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The 5 best spring cleaning deals on robot vacuums will save you hundreds
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Spring is right around the corner, so it’s time to start thinking about what kind of cleaning you’ll tackle this season. Don’t bother with sweeping the floors or vacuuming regularly if you don’t have to. Let robot vacuums tackle that task for you instead.
These impressive pieces of smart home tech can tackle everything from dirt and debris to pet messes and tangled human hair — so you can handle more important things, like choosing a new mattress or bringing home new, clean furniture. They can even map out areas of your home that need to be cleaned while intelligently avoiding obstacles. In other words, the robot vacuums rarely get stuck under furniture.
The only catch? Robot vacuums can be spendy. Just in time to herald the arrival of spring, we searched high and low for the best robot vacuum deals available now. Whether you want an all-in-one cleaning powerhouse or a cheaper option that’s great for cleaning small areas, there’s a robot vacuum that’ll fit nicely within your budget. Now put down that stick vacuum and let the robots do the hard stuff.
The 5 best spring cleaning deals on robot vacuums
Roborock Q5+ (43% off)
Amazon
This sleek, self-emptying vacuum is an excellent pick for those newbies and experienced users alike. It uses precise LiDAR navigation to map your home, with projections you can view in 3D and then edit in real time, just in case there are other obstacles that might be in the vacuum’s way.
Its 2700 Pa suction can remove ground-in dirt, pet hair and other debris from your carpet and hard flooring in an instant, with a battery that recharges when docked. That means no sending it back manually to juice back up, or worse, carrying to the dock yourself when it’s dead.
Plus, its self-emptying dock’s dust bag holds enough to handle what Roborock claims is seven weeks worth of dirt. Add that in to intelligent routines you can set up via app, and this robot can do everything.
Sit back, relax, and let this bot take vacuuming and emptying the dustbin off of your to-do list.
iRobot Roomba 692 (9% off)
Amazon
This Roomba model is perfect for cleaning up pet debris and messes all without your intervention. It uses smart scheduling via app, and a three-stage cleaning system featuring dual, multi-surface brushes. Put it all together, and you get a robot vac that pull dirt from carpets while clearing out cobwebs and other untouchables from corners and edges.
It’s also a whiz when it comes to lifting pet dander from even the most stubborn carpets. It uses a cliff detect feature to keep it from falling down stairs or other edges in your home, and dirt-detecting sensors to figure out where the filthiest parts of your home are.
When it comes to setting up routines, it can listen to your voice and adapt for personalized cleaning schedules. Or you can manually set them up via the iRobot app.
With a runtime of 90 minutes and a complete suite of cleaning options, this is an excellent robot vacuum that’s the perfect companion for pet owners.
iRobot Roomba j7+ (29% off)
Amazon
The iRobot Roomba j7+ is one of CBS Essentials’ favorite devices, and for good reason. It’s a reliable robot vacuum at a great price, and it’s perfect for anyone who needs their hard floors kept tidy. Any robot vacuum can handle carpet, but only some are truly great at getting your hard floors sparkling clean, and if you live in a home that’s primarily carpet-free, you need a model that “gets it.”
This self-emptying robot vacuum uses smart mapping to let you control and schedule which rooms you tidy up and when. It can store a variety of maps for different areas or levels of your home, too. Set up special zones for it to avoid, as well as areas it should clean when on schedule.
It can identify obstacles, empty on its own and use 10x power-lifting suction with multi-surface rubber brushes. It can even be used when you’re away, using your phone’s location services, so you can return to a clean house.
If you need your robot vacuum to suck up hardwood floor messes and figure things out on its own, this is a great choice.
iRobot Roomba s9+ (30% off)
Amazon
If you’re a robot vacuum vet and want something heavy duty to clean your whole house, this bundle is what you’re looking for. It doesn’t get much better than this model, with two excellent functions in one product.
