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The best robot vacuums with Siri support

Michael Bizzaco
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Robot vacuums are one of the best ways to maintain the cleanliness of your home without having to drag out a traditional upright vac whenever the living room needs refreshing. Battery-powered, quick to clean, and easy to automate, robot vacs are fantastic for scheduled sweeps of your home, collecting the dirt and dust bunnies that we may not be able to attack until the weekend.

One of the best features that most robot vacs sport is the ability to link up with popular voice assistants. Platforms like Alexa and Google Assistant allow users to manage cleanings and other vacuum preferences through each assistant’s dedicated companion app, while also allowing you to fire off voice commands to get vacs up and running.

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Apple HomeKit is another assistant platform that is receiving increased integration across a wide array of smart home products. At this time, however, there are not many robot vacuum brands that are directly compatible with HomeKit — a bit of a letdown for Apple devotees looking to control parts of their vacuuming experience through Apple’s Home app. That said, there is a workaround you can use for the time being to get a number of robot vacs to respond to Siri, Apple’s voice assistant.

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Siri Shortcuts and If This Then That

Customers inspect the new Apple HomePod at an Apple Store on February 9, 2018 in San Francisco, California.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Getting your robot vac to respond to Siri is going to involve Apple’s Shortcuts app (an iOS app that teaches Siri how to recognize commands used by other apps), along with a bit of additional tweaking through an If This Then That (IFTTT) account — the latter only applying to one of the robot vacs in our list of Siri-capable models below.

Through Siri Shortcuts, users will be able to link various robot vac commands into Apple’s HomeKit ecosystem, allowing voice controls through devices like the Apple HomePod.

Like Alexa and Google Assistant, Apple’s HomeKit platform is constantly undergoing major updates, so it should only be a matter of time before you can use the platform to manage the ins and outs of our puck-shaped cleaners.

At a glance

The best robot vacuum with Siri support: Roborock S7

Roborock S7 robot vacuum and mop cleaning carpet.

The Roborock S7 is packed with all of the must-have features of a top-pick robot vacuum. From a cleaning standpoint, we love that it’s an all-in-one vacuum/mop solution. Engineered to vibrate up to 3,000 times per minute, the S7’s Sonic Mopping Technology breaks down the toughest of hard-surface stains, from coffee to soda leakage. Once the vac has done its duty in the kitchen, the VibraRise feature will kick in as the S7 moves onto a carpeted surface — automatically switching from mopping to regular vacuuming.

Packing 2,5000Pa of suction power and a multi-directional floating brush system, the S7 has everything it needs to tackle all the nooks and crannies of your home. Plus, with Ultrasonic Carpet Recognition, the vac will automatically adjust to whatever kinds of carpeting you have — increasing and decreasing suction as needed.

The Roborock app (for iOS and Android devices) offers plenty of ways to customize your cleaning experience, allowing you to build custom schedules, set no-go zones, and make manual adjustments to suction and mopping power. In terms of voice assistant support, you can use Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant to do things like start a cleaning, pause/resume, and re-dock the S7 (for models that include the charging station).

While there’s no option for direct HomeKit support, Siri compatibility is built directly into the Roborock app, making the Roborock S7 one of the best robot vacuums with HomeKit-adjacent functionality.

Check out our full review of the Roborock S7 robot vacuum.

The best robot vacuum with Siri support for pet-hair: Roborock S4

Roborock S4 Max robot vacuum.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

One of the best ways to stay on top of all the pet hair shedding is with semi-regular robot vacuum sweeps. The Roborock S4 is one of our favorite smart vacs for tackling pet dander of all kinds, and like the Roborock S7, the S4 is compatible with Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant.

When it comes to mapping out the rooms in your home, the S4 uses cutting-edge LiDAR scanning to create snapshots of each part of your home. Capable of logging up to four floors for one residence, these cleaning blueprints are cached in the Roborock app, allowing you to select and customize. The app also lets you see where your vacuum is during a current cleanup, rooms it has already tackled, and parts of the home you’re keeping the vac away from with no-go zones.

In terms of overall power, a full charge will net you about 180 minutes of clean-time. While overall battery-life will vary based on the types of carpeting and other surfaces your vac needs to adjust to, even two full hours of performance is enough for most homes.

With powerful suction and the option to create temporary zones to tackle problem areas, such as around pet-food bowls and furniture that our furry friends favor, the Roborock S4 is great for cleaning the parts of the home that our four-legged friends frequent the most.

The best robot vacuum with Siri support for design: Neato Botvac D8

The Neato Botvac D8 cleaning carpeting.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Neato Botvac were some of the first robot vacs to feature direct integration with Siri Shortcuts, allowing vacuum owners to use voice commands to begin cleanings, pause, re-dock for charging, and set specific cleaning zones (D7 series and up) for many Botvac models. In our experience with the Neato lineup, we think the D8 is one of the company’s most efficient cleaners — thanks in part to the clever design.

Where many other robot vacs opt for a circular puck design, Neato vacs feature an iconic D-shaped chassis. Far more than just a physical identifier, the D-shaped design allows the Botvac to get deep into corners and along the base-trim of walls — parts of the home that a rounded chassis would have a tougher time handling. On top of this, the D8 uses precision-based LiDAR mapping to navigate around, avoiding obstacles like furniture while ensuring a deep clean to the parts of your pad that need it.

Offering up to 100 minutes of cleaning, the D8 is smart enough to know when its battery is running low, and will automatically return to its charging station if it needs more juice.

With Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant support, the D8 can be automated in a pinch. Start a cleaning, pause, or direct the vacuum to a specific part of your home using quick and easy voice commands. With the Botvac app (for iOS and Android gear), you can also build custom cleaning schedules, create no-go zones, and manually adjust controls and suction power for your Neato Botvac D8.

The best auto-emptying robot vacuum with Siri support: iRobot Roomba i7+

Roomba i7+ cleaning along base of wall.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

There’s no denying the reputation of the mighty iRobot brand. Renowned for its line of Roomba vacuums, these tried-and-true vacs offer some of the most cutting-edge cleaning tech, with plenty of customizations available through the Roomba app.

The Roomba i7+ is one of the company’s premiere models, and it comes with an automatic Clean Base. This debris tank is a depository for all of the dirt your i7+ collects during its sweeps of your home, and it’s also how the vac recharges when its cleaning is complete. Not only does the vacuum have onboard filtering, but so does the Clean Base, ensuring that the air released back into your house is 99.9% allergen-free. Best of all, the Clean Base will store debris for up to 60 days.

The Roomba i7+ is also equipped with vSLAM scanning technology for building detailed clean maps of your home, along with Roomba’s three-stage cleaning system that vibrates, lifts, and suctions away even the most deep-seated of messes.

When it comes to Siri and HomeKit integrations, there’s a little more involved to get the Roomba i7+ linked with your Apple ecosystem. For starters, you’ll need to create an IFTTT account. Then, select My Applets. In the search bar, type webhooks and select this option once it populates. From here, you’ll need to create a series of commands that your Roomba will respond to, including basic functions like start, pause, and dock. After you set your commands, you’ll need to copy the IFTTT key into the Siri Shortcuts app.

Yes, it’s a bit of a process, but for right now it’s the only way to get the iRobot Roomba i7+ to work with Siri commands.

Check out our full review of the iRobot Roomba i7+.

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Topics
Michael Bizzaco
Michael Bizzaco
Michael Bizzaco has been writing about and working with consumer tech for well over a decade, writing about everything from…
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