Robot Vacuum Discussion

Johnatan56

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My Xiaomi battery lasts nearly two hours. If it gets flat it will dock, charge and resume where ot left off. The software is really smart. I do have to remove the cats water bowls and toys, lift up curtains (so it can get everywhere and also not get stuck). Carpet tassels and some cables can get stuck. Mine will send me a notification to my phone if it needs help. I also got magnetic strips to stop it going certain places (like out to the garden!).

The cheaper models are probably not worth it though.

The lidar models are really smart, it's interesting watching it work, either itself or on the real time phone map.
Note my model does not need magnetic strips, you set it on the app where it may not go.

Would guess the super expensive versions where the charging station includes a larger dustbin would be what you'd need, but the price difference is just so huge that I'd just wait and see if someone finally brings it out of the super premium.

The Ozmo has not sent me a notification on getting stuck yet, they are making quite a few improvements on the app though.

The Roomba generally is better if you have e.g. deep carpets due to the patented bristle brush vs everyone else using extractors, and the app is generally good, competitors only recently are catching up there, but the issue is more that Roomba hasn't really advanced in the last two years. Most competitors are better for things like gap between tiles as Roomba usually does not have as strung a suction as they don't need due to the better brush.

Once vacuum cleaners with their own bin become affordable, I'd probably buy at least 3 of them, for apartment and then both floors in house, but for now, way too expensive, will stick with the robot vacuum cleaner in Apartment due to mop, and then cordless stick in house.
 

derp

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When I'm manually mopping the floors, I regularly rinse the mop pad between sections, and the water is always pretty dirty at the end. Bear in mind this is an apartment and I don't wear shoes in the house.

I would be worried that with the mop on the robot vacuum, it would just be dragging dust around with it.
 

biometrics

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When I'm manually mopping the floors, I regularly rinse the mop pad between sections, and the water is always pretty dirty at the end. Bear in mind this is an apartment and I don't wear shoes in the house.

I would be worried that with the mop on the robot vacuum, it would just be dragging dust around with it.
Yeah, I'm not sold on the mopping feature.
 

Johnatan56

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When I'm manually mopping the floors, I regularly rinse the mop pad between sections, and the water is always pretty dirty at the end. Bear in mind this is an apartment and I don't wear shoes in the house.

I would be worried that with the mop on the robot vacuum, it would just be dragging dust around with it.
Mop is behind vacuum, so vacuum first and then mop. If you actually let your vacuum cleaner run every day or two, the mop wipe piece really doesn't get that dirty. I already threw the one away, but remind me on Friday and I will take a photo of what it looks like after 55m^2 with mopping function.

The entire point of the smart robot is that you can set it on a schedule and let it run a couple of times without intervention, for me it's after every second time as I swap out the cloth then, since it's not very dirty after one time usually, and I do not have enough dirt/dust to actually have to empty out the bin every time, so if I turn of mopping I could probably do a week with no issue.
 

derp

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Mop is behind vacuum, so vacuum first and then mop. If you actually let your vacuum cleaner run every day or two, the mop wipe piece really doesn't get that dirty. I already threw the one away, but remind me on Friday and I will take a photo of what it looks like after 55m^2 with mopping function.

The entire point of the smart robot is that you can set it on a schedule and let it run a couple of times without intervention, for me it's after every second time as I swap out the cloth then, since it's not very dirty after one time usually, and I do not have enough dirt/dust to actually have to empty out the bin every time, so if I turn of mopping I could probably do a week with no issue.

That's great. With a lot of them they can only vacuum OR mop, not both at the same time.

AND, if you find one that can vacuum and mop at the same time, chances are that it doesn't have a no-mop zone, so it would either mop your carpet or not vacuum your carpet with a no-go zone.

Your one probably has these features, but the cheaper ones often don't.
 

SauRoN

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Very happy with my Xiaomi 1C (non-pro) and it runs three times a week.

When I remember one of those cycles I’ll attach the mop and it does a good job of picking up when more surface dust, especially in my semi-outside braai area.

With the recent updates to the software it’s hard to justify true Pro model when the non-pro does it almost as well with software only.

It doesn’t quite divide my rooms so well but still easy enough to manually draw a box for spot cleaning etc.


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SauRoN

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When I'm manually mopping the floors, I regularly rinse the mop pad between sections, and the water is always pretty dirty at the end. Bear in mind this is an apartment and I don't wear shoes in the house.

I would be worried that with the mop on the robot vacuum, it would just be dragging dust around with it.

As was above the regularity of it running is the big trick.

You’ll be astounded the first time how much kak this things picks up in what you thought was a clean house.

Our allergies went right down since getting it.


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derp

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Very happy with my Xiaomi 1C (non-pro) and it runs three times a week.

When I remember one of those cycles I’ll attach the mop and it does a good job of picking up when more surface dust, especially in my semi-outside braai area.

With the recent updates to the software it’s hard to justify true Pro model when the non-pro does it almost as well with software only.

