Household robots have been a sci-fi staple since the 50's. But now they're a reality: robots that vacuum your home are one of the newest evolutions in home care appliances and their popularity is growing fast.
Presently, the pioneers of the sector iRobot still dominate the market, with over 5 million home robots sold to date.
Key Facts:
It's important to remember that a robotic vacuum cleaner is not a direct replacement for a traditional appliance: it is a complementary product, like a microwave is complementary to a conventional oven. Robotic Vacuums are perfect for busy people who struggle to find the time to keep their floors spotless. The vacuum-cleaning robot lets you keep their floors cleaner for longer, so you don't need to use their conventional vacuum cleaner as often.
A job description for the two products would read something like:
Standard vacuum - an infrequent deep, all over clean. Robotic vacuum = maintains clean floors everyday.
The cleaning performance is determined by a number of factors, most importantly:
1. Coverage - how much of the room it covers.
2. Pick-up efficiency - how much debris it picks up in the areas it does cover.
Different manufacturers and models use different solutions to try to maximise their products' efficiency in these areas - with differing degrees of success.
There's no such thing as a standard room, so the Roomba has no such thing as a standard
approach. It uses over 40 custom behaviours, 3 automatic cleaning modes, and an
intelligent combination of sensors and software to constantly adapt to its surroundings,
furniture and flooring types.
This means that no matter what the shape of your room or how much furniture you
have, the Roomba will cover more of it.
There are two main ways in which a vacuum-cleaning robot can navigate around a room:
Adaptive:
iRobot employs a range of cleaning 'modes' to best navigate its way around a room and the obstacles in it, covering all areas multiple times.
Systematic:
Standard 'up and down' or 'corn-row' cleaning. The robot starts at one end of the room and works logically in straight lines to the other end, covering each spot once. Adaptive technology most closely mimics the way that humans adapt to their surroundings. This means an Adaptive robot will cover a room more thoroughly, especially in normal homes where there is a lot of furniture to negotiate. Systematic robots tend to feature complex and expensive sensors, or cameras. While the Systematic approach may finish a room more quickly, our tests have repeatedly shown that these robots can become confused by furniture and other items, miss areas and get stuck under chairs, on rugs, transition areas or lamps
A vacuum-cleaning robot's pick-up efficiency is determined by a combination of two factors:
The efficiency of its vacuum suction. The efficiency of its brushing system.
It is very easy to compare the robot to a traditional vacuum cleaner and think vacuum power/air watts is the most important element in its cleaning ability.
Not so! - Battery-powered appliances require a whole new level of ingenuity and attention to detail to achieve a great result with limited power.
Thanks to an integrated cleaning system designed to make every milliamp count, Roomba requires less suction power than other robotic cleaners, making it more energy efficient.
Its Cleaning Head uses dual, counter-rotating brushes. On hard floors, the brush and flapper work together to sweep debris straight into the main bin. On carpet, they both agitate the fibres to bring debris up to the surface and then into the bin. Behind the Cleaning Head, Roomba has a squeegee with a high velocity vacuum to suck up the fine particles into the vacuum chamber.
iRobot has conducted tests to measure the overall cleaning performance of Roomba and its competitors, using a measure that combines Coverage and Pick-up Efficiency.
Roomba outperformed all the competition: its 'Adaptive' coverage means it covers more area, more times. The Dirt Detect system means it spends more time cleaning the dirtier areas, and Roomba's efficient cleaning system picks up more debris (coarse, medium and fine) than all the others. Like we said, the trick is to clean smarter, not just suck harder.
iRobot has developed rigorous tests to evaluate performance on many levels. Some manufactures just measure on speed, but to score well in the real world iRobot believes a robot must cover well AND clean well.
Speed is less relevant when considering the performance of a vacuum-cleaning robot, as it will usually be working when the house's occupants are not there.
'Finishing' faster means that less time has been spent picking up dirt, not all of the room has been covered, or that the portion that has been covered has been done less thoroughly.
So, speed shouldn't be a purchasing consideration, as it usually comes at the expense of cleaning performance.
Our experience tells us customers would rather have the job done properly than quickly.
Roomba has a Dirt Detect function, which identifies dirtier areas and spends more time cleaning them. Products without this intelligence can pass over dirtier areas only once.
Most robotic vacuum cleaners are round, so they have a spinning side brush to help them clean along edges like walls. Some even have two side brushes... why, we're not sure, they can only clean along one wall at a time.
