The Struggle of Traditional Cleaning
Are robot vacuums finally worth it? And if you’re looking to pick up your first one, or maybe just upgrade from an older one, what’s the current robot vacuum experience like?
Well, this is the question I’ve been asking myself for years because I’m getting really sick and tired of spending, you know, two hours every single week vacuuming and mopping my floors – especially with this furry little beast roaming around and dirtying up the place.
Calculating the Time Savings
So this year, I pulled the trigger on testing some robot vacuums, and here are my thoughts six months later. When I was deciding on my first robot vacuum, I first sat down and tried to justify the cost by working out just how much time I spend cleaning each week.
The next time I vacuumed, I timed it and found it takes me about 20 minutes twice a week to fully vacuum the entire house. Mopping takes about 45 minutes and it really needs to be done once a week because of all the dirt that gets tracked in from the outside and the cat’s various messes.
We also have a lot of tile, and I’m in the process of ripping up the last remaining pieces of carpet and actually replacing it with hybrid flooring, so I expect mopping will take even longer in the future. So right there is roughly two hours a week of my time spent vacuuming and mopping.
And if you do a similar calculation, then let’s assume you intend to use this robot vacuum for, let’s say, five years. Divide the cost of the robot you intend to purchase by 260 weeks, which is five years.
So now that you have your number, would you pay that every week for someone else to do 90% of the vacuuming or mopping for the next five years?
How Well Do Robot Vacuums Clean?
The next question is just as important I mean, even if you spend all of this money, is the robot vacuum actually going to clean your floors properly?
Short answer is yes. I mean, even some of the cheaper models I’ve used and tested will suck up most of the debris off your floor.
Hard floors are obviously the best, but I found that my Dreame X40 does a pretty good job on the two remaining carpeted rooms in my house, especially because it auto-adjusts the suction when it detects carpet.
Also, a massive pro of the X40 over some other robots is that you can choose to either lift the mop pads when vacuuming low pile carpet or automatically detach them at the base station to completely remove the risk of getting your carpet wet. This is especially necessary for high pile carpets.
Obstacle avoidance has also come a long way too, especially over the last year or two. I don’t really have to stress about picking up all the cat toys like I used to because I know the robot will avoid them with its AI and 3D structured light features or whatever technology it’s using.
Mopping with Robot Vacuums: Hit or Miss?
Now, most robots these days also swing the side sweeper arm out to get all those tight corners and under kitchen appliances.
And I found on the first few runs, the robot got a ton of debris from under these areas because my normal vacuum couldn’t actually reach, and it had built up with dirt and dust over time. It’s also really helpful for getting close to things like furniture legs.
Now mopping, on the other hand, can be hit or miss depending on the brand and model. My first robot vacuum absolutely sucked at this. It just had a mop pad that it dragged around the floor, and I had to clean and remove it myself, so I just never used it to mop.
The newer robot vacuums, however—of course, like the X40 have two rotating mop pads that will actually swing out to get the edges of rooms and under kitchen appliances, for example.
So you’re not left with this huge gap around the edges that would just constantly fill up with debris or stains. And again, I struggle to get these areas clean with my traditional mop in the first place. The robot literally does it better than I can.
And the robot will go back to the base station and clean these mop pads frequently, rather than just dragging the same dirty pads all over your floors. I have mine set to go back and clean the pads after mopping 20 square meters, which I find is a good sweet spot between cleanliness and efficiency.
No More Manual Cleaning
Now, is all of this vacuuming and mopping perfect and, you know, gets every single speck of dirt off your floor? No. But at least in my situation, it was good enough that I found myself going weeks without ever touching a vacuum or mop.
And that was kind of my whole aim of getting a robot vacuum. Note that if you want the best possible robot vacuum experience, I found that you really do need to aim for one of the high-end models because some of the cheaper models just lack a lot of features or have really poor obstacle avoidance, for example.
I suggest visiting VacuumAdvice for helpful recommendations and comparisons.
One other thing I’ve realized is that I had this misconception that robot vacuums never need human input or maintenance. It’s not true. But I found that the amount required varies a lot depending on the specific robot vacuum.
And I’ve noticed manufacturers seem to be focusing on this more and more. For example, the base station on some models—like the X40 can heat water to high temperatures, clean, wash, and then dry the mop pads automatically, which results in many robots these days only needing a little bit of maintenance every now and then, versus just a few years ago when it was a lot.
Using my Dreame X40 Ultra as an example, every few days I refill the clean water tank and empty the dirty water tank.
And every few weeks I’ll do a more in-depth maintenance routine by wiping over the robot vacuum sensors, checking the brush for any tangled hair, cleaning the washboard base, refilling detergent, or replacing the dust bag. But this whole entire process only takes me about five minutes.
Software and Customization
The other thing I want to talk about is the software and customization aspect. This has come a long way to the point where I can now fine-tune every single room and how it’s cleaned. For example, my partner and I both work from home and have separate offices.
I set the robot to start cleaning both of our offices before we wake up. It vacuums and mops mine first because it has hard floor, returns to the base station, cleans the mop pads, leaves them behind, and then vacuums my partner’s carpeted office.
We wake up, go to our offices to start work, and that’s when the robot starts cleaning the rest of the house, and we’re not interrupted by a robot trying to clean the room during a Zoom call or something.
Is a Robot Vacuum Worth It? Final Thoughts
So, at the end of the day, do I think robot vacuums are worth it? Absolutely yes — at least for my lifestyle. I still do the occasional spot clean here and there, but it’s rare, and I love not having to manually vacuum or mop every week.
That said, I really do recommend investing in a higher-end model if you want a more seamless and effective experience.
Cheaper models might be fine for light maintenance, but in my experience, they can be frustrating if you’re expecting them to replace all of your manual cleaning. So yeah, six months later, I’m really happy with the decision, and I honestly wish I had picked one up sooner.
