@rockygems123
Lol, well I can't be very objective since I've only ever had one. I have a RoboRock Q Revo Pro
and I'm very happy with it. I did a lot of research before I chose this particular vacuum.
Things to look for:
Pa (pascals) rating. In this scenario it is the suction power of the vacuum cleaner. If you have all hard surface, this is not as important as it would be if you have carpet. I have 7,000 PA. But what I found out recently is that that 7000 rating is when the vacuum is at Max Plus suction. I think that was a little sneaky of RoboRock to do that.
I am impressed with what I can pull out of my carpet but if I had to do it over again and could afford it I would go with 10,000 PA. About half my house is carpet and I have two hairy dogs. My floors have never been cleaner.
The first thing to do is vacuum your house with your standard vacuum cleaner.
Mop head lifting: if you don't have carpet this isn't important. The mop head needs to lift when it goes over carpet so as not to get your carpet damp. If you have a low pile or patterned carpet this is not an issue as long as you have mop heads that rise. I'm guessing they all do. All the ones I've seen on YouTube can raise the mop heads. I wouldn't want anything less than 10 mm, 12mm being preferable. I have eliminated this issue by vacuuming and then mopping instead of vacuum / mop. In other words I vacuum, it stops, then I tell it to mop, instead of choosing the vacuum / mop option where it does it all at once and the damp pads will have to go over the carpet. I have three rooms of carpet. Two rooms its not an issue. It just barely skims the top of my bedroom carpet. I have felt through the carpet right after the dance pads go over it and there is no dampness at all.
Radar: there are two or three types of radar technology. The only two I know about are camera sensors and lidar. After reading and watching videos, I chose to go with the lidar radar system. The camera system has an actual camera at the front of the robot that scans for images so it won't run into them. You can use your phone to watch where the robot is by viewing the real time camera. Some people are squeamish about this. I'm not but I didn't want it on my vacuum cleaner.
A robot with an auto extending side brush will get into corners. A robot with auto extending mop heads will clean along baseboards/ walls better.
Robot vacuum experts say RoboRock has the best software in the industry. I can't confirm that because I have only had this one robot and I normally don't read manuals. I figure it out myself and if I have a question, I Google it. I ran into a couple of things with the software that I had to call the company for. They are open 24 hours a day.
If it wasn't for my multi-level single story Ranch, I wouldn't have to have any interaction with the vacuum. That is how self-sufficient/ smart/ automatic it is. Because of the different levels I have to pick up and reposition the vacuum four times. That's okay. It is saving my back a heap of pain and doing a darn good job of keeping my floors clean. Naturally if you have things laying on the floor, you'll want to pick those up just like if you were vacuuming with a standard vacuum cleaner. The lidar system is supposed to see an object and go around it. I haven't witnessed that because I pick things off of the floor. I have seen videos of times when all the robot vacuum cleaners don't go around an object. It's just not an issue in my house.
My robot has four levels of suction and four levels of water, one being custom. I'm guessing all robot vacuum cleaners dock themselves when finished cleaning. They will also go back to the dock to empty the Dustbin and or clean the mop heads as needed . Mine can only park itself back at the dock when it's on one certain level. Otherwise I have to carry it back to the dock. Who knew when I wanted a sunken dining room and sunkened den 40 years ago I was going to run into this problem.
Robot vacuum+mops were more expensive than I anticipated and I could have spent less but I knew what I wanted after spending several days researching. So I set a limit and bought the most features that I could. To my surprise Amazon had the vacuum I wanted on sale for $200 off so after tax I came in $150 under budget. I missed buying my robot during Amazon Prime. I'm sure they'll go on sale again for Christmas/ Black Friday. Love love love my robot! Her name is Mary Moppins 😊
PS, she talks but if you don't hear her the app will tell you what you need to do. My floors are ready for royalty, I'm happy and my back is happier.
You can find hours and hours of Robot vacuum videos on YouTube
Blogs & Forums
The latest Q Revo from RoboRock, Q Revo Curve, has a PA of 18,000! That's up there with the average standard vacuum. They are, mostly, between 10 and 20,000pa.
