I first saw a robot vacuum cleaner in a mall in Bangalore about 10-15 years ago. And that happened to be iRobot. So I was all nostalgic when the iRobot team sent me their products to demo.
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🛒🛒 BEST AUTO EMPTYING ROBOT VACUUM and MOP
Starting from the basics - the iRobot has two separate devices - the iRobot Roomba i7+ for sweeping and the iRobot Braava M6 for mopping. If you have been following me for a while, you will know how I always say that mopping in a hybrid sweeping and mopping robot is not great - due to which I personally use the mopping only occasionally. My impression of robot mopping changed completely when I actually saw the iRobot Braava M6 in action.
iROBOT BRAAVA M6 Review in India
I’m going to talk about the iRobot Braava M6 first - because this is one of the few mopping only robots that are available in the market and I have not demoed one on this channel before.
The iRobot Braava M6 has a camera based navigation and once the map is created or retrieved from another iRobot robot vacuum, it can follow the S pattern for cleaning. Now this S pattern is different from the pattern followed in other robot vacuums. Here it goes back and forth to clean - forward about two feet, back about one feet, sprays and mops. It does a much more thorough job of mopping than in a hybrid robot vacuum.
The mop tank is up to 400 ml - you may need to refill it a few times if you have a larger home. The app will give you an indication when it is time for refill. Filling the water tank is super easy as well.
It can run for upto 75 min continuously and can go back to the dock when it is running out of charge and restart from the same place that it stopped.
If you have a carpet at home, the iRobot Braava M6 can detect the carpet and avoid it as well - which is great.
It’s got a square shape - which makes it easy to clean corners - which seems to be a concern for many people.
The iRobot Braava M6 also makes less noise compared to other robots, including the iRobot Roomba i7+ - just about 58db.
iROBOT ROOMBA i7+ Review in India
Now let’s talk about the iRobot Roomba i7+ for sweeping.
I’m using the iRobot Roomba i7+ which comes with an auto dust bag emptying dock. This is a GREAT value add. You can ofcourse purchase the iRobot Roomba i7+ without the auto emptying dock, but with it - it starts to truly become a handsoff robot vacuum cleaner. You only need worry about emptying the bag in the dock when it gets full - approximately once a month. You can either replace it or empty it. I use another vacuum cleaner to pull out the dust from this bag to empty it. Jugaad!
Continuing to talk about the emptying dock - as soon as the robot finishes a cleaning run - it automatically comes back to the dock and empties the dust bin.
The sound while emptying is a bit loud - like an airplane just about to take off. But that sound is hardly a few seconds only.
The bin size within the robot is about 500 ml and the auto emptying dustbin holds about 30 days of dust.
For a 1500 sq ft house, the iRobot Roomba i7+ takes me almost 1.5 hours
Navigation
The iRobot Roomba i7+ and iRobot Braava M6 use camera based navigation (VSLAM). Not LIDAR like many of the other models in the market today.
While it is claimed that LIDAR based navigation gives the most accurate map and navigation, I found that the mapping of the iRobot is quite good with the camera.
Coming to navigation - it does require some amount of light in the room to navigate - so you can schedule it mostly in the day.
The only navigation issue I found with the iRobot Roomba i7+ is that it can be bumpy around obstructions. In most cases it can slow down and turn around - but it does bump into the walls / doors at times.
Mapping
In the first few runs - the robot can create an accurate map of the house.
It can also detect areas of the house where there are carpets or a difference in floor texture. For example, for me it detected a few areas of wooden flooring.
Once the map is created, you can label each room individually, create no go zones and schedule cleaning runs.
This is applicable for both the iRobot Roomba i7+ and the iRobot Braava M6
Cleaning efficiency
Talking about the cleaning efficiency - the brush under the robot vacuum is very different from what you see in many other models.
Unlike the regular brush, this has two overlapping rubber brushes which gives a much better cleaning.
Many of you asked me about long hair getting stuck in brushes. While in the regular brushes long hair can get stuck and that may need to be removed on a regular basis, long hair does not get tangled in these brushes
The suction power of the iRobot Roomba i7+ is about 1800pa - which coupled with the dual brush at the bottom gives a good cleaning efficiency. iRobot does not officially publish this number yet.
About the app - the same app is used for both the iRobot Roomba i7+ and iRobot Braava M6 .
You can make one of the two robots create a map of the house and retrieve the map in the second one.
You can set no go zones in the app
You can also set specific clean zones - if you want a certain area to be cleaned
You can create schedules to clean different rooms or different times. One differentiation in the app here is you can create a schedule of multiple rooms in a particular sequence - which is not there in many other robot vacuum apps
You can also create a schedule in such a way that the iRobot Braava M6 mops after the iRobot Roomba i7+ finishes cleaning
You can also create multiple floor maps - up to 10 floors.
The one thing missing is you cannot see in real time where exactly the robot vacuum is on the map. But the app does say which room it is in.
To see which areas have been missed during cleaning - you can go to the history AFTER the run and see the history of areas missed. In general - it follows the S pattern for cleaning - so no areas are missed.
Can also connect the robot to alexa and google home - if you prefer
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