It doesn’t quite divide my rooms so well but still easy enough to manually draw a box for spot cleaning etc.


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Oh, this is very interesting, because I was set on the lidar models not because of the mapping, but because I thought they did better at detecting things like chair legs etc. Is this not the case?
 

biometrics

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Oh, this is very interesting, because I was set on the lidar models not because of the mapping, but because I thought they did better at detecting things like chair legs etc. Is this not the case?
It uses lidar to divide a space and the bumper for legs. My older Xiaomi does this anyway based on my observation.
 

biometrics

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Btw the Xiaomi Mi has 3 x ARM CPUs. You can see it occationally pause for five seconds while recalculating (I assume).
 

Johnatan56

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Oh, this is very interesting, because I was set on the lidar models not because of the mapping, but because I thought they did better at detecting things like chair legs etc. Is this not the case?
Yes/no, it's still purposefully going to bump into it to detect exactly how big it is and then mark it as an obstacle on the map.
If it's the first time drawing the map, it will never try that spot again as it thinks it's a wall or something like that, so be sure to make the first time it's setting up the map that everything is out of the way.

Guessing camera would be way better for it.
 

SauRoN

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Oh, this is very interesting, because I was set on the lidar models not because of the mapping, but because I thought they did better at detecting things like chair legs etc. Is this not the case?

Nope. It’s more a case of bumping and mapping by memory.

And the bump is pretty soft in most cases.

So after it’s had a couple of runs it knows what 90% of it looks like and works accordingly.

b3a69738334954135dffed0bd4c887aa.jpg


The Lidar just gives it a bit more vertical awareness but it also means it can’t fit under a lot of stuff and it’s not worth 2k.


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SauRoN

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Yes/no, it's still purposefully going to bump into it to detect exactly how big it is and then mark it as an obstacle on the map.
If it's the first time drawing the map, it will never try that spot again as it thinks it's a wall or something like that, so be sure to make the first time it's setting up the map that everything is out of the way.

Guessing camera would be way better for it.

Not true for my 1C.

My dinner table I’ll sometimes pick the chairs up and put them on top and other times just leave them there and it has no problem noticing the difference.

And it was definitely mapped with the table “as is” and you can even see it in the picture above.

It remaps all the time.

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derp

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Nope. It’s more a case of bumping and mapping by memory.

And the bump is pretty soft in most cases.

So after it’s had a couple of runs it knows what 90% of it looks like and works accordingly.

b3a69738334954135dffed0bd4c887aa.jpg


The Lidar just gives it a bit more vertical awareness but it also means it can’t fit under a lot of stuff and it’s not worth 2k.


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Is this map from the 1C?

I see it's marking obstacles on the map, I thought the camera models wouldn't do this.

I must say the camera one is looking a lot more attractive.

You can't set no-mop zones on the 1C right?
 

SauRoN

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Is this map from the 1C?

I see it's marking obstacles on the map, I thought the camera models wouldn't do this.

I must say the camera one is looking a lot more attractive.

You can't set no-mop zones on the 1C right?

Yup from the 1C.

Haven’t seen a no-mop zones but can’t really think of any place I would need that. It puts out very little water so having it go over a carpet or something is hardly an issue.

The problem would be because of the mop it can’t climb so easily as it can’t drop its ass, but it’s not problem for anything in my house.

In my opinion stick to Xiaomi instead of any weird non-brand. I’ve had a many friends now buy other stuff for similar money and then come over here and see mine and the app and then be deeply disappointed with theirs.

Spares also easy to get from Mi Africa.

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derp

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Yup from the 1C.

Haven’t seen a no-mop zones but can’t really think of any place I would need that. It puts out very little water so having it go over a carpet or something is hardly an issue.

The problem would be because of the mop it can’t climb so easily as it can’t drop its ass, but it’s not problem for anything in my house.

In my opinion stick to Xiaomi instead of any weird non-brand. I’ve had a many friends now buy other stuff for similar money and then come over here and see mine and the app and then be deeply disappointed with theirs.

Spares also easy to get from Mi Africa.

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I've heard good things about 360 brand robots, but I wouldn't go for others. It's between that and Xiaomi. The 1C is the cheapest though, so definitely leaning towards that, especially since Lidar doesn't seem all that necessary.
 

SauRoN

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I've heard good things about 360 brand robots, but I wouldn't go for others. It's between that and Xiaomi. The 1C is the cheapest though, so definitely leaning towards that, especially since Lidar doesn't seem all that necessary.

It was on like a R4k special recently at Loot I think.


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Rudolph Hart

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As I said earlier, it’s been a few years since I looked at these, but is Roomba still around? Or is it just too expensive?
 

derp

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It was on like a R4k special recently at Loot I think.


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Currently R4.5k on Takealot. I'm about to purchase I think :D
As I said earlier, it’s been a few years since I looked at these, but is Roomba still around? Or is it just too expensive?
They are, but not in South Africa.


EDIT: bought the Xiaomi 1C
 
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