6 of Our Best Lab-Tested Robot Vacuums Are Up to $900 Off for Memorial Day. Here's the One Budget Buyers Should Get

CNET

24-05-2025

There are hundreds of robot vacuums on the market, but not all of them are worth your hard-earned dollars. And while there are plenty of Memorial Day vacuum deals going on right now, figuring out which one to get is still really hard.
To make things easier for you, expert product testers here at CNET methodically and scientifically assess the performance of all kinds of products, including robot vacuums, in order to provide you with the best information when making a buying decision all year round. Coupled with advice from expert shoppers on CNET's Deals team, we can help you get the best bang for your buck this Memorial Day.
CNET Testing Labs' staff members have vetted over 30 robot vacuums. By using sand, each vacuum has been tested on its pick-up performance on three different floor types: hardwood, low-pile carpet, and high-pile carpet. You'll see some familiar brand names in our performance chart below, but the one we recommend you pick up this Memorial Day weekend isn't necessarily the one at the top of the list.
It seems like just about every robot vacuum on the market has a list price upwards of $500 these days. Some of the most expensive models go for $1,000 or more and, while great, top-tier features like lidar sensors or AI mapping functions aren't enough to justify the price of entry for a lot of folks. That's what we went ahead and found a great budget option that performed highly on our tests: Yeedi's M12 Pro Plus.
The Yeedi M12 Pro Plus had an overall pick-up score of 71.6%, landing in the top 10 but only a couple of percentage points behind second place. It shined on our hardwood floors test, picking up 96.5% of particles, the highest score on hardwood of all the robot vacuum we've tested. Our experts found that its navigation was also particularly impressive in our light path test: "The robot kept a very tight path around our complicated table setup, hit the corners well, and missed very few spots." It normally goes for a whopping $900 but right now you can save over 50% on that price, bringing the cost down to $400, making it the best budget option out of all our high-performing robot vacs.
Say hello to our robot vacuum test room. It's specifically designed to simulate furniture and obstacles a robot will encounter in the real world.
Tyler Lizenby/CNET
If you have a little more room in your budget, the Ecovacs Deebot T30S is our overall top choice vacuum. It has a pretty high overall pick-up score of 72.1% and did better than most other robot vacuums on the high-pile carpet test with a score of 66.7%. According to our testers, it's our overall favorite option because it does "a fantastic job getting debris off the floor; it's also great for pet hair with the ZeroTangle brush system, which uses a V-shaped roller and Dual Comb Teeth to physically scrape hair from the brush and direct it to the dust bin." It's best for those who want a robot and stick vacuum in one. It normally goes for a steep $1,000, but you can get one this Memorial Day weekend for $550, almost half the price.
And for an absolute beast of a robot vacuum, the Dreame X40 Ultra is the only vacuum that averaged over 90% in our pick-up testing, beating other options by 15%. Not only that, it has some of the highest scores in each individual category as well. It has a 95.2% pick-up rate for hardwood floors and a 90.2% rate for low-pile carpet, whereas other top-performing robot vacs had a score in the 60% to 70% range. But with high performance comes a pretty high price tag. This vacuum normally retails for a massive $1,500, though Prime members can score one for $500 off, dropping the price to $1,000.
More deals on lab-tested vacuums:
For more budget finds this Memorial Day, take a look at our top deals under $50 to find huge bargains on headphones, small kitchen appliances and more. And for the serious bargain hunters, take a look at our list of the best deals under $25 that you can score right now.
Read more: I Run CNET's Testing Labs. Here's How Our Top-Rated Robot Vacuum Cleaned Up in Real Life