The side brush needs to reach beyond the robot and actually touch the wall. Many side-brushes are too short, and many robots follow the wall too far away, so the brush never actually gets to the edge.
Roomba's side brush is angled down and forwards ten degrees. It sweeps debris to the centre and releases it for the main brush to pick-up. Roomba's side brush sticks out past the side of the robot and, because Roomba navigates right along the edge of a wall, it cleans right into the edge.
Homes have carpets, wood, hard floors, tiles and rugs, so a vacuum-cleaning robot needs to operate efficiently on all surfaces. Some cope better than others, which rugs or deep carpets or get stuck on transition areas between different flooring types.
Unlike most manufacturers with fixed cleaning heads, Roomba has a flexible cleaning head that is designed to adjust to all types of flooring and in all sorts of everyday environments.
Scheduling allows a robot to be preprogrammed to clean while the owner is out or busy. Not all manufacturers offer this feature - some just have a delayed start, or let you schedule at the same time each day. As peoples daily lives vary, the Roomba 555 and above can be scheduled up to 7 times a week at different times each day - the only vacuuming robot we know to offer this!
Virtual barriers come in various shapes and sizes, iRobot's Roomba is kept in check by a 'Virtual Wall'. Their role is to create an invisible barrier that confines the robot to a particular room or area, or keeps anything too delicate or dangerous out of bounds.
iRobot's Virtual Wall Lighthouse helps the robot navigate around the home. They keep it in one room for a set period before guiding it to the next. When the battery runs low the Lighthouse will guide it back to its home base to recharge.
This is a key feature in larger homes, or if a customer wants more than one room cleaned while they are out.
Since vacuum cleaning robots tend to clean when the owner isn't around, it's important that they can vacuum in hard-to-reach places, like under beds, tables and sofas, without them having to be moved.
Clearance height is therefore vital and should be a key purchasing consideration.
The Roomba is only 8cm 'tall' - the lowest on the market - so it can clean under a lot more furniture. Many robots with so-called "Smart" systems can be fooled by cloth skirts around beds and couches so won't clean under them. Roomba gently pushes them aside, cleans, and comes back out.
Homes have cables and rugs have tassels, so a vacuum-cleaning robot needs to be able to deal with both without getting stuck or tangled. Unfortunately not all products offer this anti tangle technology.
The iRobot Roomba is designed with real homes in mind - so it has anti tangle technology. It senses if it's getting caught up on tassels or cables, stops, then reverses safely away - vital if you have a hi-fi, lamps, computers or antique rugs in the home.
Homes contain many delicate or precious objects, so these robots need built-in technology to prevent damaging collisions whilst still allowing them to clean as close as possible. Many robots lack such technology and can either damage items, or get confused and take a big detour around the object leaving areas of dirt behind.
All Roomba models have an integral soft-touch bumper and in-built sensors that scan its surroundings 67 times a second. It knows when it is approaching an object, slows down on approach and just gently touches it before continuing with its vacuuming.
Normal vacuum cleaners can generate a great deal of air flow, which is heavy with dust and airborne particles. A HEPA filter in the filtration system cleans this air. Robotic vacuum cleaners don't need to use so much power, and create less exhaust air, meaning HEPA filters are not usually required.
Some robotic vacuum cleaner manufacturers talk of having HEPA filters, our tests show these do not add significant improvement to the product, or the filtration of air exhausted from them.
iRobot is continually reviewing filtration to find a true HEPA filter that further improves upon the existing performance and air filtration in our products.
As with speed, noise is less important since vacuum-cleaning robots are designed to clean when the owner is out of the house or busy doing other things.
The iRobot Roomba is one of the quietest products on the market, and quieter than most normal vacuum cleaners, washing machines... or owners snoring while Roomba works around them.
Some cleaners come with added 'functionality' such as flashing lights, cameras and complex user interfaces. As so often happens, these features don't always enhance the real-world performance of the product - and in some cases make it more complicated to use, less effective, and more likely to go wrong.
Our recommendation is to choose a product with a proven track record that values performance over gimmicks. Not the shiniest one with the most flashing lights.
iRobot have been developing robots for 20 years and robotic cleaners for 10 years - giving us the experience to make vacuum cleaning robots that really work, and can be relied on. Additional functionality is only incorporated if it makes using the product easier and its performance even better.