Robot mop is cheap and smart
By cutting edge technology, Modern home cleaning robots are stuffed. They can communicate with apps, see, do the cleaning and charge themselves.
The best among them are almost $1,000. That’s why it is reassuring to see a new, relatively smart cleaning broom and mop arrive at what the late Steve Jobs are known as a magical price for consumer technology $199.
If iRobot introduced in the year 2002 is the first Roomba robot vacuum met that price point. The cheapest Roomba that you find begins at $374.99. It’s Scooba scrubbing mop starts at more than $500.
Fortunately, there is now a new and affordable. In my experience, the new iRobot Braava Jet is an effective robotic alternative for mopping and sweeping hard floors.
Different is good
iRobot departure is the Braava, both on the intelligence and design front. Where iRobot’s mostly floor-cleaning bots as they are pie shaped as it is square, tiny and mostly plastic white device having tasteful aqua blue accents. It doesn’t look like a robot nor a mop.
The cleaning strategy is also different. Braava jet is designed cleaning pads that slide into the bottom of the robot and pop off with the pull of a level when you are done as it relies on tap water.
By spraying water out of the front, the robot mops by spraying water and then runs over it with a solution impregnated pad. It is a Swiffer-like approach, excluding the pads having special coding on the bottom that the robot reads to know the type of cleaning job that you want to be done, wet damp mop, dry sweep or wet mop that uses no water.
Time to clean
iRobot Braava Jet is arrived as totally assembled. You have to pop that into the body by opening the rubber tank cap, that is hidden under the handle, slowly add water and then choose a pad to slide in and charge the removable battery.
To control the Braava you can install the iRobot app but you really don’t need to. Of course, in my experience, it adds little to no utility to the robot. The app displays you the things you already know such as pad you just placed in the robot mop. It also shows battery life and there is also a big virtual Clean button that you can hit. You can also choose to do a quick spot clean through the app that is something you can’t do it directly on the hardware.
Nevertheless, since you only connect to the Bluetooth instead of Wi-Fi via robot, you lose the connection as soon as you walk out of range in my experience 25 feet. Additionally, the app doesn’t really tell you anything about the Braava jet’s cleaning activities. For instance, I would like to know when does the robot needs more water.
This doesn’t bother me because the best way to use the iRobot Braava Jet is placing it near the edge of the left corner of the room that you need to clean. Hit the physical clean button on the device and walk away. You already did this in three of the rooms in my home, all on one charge. It’s rated to cover 200 square feet per charge, only pauses to refill the water tank and swap out the cleaning pads.
By the way, the pads don’t just change the cleaning scrubbing power off the mop or solution, they modify how it cleans. Either the wet mops on or damp, the Braava Jet mops as you might move back and forth. As it slowly moves forward in writing small “V’s” on the floor. Though, the robot basically follows a path that might be familiar to anyone who is waiting in line at Disney World for a ride.
The robot moves in straight lines if you swap in the dry cleaning pad.
Attention to detail
I was impressed with how the Braava Jet handled furniture, corners and where the wall met the floor. I watched fascinating as he identified these spots and moved chair legs, in tight, corners and hugging the wall so that it wouldn’t miss a spot. The Braava Jet don’t have a camera on concord it uses odometry to know where it started, where it is relative to the starting point and when it returns to that spot and completed the room. I wish the app shows me the path where the robot took in each room.
iRobot’s Braava jet has done a good job on my hardwood floors and on tile, it got tripped up or caught under furniture or never ran over a rug. It’s a real set it and forget it device. It has an excellent price that is $199, but you’re getting a total bargain before you think, remember that you have to pay for those pads. iRobot is charging $7.99 for a ten box. I used one per room as some rooms were very large but you might be able to reuse any of them, at most one or two more times though I don’t think this is recommended.
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