the majority supporting room specific cleaning. But I think that the Dream and Movea service was

experiencing issues when I was testing because I couldn't get them to clean a specific room even though that's worked in the past. Google Home support is also hit and miss with some of the vacuums supporting room specific cleaning while others only work with basic onoff

commands. Last, I know that Home

commands. Last, I know that Home Assistant integration is important to a lot of you and I was able to confirm that Robbo Rock definitely works and is fullfeatured and the SwitchBot S20 works via Matter and Dream Vacuum support

requires that you use the Xiaomi Mi Home app instead of the Dream Home app and none of the other brands work with Home Assistant at all. If local only control is on your must-have list, the SwitchBot and Robot Rock via their Matter

integrations are the only completely local options, but the Robot Rock Home Assistant integration does use local polling, even though it still needs to be connected to the cloud. So, it's time to make some conclusions and answer the question of whether it's a good idea to

buy a mid-level vacuum instead of a flagship. And if you're looking for a

flagship. And if you're looking for a robotic vacuum and mop that actually vacuums and mops well, look no further than the Dream L40S Ultra CE and the MUA P50 Ultra, as they currently sit in rank

one and two among all the vacuums that I've tested in the last 3 years in terms of vacuuming performance. And they're

tied for first place with the Narwhal Flow for mopping performance. Between

them, I think that the Dream functions better right now. But I think that the MUA has the potential to be better in the future since it has both an extending side brush and an extending mop, but it just needs its movement

algorithms updated to make better use of them. If we extend the ranking criteria

them. If we extend the ranking criteria to include things like battery life, hair tangle avoidance, carpet mopping behavior, and smart home integrations, the Robot Rock QRO S5e takes the clear

lead and is a very capable vacuum for $550. However, I do think that there are

$550. However, I do think that there are three specific cases where you should probably still buy a flagship. First, if

you need state-of-the-art object avoidance because you constantly have things on the ground that would typically get run over by a vacuum, you should look at the Dream X50 Ultra, MUA

V50 Ultra, or Robok Saros 10R, which all have excellent object avoidance. Second,

if you have a ton of pet hair in your house, the Narwhal Flow had the best hair pickup and tangle avoidance score of any vacuum that I've ever reviewed, and it also has the added benefit of being a fantastic mop. And third, if

your house has large thresholds between rooms, the Dream X50 Ultra and MUA V50 Ultra are the best at traversing unreasonably large transitions between flooring. And I did test the threshold

flooring. And I did test the threshold clearance abilities of the robots in this video, and none of them could even make it over the 30 mm threshold, let alone the ridiculous 50mm threshold that the Dream and Mua can clear. As a

reminder, there are no sponsored reviews on this channel, but I do have links down in the description for all the vacuums that I tested, as well as my most recommended flagships. And as

always, I appreciate when you use those links since as an Amazon affiliate, I do earn a small commission on the sale at no cost to you. I'd also like to thank all of my awesome patrons over at Patreon for their continued support of my channel. And if you're interested in

my channel. And if you're interested in supporting my channel, please check out the links down in the description. If

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