Roomba vs. Dyson: In-Depth Comparison

Roman Peysakhovich

CEO

March 6, 2024

What is better, a Roomba or a Dyson vacuum?

Roomba vs. Dyson vacuum comparisons are needed to allow consumers to better make a good decision on what brand and model to buy.

Before you choose between a Roomba or a Dyson vacuum. You must be made aware of how a vacuum works, what you get out of it, and the existence of alternative models that can do what other similar models can.

Roomba and Dyson are known to place their focus on very specific features, marketing them as unique over others.

iRobot and Dyson are two brands that advertise specific attributes that do count, things that set each brand apart from one another and make them great at vacuuming.

Still, each has some major differences, especially in the number of models they sell.

iRobot manufactures the Roomba, a well-known machine that minimizes cleaning efforts by reducing the times required for you to use a manual cleaner.

Dyson is well-known for their powerful cordless stick vacuums.

The info below will focus on the two companies, how they compare, how they differ, and the kind of products you can buy from them.

Additionally, advantages such as the range of products, main features, and battery life from their vacuums are detailed.

Vacuum cleaners made by Roomba or Dyson are an investment, one that should last you several years if you take care of them.

With Dyson and iRobot, you get the best in the vacuuming industry, all the more reason to see how they stack up against one another.

What is the difference between Roomba and Dyson?

To begin, here's a look into Dyson and iRobot. As you may know, iRobot is the company behind Roomba who is headquartered in the United States. Most of their machines are built in China and sold all over the world.

Roomba alone is a very popular name, and many know of existing robot vacuums as primarily existing with this brand.

Although this isn't true, it's clear that Roomba has influenced the creation of many similar robot vacuum designs.

Dyson sells a large variety of cordless stick, upright, and even robot vacuums.

While iRobot's main focus is on building wireless automated vacuums, Dyson has multiple vacuum categories.

They sell upright vacuums, handheld vacuums, stick vacuums, and even wall-mounted garage vacuums. Stating the obvious, Dyson is a better brand for multiple types of vacuum cleaners.

Hailing the UK, Dyson has been producing vacuum cleaners for the better part of 30 years. They were highly influential to new designs when first starting, to the same degree that iRobot is today.

Again, it's important to note that iRobot doesn't build anything other than robot vacuums at the moment.

This could change in the future to include more heavy-duty machines.

But for now, their focus is entirely automated. To compare them with Dyson over quantity of products is potentially redundant if you're sold to the idea of robot vacuums.

Dyson's fleet of robovacs includes the Eye. Parts of the interface and design don't match the Roomba at all.

The same applies to Dyson's 360 Heurist.

Both are part of the same series under Dyson. Sure, it has many similarities to a typical Roomba, but enough characteristics for you to notice it when first reading its product description.

The 360 Eye and the 360 Heurist each are smaller than a Roomba.

As typical of Dyson, they also make use of cyclonic motors.

These suck in the dirt very quickly and do an excellent job of separating them from filters. It makes cleaning the dust container and filter much easier. Their filters also last longer from this.

Even while the devices are smaller than Roomba, their cyclonic features add weight to the machines.

They're more cumbersome on their batteries, in some circumstances running them down due to the excess weight being carried.

The Heurist is slightly over an inch taller than Roombas are.

You've probably guessed by now that this could create issues when you want it to go underneath your upholstery to clean things.

If the clearance doesn't allow it, it'll be a part of the floor that's annoyingly avoided.

However, the Heurist can slide in between confined parts better than a Roomba can.

The diameter makes it great for covering floors with lots of arranged furniture, so long as noting rests too close to the floor.

Another height disadvantage is the Heurist potentially having issues when trying to move on carpets, especially the kind with loose threads. It will vacuum, but again, the battery may drain faster than normal.

When transferring between hard floor and carpet, check to see if the fabric is thicker than 0.70 inches.

If so, you can expect that part to be inaccessible.

You would be forced to pick up the device or place it on the carpet to get it moving again.

Not everyone has the same furniture or floor setting, so this might not be the case for your carpets.

One of the main benefits of owning a 360 Heurist is the same thing that gives it a heavier build, the motor.

It's officially called the V2 cyclonic motor and has nearly 80,000 rotations every minute. Suction power is strong also, slightly above the 360 Eye.

Collectively, Dyson's robot vacuums serve better as floor cleaners that concentrate on getting up as much dirt as possible, rather than how much area is covered in the process.

When you turn it on, you'll see firsthand that it's a true vacuum, not a drone pretending to be a vacuum cleaner.

Their suction can pick up virtually anything that comes close to the brushes, including coins, matter dirt, pet hair, and grime that rests under the top part of a carpet.

Looking into iRobot's machines, there's the Roomba i7 making waves at the moment. Roomba has put all efforts into what they're learned from customer feedback and recommendations into these machines, and it shows.

