No more mop removal necessary.
refill the robot’s water tank. But users may have to remove and attach the mopping pads on those robots, especially if they have thicker carpets.Image: iRobot
Cleaning jobs for the new Roomba can be customized in the iRobot app, so it can be sent to vacuum the living room and then mop and vacuum the kitchen. Water levels can be adjusted, too, for a deeper clean, and it can be set to clean an area twice. Angle said in their testing this was as effective as an oscillating motion, which some other robot vacuum mops use to simulate scrubbing the floor.
It’s interesting that iRobot chose just to add a pad to its flagship robot vacuum rather than produce a whole new vacuum and mopping bot. The design appears quite simple — using aluminum alloy arms to raise and lower the pad and then tuck it on the robot — and doesn’t alter the overall look of the vacuum much at all.
The Roomba Combo j7 Plus can go from vacuuming carpet to mopping hardwood floors without any user intervention.And while it’s hard to see how it can clean as well as iRobot’s dedicated mopping robot, theAngle said the Combo was as effective as the Braava Jet in their testing. However, he did say they still consider the Braava Jet combined with a Roomba robot vacuum to be the “ultimate cleaning experience” as the two robots can work at the same time.
The simplicity of the Combo design means it could be easily incorporated into iRobot’s other models — such as the more budget-friendly