Housework is both inevitable and dreaded. No matter how carefully you tidy up, inside or out, or how regularly you hire someone to do it for you, you’ll need to do some cleaning yourself at some point.
That doesn’t mean, however, that you must spend your day wringing mops and wearing work gloves. Targeting the incessant desire of many to avoid cleaning, several technology companies have created robotic assistants that can help finish chores more quickly and let you return to the fun parts of life.
Bissell Spotbot Pet Deep Cleaner
Anyone who has ever house trained a puppy knows that some stains are tougher to clean than others. Instead of scrubbing Spot’s spot out of the carpet for hours, consider this $149 pet-focused deep cleaner that thoroughly cleans a single spot when placed over the stain. It is supposed to work on problem stains while removing odors. It does the work automatically, but if you’ve got a particularly stubborn stain—or if it’s in a hard to reach spot—you can just as easily extend the hose and take care of things manually. (Buy it here.)
Neato Botvac D5 Connected
Autonomous vacuums can be pricey. At $599, though, Neato’s Botvac D5, though, costs a lot lower than its competitors—but the cleaning quality is roughly the same. While it could, admittedly, do a slightly better job with pet hair and fine sand, the D5 Connected excels on carpeted surfaces. It’s also app-controlled, letting you easily schedule a cleaning from afar or to send it to take care of a mess. (It will also send updates and alerts to your phone so that you can monitor the status of what it’s doing.) (Buy it here.)
Sonic Scrubber
Cleaning stubborn kitchen or bathroom stains are one of the worst indoor chores, especially if they’re in a tight or awkward place. The $20 Sonic Scrubber is like an electronic toothbrush for these tough jobs. It oscillates at high speeds, removing buildup and making cleaning faster. And it comes with multiple brushes for different areas. The company’s U.S. division shut down years ago, but its products are still available on Amazon. (Buy it here.)
iRobot Looj Gutter Cleaner
Even people who enjoy doing yard work dread cleaning the gutters—especially in the fall when trees lose their leaves. IRobot, which kicked off the robotic vacuum industry, has also built a device that can get rid of the leaves and sludge for you. That means you won’t have to stretch while on a ladder or stick your hand down a drain to fish out who knows what. The $300 device can cover 30 feet of gutter in just five minutes. All you’ll have to do is rake up the debris it discards on the ground while it cleans. (Buy it here.)
Dyson Pure Cool Link Tower
Sometimes, the things that make your house dirty are so minute you can’t clean them with traditional tools. Dyson’s $499 Pure Cool Link Tower may look like a fancy, bladeless fan, but its real job is to purify the air around you—something that’s especially important if you live in a high-pollen area and have allergies. The device claims to remove 99.97% of airborne allergens while also automatically monitoring the air—turning itself on when allergens reach a set level. (Buy it here.)
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