Save up to $230: As of Feb. 7, you have three great opportunities to score a robot vacuum with smart home mapping for less than $200. Here’s a quick look at the models on sale:
Buying a new vacuum just for spring cleaning may seem like overkill if spring doesn’t come in with some inflation relief.
But if your floor care situation has been struggling for a while, a few hidden gems on sale at Walmart and Amazon can bring home the most coveted robot vacuum tech — LiDAR — for less than $200.
In the robot vacuum universe, LiDAR (an acronym for Light Detection and Ranging) refers to a collection of laser pointers that scan its surroundings multiple times per second to draw an internal map of each room (and, eventually, the entire home.) This type of mapping is what makes a robot vacuum able to clean certain rooms on your command, as well as create virtual no-go zones that the robot vacuum follows without putting down those unsightly magnetic strips.
The cheapest Shark vac to incorporate LiDAR is the RV2002. Its deep-digging, self-cleaning Power Fins brushroll is a plus for pet owners. (A near-identical model, the RV2001(Opens in a new tab), is on sale at Best Buy for $199.99, so shopping at Walmart saves you an extra $30.)
Wyze, a company most known for its budget-friendly security cameras, took a stab at floor care — and it popped off. Wyze’s only robot vacuum is one of the only (and arguably, the most reliable) robot vacuums with LiDAR that ever drops belwo $150. Its small dust bin and performance on carpet aren’t a great combo for homes with pets, but it’s ideal for homes where every room has hard flooring.
Squeeze the most out of your $200 by adding mopping to the mix. Dreametech’s D9 hybrid seals in its dry clean with a light wet scrub that’s effective enough for small spills and leftover dust. Though the D9 isn’t one of those hybrids that stops mopping on carpet, its LiDAR capabilities mean that it can follow a virtual no-go zone around your rugs.
