5 Things to Know About Multi-Floor No-Go Zones for Robot Vacuums

No-go zones are tied to individual maps, not your whole home. Every floor has its own separate map, and you must set no-go zones on each one individually.

The robot identifies which floor it’s on by scanning the room. It doesn’t know floor 1 from floor 2 until it sees the layout, which is different on each level.

Most major brands require a separate map per floor. Roomba, Roborock, Ecovacs, and Dreame all let you create a map per floor during a full cleaning run, then you draw no-go lines on that specific map.

Robots that claim to “share” maps are just loading the last-used one. They don’t apply a global no-go zone across floors, so you still need to set zones per map.

Virtual zones cannot block stairs. Stairs aren’t a flat surface the robot can map, so you must use a physical barrier at the top of each staircase.