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Not all cheap robot vacuums suck — I tested and genuinely trust these 3 picks

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Inexpensive robot vacuums are way smarter than they used to be. Even without all of the fancy features, they can absolutely shave some time off of your chore routine — if they work the way they're supposed to.

But many of the ultra-cheap robot vacuums floating around are so basic that they quickly go from helpers to agents of chaos. Let's say the low price stems from basic bumper car navigation instead of smart mapping, or from outdated sensors that get confused by table legs. Your chances of coming home to a vacuum stuck under the couch are probably higher than the chance of coming home to a fully-swept floor plan. Many low-budget robotic vacuum cleaners also cap suction power at 2,000 or 3,000 Pa, which simply can't compete with any remotely stubborn crumbs, hair, or dust. You'd be all but guaranteed to step on debris that the vacuum blew around and left behind.

Long story short: Buying a certain robot vacuum just because it's cheap puts that glorious hands-off cleaning experience in jeopardy. But not all budget robot vacuums are disappointing. Compared to five years ago, the budget-friendly end of the robot vacuum spectrum has experienced just as much of a glow-up as the premium end has. Smart mapping and automatic emptying are incredibly common and affordable in 2025, especially when deals on robot vacuums happen year-round. All picks in this list go on sale for less than $500 multiple times per month.

At the end of the day, the best way to ensure a cheap robot vacuum doesn't suck is to take a recommendation from someone who's tested some out before. I'm regularly testing budget robot vacuums in my own apartment, actively keeping the "bang for your buck" mentality in mind. Here are the best inexpensive robot vacuums to buy in 2025.

Other robot vacuums I've tested recently

I have tested several other inexpensive robot vacuums in the past that didn't make the most recent cut for this list. These include older models like the Eufy L60, Roomba 694, the Roomba Combo Essential 2, and Shark Matrix RV2300, which have simply been overshadowed by other (often newer) vacuums that offer more suction power and smarter features in the same budget price range.

One comparison that sticks out is the Roomba 205 DustCompactor versus the 3i G10+, which both "self-empty" without a self-emptying dock. However, I wasn't psyched on my experience with the Roomba 205 — it got stuck on rug corners and got lost too often. Plus, the 3i G10+ offers more advanced features like small obstacle and pet waste avoidance and a livestream pet camera, whereas the Roomba 205 doesn't.

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Stop your AI subscriptions and get an all-in-one tool for life

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TL;DR: Access dozens of top AI tools in one platform — 1min.AI bundles content, chat, design, audio, video, PDF, and more under a single lifetime license for just $79.97.



1min.AI Advanced Business Plan Lifetime Subscription

Credit: 1minAI

One of the bigger annoyances of the digital age is the subscription model. Juggling a half-dozen AI tools, each with its own login credentials, pricing tiers, and learning curve, is exhausting. That’s why 1min.AI can be a helpful alternative to the usual chaos.

It’s like your favorite productivity cheat code — an all-in-one platform that brings together top-tier AI features for writing, design, video, audio, and more under a single dashboard. And you can get a lifetime subscription to the Advanced Business Plan for just $79.97 (down from the MSRP of $540) — with no recurring fees, ever.

Need blog posts written in your brand voice? Check. Want to generate YouTube thumbnails, edit PDFs with AI, or even clean up audio? Covered. From chatting with advanced models like GPT-4o and Claude 3 to turning PDFs into summaries, translating audio, or batch-generating marketing copy, 1min.AI does it fast — like, one-minute fast. That’s the whole point.

Whether you’re a solo creator or running a small team, 1min.AI simplifies your stack. You’ll have access to multiple flagship models like GPT, Claude, Gemini, and Llama, plus unlimited brand voice slots, unlimited prompt storage, and 4,000,000 credits/month to spend on whatever you want to make.

If you’re tired of managing a spreadsheet of AI tools (we’ve been there), this is your chance to condense it all into one slick, ever-evolving platform — without the subscription guilt of drain.

