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Robot vs Regular Vacuum Cleaners - Do you need both?


Difference between robot and stick vacuum

Recently, a viewer asked me a question about robot vacuum cleaners and is it essential to have a robot vacuum cleaner when you already have another vacuum cleaner in your house. So that got me thinking, and I thought that "let me create a video to understand, first of all, what are the pros and cons of each of these, and whether you do require one when you already have the other." This video is not going to be a comparison, but I have already done a research of various different stick vacuum cleaners. And if you are interested in that, I've linked to those in the description. Let's jump right in.


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WHAT IS EACH BEST FOR? So, let's first start with what each of them are useful for. First is, the robot vacuum cleaner is useful primarily for cleaning your floors. There are a lot of vacuum cleaners also that have the sweeping and mopping, so you can do sweeping and mopping without any kind of manual intervention. When it comes to a stick vacuum cleaner, it is primarily useful for deep cleaning of various items in your house, like deep-cleaning your mattresses, your sofas, fans, ceilings, removing cobwebs, cleaning, your car, and so on. Yes, it can be used for cleaning your floors as well, but it requires some manual intervention - that is, you need to actually take the vacuum cleaner around. So, that is time-consuming to do on a day-to-day basis. The stick vacuum cleaner also does not have mopping, so you will need another device or an equipment for mopping as well. In addition, a stick vacuum cleaner can also pick up larger pieces of debris. So for example, if you drop a bowl of dal or a bowl of rice, a robot vacuum cleaner might clean about 90% of it, primarily because the grains will keep escaping from the robot vacuum cleaner when it is cleaning; but when you're using a stick vacuum cleaner, you can actually pretty much get about 100% of the cleaning. HOW MUCH DUST DO THEY COLLECT? A robot vacuum cleaner collects a lot of dust, like I have mentioned multiple times in the past; but as per this research that was done by consumerresearch.org, it does collect a lot lower than a stick vacuum cleaner. As you can see, a stick vacuum cleaner does a lot more deep cleaning than a robot vacuum cleaner. HOW MUCH TIME DOES IT TAKE? Now, a robot vacuum cleaner takes about 90 minutes to clean a 1500 sq ft house, whereas a stick vacuum cleaner, based on my research it takes about 30-45 minutes because the suction power as well is significantly higher when it compares to a robot vacuum cleaner. HOW INTELLIGENT ARE THEY? A robot vacuum cleaner has significantly higher intelligence. It can detect the map of your house, and it can detect which areas it has cleaned, which areas it has not cleaned, you can schedule your cleaning for specific areas of the house at specific times of day, and so on. Right? So, a lot more intelligence than a stick vacuum cleaner, which actually uses human intelligence. The only metrics that you probably will see in a stick vacuum cleaner is, "Is the charge full or is it empty? Is your dust bag full or is it empty?" and so on. So, therefore, it does use human intelligence over an artificial intelligence. CORDLESS OR WITH CORD? So, robot vacuum cleaners are almost always cordless. You do have a cord for the dock, which is the charging dock for the robot vacuum cleaner, whereas, in the case of a stick vacuum cleaner, it comes in both a corded version as well as a cordless version. These days, cordless versions are a lot more popular, and there are a number of models available in the market other than Dyson as well. And when you are using a cordless version, the runtime could vary between 20-60 minutes, based on the setting that you are using, as well as based on the model that you are using. HOW MUCH NOISE DO THEY MAKE? A robot vacuum cleaner makes very little noise; a stick vacuum cleaner does make a lot more noise compared to a robot vacuum cleaner. WHEN TO USE WHAT? Ok, so, when to use, especially when we are talking about floors? So, a robot vacuum cleaner is useful when you have relatively uncluttered floors - that is, you don't have too many toys that are lying around, your cables are nicely tied up; because anytime it actually finds any of this, it will get stuck in the rollers. Yes, these days you do get robot vacuum cleaners as well where you can block no-go zones. That is an option as well and a plus for a robot vacuum cleaner. You also need to have your furniture placed a little bit far away and a little bit higher from the ground because a robot vacuum cleaner typically has a clearance between 3-4 in. So, if your furniture is above 4 in, so it can go nicely below your sofas, your beds, and so on; but if it is lower than that, a robot vacuum cleaner may not be able to clear under that. The second thing is when you have larger homes. So, when you have a large home, manually doing your cleaning of your floor, specifically, using a stick vacuum cleaner will take a lot of time. So, in that case, a robot vacuum cleaner can be used to automate your day-to-day floor cleaning. And then, if you do need deep cleanings - like, for example, in the corners, at the bottom of your furniture which has low clearance -, you can do that on a weekly basis using the stick vacuum cleaner. Now, when is a stick or a traditional vacuum cleaner useful? If you have a smaller house, then it may not take as much time to use a stick vacuum cleaner, so, then again, a stick vacuum cleaner might be sufficient. HOW MUCH SUCTION POWER DO THEY HAVE? So, a robot vacuum cleaner will have a suction power of 800 pa to almost 2700-3000 pa these days, which is enough for a day-to-day cleaning. Whereas when it comes to a stick vacuum cleaner, it's measured in a slightly different measurement - it's called air watts; it varies between 60-120 AW, at least in the models that I have seen. There's no direct conversion between these two metrics, I believe, but in general, a stick or a traditional vacuum cleaner has a lot more suction power than a robot vacuum cleaner, and that's why it can pick up a lot more fine debris than a robot vacuum cleaner as well. DO THEY SUPPORT BLOWING? So, which vacuum has suction and blow? So, a robot vacuum cleaner does not have blow; stick vacuum cleaners sometimes do have a blow option, sometimes they don't. I will cover that in the detailed comparison that I will do in a subsequent video. MY RECOMMENDATION So, what do you think? Is it an either-or solution? Do you need both a robot vacuum cleaner and a stick vacuum cleaner? In my opinion, yes. On a day-to-day basis, a robot vacuum cleaner is extremely useful in cleaning the house in terms of sweeping as well as mopping, so it saves almost an hour or more in actually cleaning your house. Now, a stick vacuum cleaner can be used for floors, but I think it's too time-consuming. So, in general, I think a stick vacuum cleaner is useful for deep cleaning. Our Indian homes do have a lot of dust because of the dust in the air itself, so it becomes very, very easier to actually use a very handy device like a stick vacuum cleaner to do deep cleaning of your windowsills, of your fans, to do dusting of your furniture tops, and so on. These days, again, there are a lot of options in terms of stick cleaning, and there are a lot of cordless varieties as well, which I think is extremely useful. I will be comparing that in the next video. I hope this was useful in determining whether you need both a robot vacuum cleaner as well as a stick vacuum cleaner.


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