That's decades of designing and building off of what past Roombas did right, plus some innovations that are uncommon to other robot vacuums.

You can tell just by a glance at the Roomba that the people behind it are innovative, and the i7 exemplifies this.

Roombas have high-quality brushes. It's made of rubber, having no wired bristles on the exterior.

These help it penetrate the surfaces of rugs and carpet well, all without damaging the fabric.

The i7 and other Roombas like it will let you schedule where you want it to clean, or you can allow it to do this on its own.

It'll even give you recommendations showing problem areas and parts of the floor that push more debris into its container.

Even better is that it'll personalize the frequency of vacuums in certain seasons of the year, such as Springtime when the pollen is out and your potential for getting allergy flare-ups is higher.

Voice control is also present, another hand-free feature.

Sync it with Amazon's Alex or Google Voice if you wish. Once connected, control them from your smartphone.

Are you using Apple's Siri? If so, create your customized voice commands on the go. The result is you have control over the unit anywhere you may be, on any nearby Apple device.

It means that you can speak your commands to the Roomba that you create yourself. With all of these perks, the Roomba will maintain a solid connection to your home's WiFi system.

Even when the Roomba is some distance between your home's router, such as on the other side of the house, the connection will stay strong.

As the Roomba travels around your floors, there's no need for you to move any of the rugs.

It can travel over many obstacles. The i7 has monitoring sensors that safely maneuver it under most pieces of furniture, chairs, tables, and thick rugs.

Mentioned before was how a Roomba can provide you suggestions on what areas need special attention, such as hallways with a higher amount of foot traffic.

Made possible with the Dirt Detect feature, your Roomba scans the floors while it cleans, sending feedback about the amount of dust that it picks up to its mobile application on your phone.

To condense where the differences lie between Roomba and Dyson here, the Roomba is more agile and the Dyson is more heavy-duty.

With a Roomba, there's little need to interact with the vacuum, even on parts of the floor where a Dyson would probably get stuck.

Range

If Dyson and iRobot are compared by range from a general standpoint, then Dyson would be the easy victor.

But when looking into the kinds of robot vacuums that you can get from each, Roomba does offer a good size selection. T

here's even a cheaper model available to customers that are on a budget.

Dyson 360 Eye vs. Roomba i7

Many would claim that the i7 beats the 360 Eye, but there is room for ambiguity.

The Dyson 360 sticks to what people use vacuums for, which is a thorough clean that gets up dirty to the level of a conventional vacuum.

You can feel how powerful the suction is by the sound that it makes when the device is turned on. It's not too loud, but noticeable.

Yet issues could occur with the 360's navigational constraints. The sheer size of its body is the biggest setback.

If you can have a minimalist home or furniture with good space underneath, this won't apply to your situation and the 360 would do a phenomenal job traveling throughout your floor plan.

Roombas vs. Dyson's stick vacuums

Vacuums like the Dyson V10 are cordless, coming close to the category that robot vacuums are under.

As the V10 is listed under the V category of vacuums made by them, you'll have to control it by hand.

Yet the suction is fast and a quick five-minute clean can do what would take a Roomba much longer to accomplish.

Dyson V8 vs. i7

For one that's set on getting a robot vacuum, this won't apply. But if you're still open to vacuuming through handheld means, the V8's stick design is innovative and very strong.

Truthfully, you could even use it as a backup to a Roomba, tackling parts that are impossible to clean with a Roomba, such as different floors where the machine isn't being used or a flight of stairs.

The V8 is cordless and has a battery that lasts for about 50 minutes before charging is needed again.

There's another smaller handheld vacuum connected to it, which is easily separated by a switch located near to the machine's handle.

The dust container is big enough to clean more than once in different sessions. It's about half as large as Roomba's debris container.

Price

For some vacuum shoppers, price is more important than a product's features. Good quality vacuums aren't cheap, but there are some on the market prices better than others.

Dyson, through the sheer number of products they have, manufactures cheaper vacuums than Roomba doesn't, at least in quantity and the number of options between vacuum styles.

The Dyson 360 retails for approximately $1000. That's in between two of Roomba's top models, the i7 and the S9.

The Roomba S9 retails between $1,200 and $1,500.

You can get the i7 at prices ranging from $600 to $800. Promotions and special deals at different times of the year could greatly reduce these prices, discounting them depending on where you purchase one from.

You can find a cheap Roomba. The Roomba 675 sells for about $300.

Other Roombas within its 600 series are a bit cheaper, but the features greatly lack in comparison to what's found on the higher-priced Dyson and Roomba units.

Dyson has no budget-friendly robot vacuums. If you want something from them that's in the range of Roomba's cheapest editions, you'll have to settle for a cleaner that isn't automated.

Battery Life

The battery life of cordless vacuums has gotten much better, especially in the last decade.

Vacuum cleaners that used to last for only 20 minutes have now been updated to go for well over an hour.

