Editorial Policy

How I Test

Every product I write about has run through my house. Minimum 30 days of daily use, usually longer. Robot vacs run against real fur loads from two shedding dogs, on hardwood and on the living room runner. Dustbin weights go on a kitchen scale. Noise levels go through the iPhone NIOSH SLM app.

I log observations as they happen. If a bot started strong and degraded by week six, that's in the notes. If a companion app got worse after a firmware update, that's in the notes too.

What I Cover

Robot vacuums, air purifiers, and smart-home detectors for households with pets or kids. I don't cover corded stick vacuums, carpet shampooers, central vacuum systems, or smart-home hub setup guides. Those are a different category and one I'm not positioned to write about.

Affiliate Relationships

Some links here are affiliate links. Click one, buy the thing, I get a commission at no extra cost to you. The commission doesn't shape which products get covered here. If something fails on the basement steps or gets stuck under the sectional every third run, the review says so whether or not the link pays out.

Brand-Sent Units

If a brand sends a unit to test, I say so in that piece. The dustbin tally otherwise runs on my own money: returns, refurb deals, and the occasional outright loss on a unit that turned out to be bad.

Updates and Corrections

Models get discontinued. Firmware updates change how bots behave. If something here is out of date or wrong, the contact page is the right way to flag it.