With robot vacuums, as with everything else in life, you get what you pay for. It boggles the mind, and the wallet, to say that $700 is a reasonable price to pay for great cleaning capabilities and a heretofore unprecedented level of control. And yet, here we are. Cheaper botvacs don’t always have the necessary engineering for a thorough, automated clean. But paying a higher price for a robot that spends most of its time lurking under the couch gives me hives.

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