Fastest robotic vacuum

The fastest robotic vacuum is Vroomba, a heavily modified iRobot Roomba 630, which achieved a top speed of 57 km/h (35 mph) on 8 October 2022. This racing Roomba was the work of Alister Laidlaw (AUS), who documented its development on his YouTube channel, "Electrosync".

The key upgrades Laidlaw made were replacing the two electric motors (one for each wheel) with much more powerful models, casting some new larger wheels, and upgrading the battery pack and power electronics. Although it was theoretically capable of much higher speeds, controlling Vroomba proved to be almost impossible, as the design has just two wheels, one on either side, and steers by varying the power being sent to each wheel. This so-called "tank steering" is extremely unstable at high speeds.

Laidlaw returned to Vroomba in autumn 2023, improving its tires, controls and adding a custom-designed aero kit. This improved stability a little, but it was not enough to prevent the vaccum from veering off course during a high speed run and smashing itself to pieces against a kerb.