iRobot Roomba vs Lefant

Which brand to buy

Below $200 is the only place these two meet, and there they meet head-on. Lefant's one current robot costs $180; iRobot's range climbs to $1,200 with camera-guided and self-washing models Lefant has no answer to. At the bottom, the Roomba Vac Essential at $100 is a gyroscope-navigated robot without a dock, as was the now-discontinued Lefant M210, and the more interesting fight is one step up.

The Lefant M2S Pro at $180 combines LiDAR mapping, a self-emptying dock, 10000 Pa suction and a rated 240-minute battery. iRobot's entry self-emptying LiDAR robot is the Roomba 105 Vac. Its owners call it the cheapest way into a properly mapped Roomba with strong carpet pickup, but testers measured poor flattened pet hair pickup, heavy long-hair wrap, and coverage of only about 630 sq ft per charge. The iRobot Roomba 105 Combo is the other budget LiDAR Roomba; owners like its row-by-row mapping and dog-hair pickup, and say the mop simply drags. The iRobot Roomba 205 DustCompactor Vac, now discontinued, skipped the dock entirely by compressing debris inside the robot, which owners in low-shed apartments liked and heavy-shed households did not.

What iRobot adds is a long record and US support; Lefant robots carry the same 1-year warranty but have little ownership history to judge by. Owners of iRobot's pricier j-series and Max models consistently praise the rubber extractors for pet hair, a step above anything at Lefant's prices.

Buy Lefant for the most hardware per dollar under $200. Lean toward iRobot if you want a brand with a track record, or plan to spend $500 or more for its Max-series models.

iRobot Roomba vs Lefant: common questions