Choosing the best robot vacuum mop for you really depends on your lifestyle and the budget you want to stick to. Whether you’re in the market for something that’ll solve a big hassle with ease or something you can set and forget, here are a few key factors to remember:
Floor-standing sensor: Even in the world of dry sweeping, the ability of a robot vacuum to adjust its suction power based on floor type is important.But for robots mop, this is the function that prevents the carpet from getting wet. Most hybrids will automatically start mopping once the water tank is connected, but only the smarter ones know to pause the flow of water and lift the wet cloth over the carpet. Robots that remember your room or follow virtual boundaries can be programmed to avoid carpeted areas while mopping.
Mop the floor with movement and strength: Technically, many robot vacuums place a damp cloth on the floor, but only a few can actually scrub with the force necessary to deal with shoe marks or water marks. While just about any 2-in-1 model can successfully mop up a fresh juice or wine spill, a mop mechanism like Roborock’s Sonic Mop or iRobot’s SmartScrub technology actually applies force in a rapid back-and-forth motion to penetrate stubborn stains. Dried stain. And the effect is most visible on hard floors.
Smart mapping: A robot vacuum’s navigation technology determines how accurately, if at all, it remembers the layout of your home. Currently, the gold standard for smart mapping is lidar: a laser that scans different points in a home to determine the location of walls. On the other hand, there’s VSLAM technology – which uses cameras instead of lasers to pinpoint the location of everything in your home. The main disadvantage of VSLAM is that it requires light to operate (which means you can’t program a hybrid vacuum to work while it sleeps, like you can with lidar navigation).
Once the robot vacuum has completed its job and determined its orientation, it creates a floor plan that serves as a reference for future cleanings. You will be able to modify and tag rooms in the robot vacuum’s corresponding app as needed, as well as send the robot vacuum to specific rooms.
Virtual borders: Most of the time, the app also offers an option to set virtual boundaries around smaller areas you want the vacuum to avoid, such as a pile of toys or your pet’s precious water bowl. This feature is especially necessary for carpets if your 2-in-1 is unable to sense floor type. Otherwise, there’s nothing stopping your new hybrid from mopping soft floors.
Bin size and automatic emptying function: If you live in an apartment, condo, or other small space, you probably don’t need a large vacuum storage tank. If you’re looking to cover your entire house, you’ll want to look for something that doesn’t require emptying after every cleaning. A self-emptying vacuum cleaner will come into play here, automatically dumping its debris into the dock, letting you out of the mess in a month or two.
Battery Life: On a single charge, 90 to 100 minutes of battery life should be enough to cover an apartment, or if most of your cleaning is room-by-room. Battery life of 170 to 200+ minutes isn’t hard to find, making it ideal for areas over 1,500 square feet. Even today’s cheapest robot vacuums are supposed to charge themselves and resume cleaning automatically – meaning you don’t have to pick them up and escort them back to base.
