Wyze Robot Vacuum Review

We're impressed with Wyze and its first foray into the market here. They've put out a very solid, but not flashy, product that gets the job done. It's refreshing to see a model that doesn't try to make a splash, just quietly performs and disappears into the background of your busy life.

Performance Comparison

Navigation

Navigation is all about the programming of the on-board algorithm and how the vacuum decides to partition out your home and maneuver around objects like chairs or tables.

First and foremost, know that the Wyze treats your home's objects and furniture with respect. Many older robot vacuums tend to ram objects. You probably won't notice scuffs or nicks with the rubberized bumpers, but it can be with enough power to move a chair out of alignment and unintentionally mess up the mapping. This guy will take a slightly jagged path around chair legs, but it is surprisingly tight and effective when all is said and done.

What we liked even better was how it set up our floor's map, segmented it, then approached a methodical cleaning. It starts with a full perimeter of anywhere it can reach, then attacks each room with parallel lines. Each line overlaps to ensure effectiveness. It's a simple detail and takes longer than other vacuums we've tested, but it results in a cleaner floor. We'll take this over having to run two full cycles back-to-back.

What it doesn't do well is avoid your pets' accidents. This isn't a critical element for some consumers, but if you have a new puppy, take note. Watching the app in real-time, we saw that it noticed our analog Play-Doh stool, but it did not try to avoid it at all. Very few robot vacuums do this well; only the highest-end models have machine learning object recognition, and this budget model is not one of them.

Home Coverage

We found that the Wyze was a little hit-and-miss here. Something it does well is thoroughly covering your home, but cleaning tight along the edges of walls and corners was a bit suspect.

The Wyze had some of the best actual coverage of our rooms that we've seen. The parallel line sweeps overlap so that it hits everywhere twice, effectively. We noticed it decided to tackle some of the harder things first, under tables for example, then came back to hit the open areas. As chairs are left out and boxes set down, you need to have confidence that your vacuum will handle the changes from session to session in stride. As a brand, we're impressed Wyze enters the market here fully up to speed.

The app has multi-story programming and effectively identifies separate rooms. One oversight is that the spot clean feature is more of a "go-zone" you have to identify and map out. Most brands have a zone with preset square footage that you pop the app open and drop.

Edges were the main struggle, though. The Wyze handled virtual barriers and no-go zones well enough once dialed in, but we noticed that it trapped itself behind in some instances. You'll need to be careful with how you set up your no-go zones, or the vacuum can get confused. Getting along walls and into corners was a bit of a struggle too. This isn't uncommon at all among competitors. It really comes down to what kind of mess the rotating brush arm naturally handles better. Rice and oatmeal were fine. With coffee, it left a noticeable band behind. Essentially, if the main center roller doesn't capture powdered messes, be ready to run a few sessions to get the edges clean.

Carpet Cleaning

We're impressed with the Wyze in our carpet tests. The Wyze handles more "standard-sized" debris like rice and oatmeal really well. Almost 100% of the pre-measured spills were captured on short-pile carpet, while just over 90% of the debris was captured on high-pile. Larger items, like mini-wheat cereal, were also handled without issue on shorter carpet. On high-pile carpet, the debris was dug in further, then passed over. Not unexpected, but worth mentioning as some other models have the clearance to handle these situations better.

Powdered messes were the only truly difficult problem for the Wyze. We measured 15% picked up, which we chalk up to a plain lack of suction (vs. an upright). Truly fine grit messes will get lodged in carpet fibers, and while you can set a spot clean with high-suction mode, this just isn't what robot vacuums are designed to handle.

Hard Surface Cleaning

Hard surfaces are where robot vacuums shine. The Wyze in particular does a terrific job overall, so if your home has a high percentage of tile and hardwood, this is a winner.

Rice and oatmeal were nearly perfectly corralled. The flour did much better on hard flooring; the rotating brush arm moved everything to the center roller, which then picked up most of the debris.

The mini-wheats were an interesting test. Many products on the market struggle here mainly due to low clearance. That's good for most things, especially powdered messes, but in this case, it means that about half of the pieces were pushed around and ultimately missed. We see many competitors here fling the bigger pieces around with the side rotating brush arm, but the Wyze's center roller rejected many pieces here.

Pet Hair

Hair can be tough to clean for robot vacs, especially on carpets. The Wyze is mediocre at best here, but take the ratings with a grain of salt. When it comes to pet hair, robot vacuums prevent daily buildup. They aren't, however, meant for cleaning up large pet hair messes.

As measured by weight, the Wyze picked up about a quarter of the pet hair we laid out. We had some cautiously optimistic expectations here, considering the overlapping layers should pull and lift the hair from two angles. Ultimately we saw the hair laid out in almost hairball-like deposits — meaning the Wyze was able to pick up the hair but couldn't capture all of it.

Convenience

The Wyze has some good features, mainly through its app. They got many things right — multi-story mapping, for example, is not especially common in the market just yet, making this budget option a nice entry level for anyone who wants to utilize the tool throughout their home. It has multiple suction and power settings, cleaning scheduling (and a cleaning history), and tracks the lifespan of components for replacement or periodic cleaning.

We did wish zone or individual room cleaning were available. We also couldn't find mention of a "find my robot" or a repeat session option. But all-in-all, Wyze got the important stuff right.

The Wyze comes with a standard charging dock. Every option in the market will have this, but many models have an optional tower dock these days. They can be quite expensive, nearly doubling the cost of the base model, but they dramatically improve the convenience of what is made to bring nothing but convenience to your life.

A tower dock will automatically empty the dust bin to reduce the frequency of emptying your vacuum. Which, in this case, should be every other time it's run.

Should You Buy the Wyze Robot Vacuum?

We think the Wyze Robot Vacuum is a great value. Not dirt cheap, but still an incredible value for what it offers. This model competes in features and smarts with some much pricier options. It's one of our favorites and is evidence that the market as a whole is maturing when a budget option performs this well.

What Other Robot Vacuum Should You Consider?