Robot Mops

I dislike mopping, I don’t do it near as often as I should. And with little ones, my floors can get icky! When I do mop, I’ve waited too long and now have to scrub it on my hands and knees with stinky cleaners. So I’ve been eyeing a robot mop to help with this loathsome chore for a while now. Robot Vacuums have been around for a while, and mops are slowly catching up.

I watched during all the holiday sales last year and snagged a DEEBOT for a pretty good price. It had mostly favorable Amazon reviews, so I thought I’d try it. It was a simple machine, so I had high hopes it would be a diamond in the rough.  It came in great time, as per usual with Amazon Prime,( try Prime free for 3o days). I unpackaged it, being careful to unwrap everything in expectation of returning it if it didn’t perform. We lovingly named it Rosie, after the best house robot of all time.

It was very easy to put together, just a couple snaps and removing a couple tabs. It had a little charge to it already, but I followed the instructions and let it fully charge first.

The vacuum part was pretty decent. It picked up just about everything it came across. The navigation pattern was ridiculous though. It bumbled around my kitchen for about 2 hours to complete the job. Since last year, I think they have upgraded the navigation for 2 new cleaning modes. So it may be a bit better now.  It constantly got caught under 2 sections of my cabinets that were probably uneven because of the tile floor. But the design of the top front ridge let it go under my cabinets, but not be able to back out. So I had to go get it unstuck and start the whole route over again. After a few times of doing that, I finally made cardboard barriers to keep it from those two spots. It helped, but still took 1.5-2 hours to complete. I also had to make physical barriers to keep it from the carpeted sitting room and getting caught in the odd threshold to TechDad’s office.

The mopping was about as useful as me sending my 3 year old to mop with those mop shoes. It just pulled a slightly damp cloth along the floor and dripped water out of the tank onto the cloth to keep it wet (kind of), which didn’t really help. I guess it could wipe up dust, but nothing else. Overall I’d give it a 6/10 for vacuuming and 2/10 for the mopping. Needless to say I returned it.  Now I’m watching for a sale on the IRobot Braava mop.  If I get one, I’ll of course share the review with all of you!