This premium vacuum and mop work in tandem to clean your floors together and leave them sparkling and shiny, dirt-free and spotless. It uses 40 times the suction power of less expensive models, with a three-stage cleaning system to loosen and lift dirt, a self-emptying base, mopping functionality and more.
With its intelligent navigation system, this robot vacuum and mop combo can simply learn your home’s layout and create its own maps, so you don’t have to do anything but sit back and relax while this unit works.
Especially useful is the Braava Jet m6 mop that you can use just like the vacuum to assign cleaning areas or use on demand. You’re truly getting the best of both worlds here – and while it’s still carrying a hefty price tag, a sale is always a good time to consider grabbing this unit, since it’s so good at what it does and then some.
Eufy RoboVac G32 (16% off)
Amazon
For just $100, this budget robot vacuum is an excellent buy. It can hang with just about any higher-priced option and then some. It can create intelligent navigation paths through your home, bring 2000Pa of suction, and uses BoostIQ tech to increase suction power when going from hard to carpeted floors.
You can control its cleaning schedule and paths via app, and it has an anti-collision sensor to keep it from running into things. And if you have to leave it be, its drop-sensing tech can keep it from throwing itself off of ledges or falling down the stairs.
It’s lightweight and speedy, and comes with everything you need to clean your home efficiently with a robot vacuum. The only thing it doesn’t come with is an exorbitant price tag. It’s the best budget option you’ll find on the market, with plenty of perks that land it in the mid-tier robot vacuum range.
What is the best robot vacuum?
Focusing on a few important features can help. For starters, pay attention to suction power. Strong suction is important for digging up dirt, dust and pet hair from carpets and rugs as well as hard-to-reach areas. Battery life matters, too. Some vacuums run for more than two hours per charge, and they can return to their base and charge themselves up so you don’t have to.
You’ll also want to consider navigation and mapping capabilities. Advanced systems like visual mapping let robovacs map rooms and avoid obstacles. Of course, convenient features like Wi-Fi and voice control through Alexa or Google Assistant make life easier for you. With an app, you can schedule, monitor and control cleaning remotely as well. Any time you can automate what a robot vacuum does is a bonus – leave all that hard work to the machines.
Look for large dustbins so you empty less often, especially with pets. And HEPA filters do wonders for capturing dust and allergens. Finally, match the vacuum’s brushes to your floors. Specialized brushes are good for pet hair, for instance. You may need a vacuum that handles hardwood floors better, and you don’t want to be stuck with one that can’t handle the demands of your home’s flooring.
Hollywood actor Keanu Reeves made his professional auto racing debut on Saturday at the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
“The Matrix” star, who qualified 31st out of 35 cars, ran as high as 21st before a single-car crash a little more than halfway through the 45-minute race briefly stopped him in his tracks.
Darron Cummings / AP
The 60-year-old spun into the grass without a collision on the exit of Turn 9 when he had about 21 minutes of racing left. He re-entered the course and continued driving, signaling he was uninjured.
Reeves finished 25th.
The actor is competing at Indianapolis in the Toyota GR Cup, a Toyota spec-racing series and a support series for this weekend’s Indy 8 Hour sports car event. He has a second race on Sunday.
Darron Cummings / AP
He is driving the No. 92 BRZRKR car, which is promoting his graphic novel “The Book of Elsewhere.” He is teammates with Cody Jones from “Dude Perfect.”
Reeves has previous racing experience as a former participant in the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach in the celebrity race. Reeves won the event in 2009.
A passenger successfully landed a small plane on Friday after the pilot had a medical emergency, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
The twin-engine Beechcraft King Air 90 was traveling from Henderson Executive Airport in Las Vegas, Nevada to Monterey Regional Airport in California, with a pilot and one other person on board, the FAA said.
The pilot suffered an unspecified medical emergency while flying, the FAA said, forcing the passenger to take the controls and make an emergency landing at Meadows Field Airport in Bakersfield, California.