It could be argued that battery power trumps all other comparisons. Without a good battery, you won't have a machine that you'll enjoy using.

This is ironic in a way since most robot vacuums are built to give you a hands-free approach to cleaning your floors.

Most home electronics use lithium-ion batteries, sometimes in more than one quantity.

Lithium-ions are favored for their ability to last a long time without depreciating and the size that some of the cells are capable of being downscaled to.

But like all rechargeable batteries, they too won't last forever. You may think that battery quality among brands is radically different, but this isn't true.

Sure, low-quality cleaners of any kind are sometimes doomed with low energy capacities or mAh.

But good vacuums, including robovacs made by Dyson and Roomba, won't suffer from short battery life.

Lifetime is different from battery life and is sometimes used to determine the lifespan of a cordless machine itself.

But other times, the warranty may stipulate that batteries aren't a factor in the lifetime of a machine. Roomba's batteries on most of their models have batteries with dissimilar battery capacities.

The i7, for example, uses the I series batteries that distinguish themselves from the batteries provided to Roomba's other units.

Others within the 600, 800, and 900 series have batteries from 1800 to 3300 mAh.

iRobot also sells batteries separately, so it's simple to replace the one that you have for another when the one that you're using does depreciate.

A typical Roomba will last for about 40 minutes when used at its maximum potential when settings are at their highest.

But some units, like the i7 and S9, are capable of pulling off 100 minutes of activity on a full charge. That's significantly more than their lower-cost models.

Since Dyson has just the 360 Eye and Heurist, they easily beat out the lower-cost Roombas. But given that both 360's max out at 5200 mAh, there's a clear area for improvement with Roombas.

As a whole, the battery power for Roomba and Dyson's 360 lines are both good. You'll probably have your Dyson's battery last a bit longer without needing a replacement. The Roomba lasts for a while too, but not as long as a Dyson can.

Read More: Roborock vs. Roomba

Dust Bin

Dust bin capacity can gauge the number of times you'll have to open up the vacuum and dispense its contents.

Dyson 360 machines will each hold 330 ml of debris before you must empty them.

There are about two dispenses from you a week when a 360 is used to vacuum every day.

The Roomba S9 can hold about 400 ml of debris.

The i7 will hold more provided that it's used in conjunction with the Clean Base. The Clean Base is part of a dock that the i7 connects to after the smaller bin on the machine is full.

When this happens, the debris is sucked into a bag on the Clean Base dock, then stored until that itself is full.

Based on the model Roomba that it's purchased with, the Clean Base has enough room to store between 30 to 60 bins worth of debris before emptying is necessary.

Read More: Shark vs. Roomba

Filtration

Dyson uses pre-motor filters on their robot vacuums. Roomba has models that use standard filters and HEPA filters.

The high-end models are compatible with HEPA filters and are sold with them in the packaging.

HEPA filters are great for trapping in dust, picking up 99% of what passes through the cleaner.

That's pollen, airborne pathogens, and mold-causing fungal remnants. HEPA filters are also capable of capturing dust mites and their eggs. Even fleas are picked up by them.

Dyson relies more on its cyclonic motor to entrap germs and dust mites.

While some of it is placed around the filter during clean-up, it also stays within the rest of the debris.

HEPA filters are certified, while Dyson's aren't.

But since Dyson does have great suction combined with a powerful motor that's pressurized when operating, all the bad particulates remain inside of the machine until you're ready to throw the debris in the trash.

Read More: Eufy vs. Roomba

Warranty

Dyson's warranty for the 360 series is two years, to iRobot's one year. Their extended warranty plan known as Protect Plus increases the time to two years total.

The Protect Plus plan can be acquired through Roomba's website or purchased from them within 30 days from the buying date of the Roomba.

Dyson gives 2 years warranty to customers at no additional costs.

And since Dyson is willing to cover things such as battery repairs within the warranty that Roomba doesn't with their standard warranty, they easily win in this department.

Features

Here are some features found on Dysons's 360 robot vacuums:

Navigational controls - The machine easily finds its way around large homes or compact apartments. It does a better job in rooms where furniture isn't clustered about and has good clearance underneath upholstery.
Great suction - The suction on a Dyson 360 rivals any Roomba, including the most expensive models like the i7 and S9.
Strong wheels - The 360's wheels for the Heurist and Air are both very durable. They will chip, brittle, or warp on hard or carpeted floors.

And now for the iRobot:

Battery variety of robot vacuums - While Dyson has a better variety of every other vacuum, iRobot's Roombas lead in the selection of robot vacuums available for retail.
Clean Base - Much has been said about the Clean Base from vacuum critics. The benefits are plenty, the main one through pushing the brand closer to a true hands-free vacuuming experience.
Budget-friendly alternatives - Roombas have a reputation for making high-priced vacuums. But there are models within the numbered series with good prices, some of which are less than $300.