Get lifetime access to the 1min.AI Advanced Business Plan for just $79.97 while you can and streamline your digital tools forever.

StackSocial prices subject to change.

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Anthropic reportedly cut OpenAI access to Claude

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It seems OpenAI has been caught with its hands in the proverbial cookie jar. Anthropic has reportedly cut off OpenAI’s access to Anthropic’s APIs over what Anthropic is calling a terms of service breach.

As reported by Wired, multiple sources claim that OpenAI has been cut off from Anthropic’s APIs. Allegedly, OpenAI was using Anthropic’s Claude Code to assist in creating and testing OpenAI’s upcoming GPT-5, which is due to release in August.

According to these sources, OpenAI was plugging into Claude’s internal tools instead of using the chat interface. From there, they used the API to run tests against GPT-5 to check things like coding and creative writing against Claude to compare performance. OpenAI allegedly also tested safety prompts related to things like CSAM, self-harm, and defamation. This would give OpenAI data that it could then use to fine-tune GPT-5 to make it more competitive against Claude.

Unfortunately for OpenAI, this violates Anthropic’s commercial terms of service, which ban companies from using Anthropic’s tools to build competitor AI products.

“Customer may not and must not attempt to access the Services to build a competing product or service, including to train competing AI models or resell the Services except as expressly approved by Anthropic,” the terms read.

OpenAI responded by saying that what the company was doing was an industry standard, as all the AI companies test their models against the competing models. The company then went on to say that it respected Anthropic’s decision but expressed disappointment in having its API access shut off, especially considering that Anthropic’s access to OpenAI’s API remains open.

A spokesperson told Wired that OpenAI’s access would be reinstated for “benchmarking and safety evaluations.”

It’s not the first time this year that Anthropic has cut off API access. In June, the company cut off Windsurf’s API access after rumors that it was being sold to OpenAI. That deal ultimately fell through, but Anthropic’s cofounder, Jared Kaplan, told TechCrunch at the time that “it would be odd for us to be selling Claude to OpenAI.”

Anthropic has also tweaked its rate limits for Claude, which will take effect in late August, with one of the reasons being that a small number of users are violating the company’s policy by sharing and reselling accounts.


Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.

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Amazon is toying around with putting ads in Alexa+

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It’s the end of another quarter, which means it’s time for yet another earnings call with concerning ideas for generating more revenue. This time around, it's Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, who told shareholders on Thursday that there’s “significant financial opportunity” in delivering ads through Alexa+, the company’s new AI-powered voice assistant.

“I think over time, there will be opportunities, you know, as people are engaging in more multi-turn conversations to have advertising play a role — to help people find discovery and also as a lever to drive revenue,” Jassy said, per the investor call transcript.

Since launching earlier this year, Alexa+ has reportedly reached millions of users. Unlike the original Alexa, which mostly turns off lights and sets timers, Alexa+ is designed to be more conversational, context-aware, and AI-driven. It can help you plan your date night, entertain your kids, and even dabble in basic image and video generation — all under the banner of your $14.99/month Prime subscription.

But so far, Amazon Alexa has been an ad-free experience. It's also more than 10 years old, and it doesn't make money; thus, it's been deemed a "colossal failure" by those within the company.

Of course, Amazon isn’t alone in trying to figure out how to make AI pay for itself. Both Google and OpenAI have explored ad integration in their AI products as a way to generate revenue. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, in particular, has made a notable pivot: once firmly against advertising in his chatbot, he’s since reversed course, possibly opening the door for ads in future versions of ChatGPT.

Whatever the motivation, injecting ads into Alexa+ would mark a major shift in both user experience and Amazon’s strategy, especially given the assistant’s long history of being expensive to maintain and hard to monetize. Ad-supported Alexa+ could be Amazon’s attempt to finally turn its once-money-burning smart assistant into a revenue machine, without hiking the subscription fee (at least for now).

Alexa+ is still new, and what an ad-supported experience would actually look like remains unclear. According to Jassy, the idea is to frame ads as helpful, something to assist customers in discovering products they might be interested in buying.

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