Robot

iRobot Braava 380t Review

I love gadgets! Having owned an iRobot previously (an old sweeper model) I was keen to try out a floor mopping robot.

As this is unavailable for purchase in Australia, I ordered it from US Amazon who luckily shipped this particular item overseas:

iRobot Braava 380t Floor Mopping Robot – Amazon

The iRobot arrived about 3 1/2 weeks later and I was looking forward to giving it a try, as most of our house is tiled.

The iRobot itself was a little smaller than I expected, a roughly 20cm box and about 8cm high. Unlike the Roomba models, this one doesn’t auto dock itself when it’s done, but instead needs to be placed upright on a stand to charge.

The iRobot has two modes – Sweep and Mop. Each mode uses a different cleaning cloth designed to be used for Dry (sweep) and Wet (Mop). Sweeping will make it go in straight lines back and forth, like a lawn being mode. It’s a dry mop too so at the end of it’s journey it will leave a pile of dust/hair/lego pieces to be picked up.

The Mop mode is what I bought this for, where you add a little water to a reservoir and let the little guy go around your house similar to how you’d run a quick mop over the floor. Instead of going in a straight line lawnmower style, it does a bit of an arc one way, reverses then goes the other way and inches along at the same time. Here’s a graphic to show what I mean:

http---media.memories.nokia.com-media-a31068bc-2969-47af-bf6a-5d9cfed1ef48iRobot Mopping – ignore the tiles getting trippy.

The iRobot can go for a few hours between charges, and I had no problems with it going into carpet or getting stuck – it has a bumper that detects when it hits something, and smarts built into it which maps what it’s learnt on the current expedition (it doesn’t save this into memory).

There’s also a portable little cube that you’re supposed to put as far away as possible from the base station, which gives the iRobot a reference point. I’m figuring this is so if the wheels spin it doesn’t think it’s travelled further than what it really has (either distance or angle).

It actually does a decent job if you don’t have a dirty pawed troublemaker walking around on the wet floor leaving footprints where the hard working iRobot has just cleaned.

WP_20140109_21_13_57_ProDirty pawed culprit

It runs rather quietly too, since all it’s doing is spinning it’s wheels and slowly soaking out a bit of water. It works well if you turn it on as you are leaving the house so you can come back to a nice shiny floor.

There’s not too much else to say about the iRobot Braava 380t – it works as advertised, it’s not cheap but it’s made and designed very well, and it makes a few little songs depending if it’s being docked for charging, starting a cleaning routine or wants to go back to it’s dock as it’s had enough.

Remember though, this is the equivilent of pushing a wet rag along your floor and that’s it, so don’t expect it to clean up everything. This is more of a maintenance robot than a repair robot!

I’d be tempted to actually try the Scooba version of the iRobot which does actual scrubbing of floors too, but will have to save up a bit more for that one.

iRobot Scooba 390 Floor Scrubbing Robot – Amazon