The Kern Fire Department told CBS News affiliate KBAX that firefighters were called to a report of a medical emergency on the plane. The pilot was reported to be “incapacitated,” the fire department said. Firefighters saw the plane approach and land safely, then “chased” the plane down the runway in emergency vehicles to meet it.
The FAA did not release the passenger or pilot’s identities nor give an update on the pilot’s condition. The pilot was taken to an area hospital by ambulance. The passenger did not report any injuries.
The FAA and the National Transportation Security Board will investigate the incident, the FAA said.
Congolese authorities began vaccination against mpox on Saturday, nearly two months after the disease outbreak that spread from Congo to several African countries and beyond was declared a global emergency by the World Health Organization.
The 265,000 doses donated to Congo by the European Union and the U.S. were rolled out in the eastern city of Goma in North Kivu province, where hospitals and health workers have been overstretched, struggling to contain the new and possibly more infectious strain of mpox.
Congo, with about 30,000 suspected mpox cases and 859 deaths, accounts for more than 80% of all the cases and 99% of all the deaths reported in Africa this year. All of the Central African nation’s 26 provinces have recorded mpox cases. Officials in Congo previously told CBS News that they’ve struggled to diagnose patients and provide basic care in the vast country of 100 million people, where a fragile, under-resourced healthcare system is also burdened by the stigma associated with the virus.
Although most mpox infections and deaths recorded in Congo are in children under age 15, the doses being administered are only meant for adults and will be given to at-risk populations and front-line workers, Health Minister Roger Kamba said this week.
“Strategies have been put in place by the services in order to vaccinate all targeted personnel,” Muboyayi ChikayaI, the minister’s chief of staff, said as he kicked off the vaccination.
Moses Sawasawa / AP
At least 3 million doses of the vaccine approved for use in children are expected from Japan in the coming days, Kamba said.
Mpox, also known as monkeypox, had been spreading mostly undetected for years in Africa before the disease prompted the 2022 global outbreak that saw wealthy countries quickly respond with vaccines from their stockpiles while Africa received only a few doses despite pleas from its governments.
However, unlike the global outbreak in 2022 that was overwhelmingly focused on gay and bisexual men, mpox in Africa is now being spread via sexual transmission as well as through close contact among children, pregnant women and other vulnerable groups, Dr. Dimie Ogoina, the chair of WHO’s mpox emergency committee, recently told reporters.
More than 34,000 suspected cases and 866 deaths from the virus have been recorded across 16 countries in Africa this year. That is a 200% increase compared to the same period last year, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
A lack of diagnostic materials and basic medicines to treat the virus, which can improve survival rates, have also hampered efforts to contain the outbreak, and access to vaccines remains a challenge.
Moses Sawasawa / AP
The continent of 1.4 billion people has only secured a commitment for 5.9 million doses of mpox vaccines, expected to be available from October through December, Dr. Jean Kaseya, head of the Africa CDC, told reporters last week. Congo remains a priority, he said.
At the vaccination drive in Goma, Dr Jean Bruno Kibunda, the WHO representative, warned that North Kivu province is at a risk of a major outbreak due to the “promiscuity observed in the camps” for displaced people, as one of the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis caused by armed violence unfolds there.
The news of the vaccination program brought relief to many in Congo, especially in hospitals that had been struggling to manage the outbreak. Doctors with several charities working in the country have told CBS News they’re overstretched and short on supplies, even having to use tents and mattresses on the floor of makeshift isolation wards to treat a constant influx of patients.
“If everyone could be vaccinated, it would be even better to stop the spread of the disease,” said Dr. Musole Mulambamunva Robert, the medical director of Kavumu Hospital, one of the mpox treatment centers in eastern Congo.
Eastern Congo has been beset by conflict for years, with more than 100 armed groups vying for a foothold in the mineral-rich area near the border with Rwanda. Some have been accused of carrying out mass killings.
