Monday, March 19, 2012

Robotic Floor Cleaner - Cleaning Modes

Consumer are spoiled for choices when it comes to robotic vacuum cleaner. Unlike ten years ago, nowadays there are quite a number of brands and models to choose from.

The price of such product varies from sub one hundred to six or seven hundred dollars. The more expensive brands comes equipped with all sort of advance sensors,high efficiency and long operating hours and etc.

One of the important factors that you need to pay attention to is the cleaning mode. Some models supports multiple different cleaning mode so as to cater to various surface types and surface area to clean. The cheaper models usually usually has only one cleaning mode.

What sort of cleaning modes are there and what exactly do they do ? Illustrated below is a diagram of the various cleaning modes.

If you have different surface type to clean (for instance heavy duty ceramic tiles, carpets, marble and etc) then it is recommended that you invest a little bit more to get the best model that auto select cleaning mode using auto surface sensor detection capabilities.

You can also consider a model that allows you to configure the type of cleaning mode before you activate it to clean on required surface. Even though it is more cumbersome, it is more worthwhile for you to consider one that supports the above described three different cleaning modes.

Do some research on the automatic cleaning appliance before you buy it. Look for customer reviews and understand the specification and capability of the product.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

When Should You Consider A Robotic Vacuum Cleaner

Imagine after a hard day's work, tired and stress out, you reach home only to find that everything is in a mess. The floor is dirty, sticky and the carpet smells of cigarettes and filled with coffee stains and crumbs of food you had yesterday night.

Decades ago, you would probably need to hire a maid, pay someone or do the cleaning yourself. Well those days were long gone because as of now it is possible and affordable for you to get a robotic vacuum cleaner to do the cleaning automatically.

Such a home cleaning appliance is very popular with young working couples who hardly had time to clean and maintain their house. Depending on the size of the area you wish to clean, surface type and the amount of budget you are willing to invest in the product , there are a wide range of brands and models to choose from.

Do you have pets at home which you leave unattended while you are away? Do you have kids running about in the house? Do you have a maid at home? Do you have plenty of furniture and lots of corners and crevices hard to reach areas for cleaning? If the answer is yes than you might have to give a second thought before you get a robotic vacuum.

There is a wide range of cleaning robots to choose from. Don't underestimate the capability of these products. Unlike the first generation designs, newer models comes with plenty of interesting features.

For instance,auto recharging (able to recharge itself so that it finishes the job at hand ), powerful sensors to detect not just the surrounding but also dirt, artificial intelligence and complex advance algorithm to map out area so that more time are spend on dirtier spots and etc.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Robotic Floor Cleaner - What You Need To Know Before Getting One

There are several factors that you should consider before you head out for the store to buy a new robotic vacuum. The factors listed below are by no means exhaustive and comprehensive. This article serves more as a general guideline for you to make a better choice in regards to the best value for money cleaning appliance that you plan to get.

Not A Complete Replacement For Your Conventional Vacuum Cleaner
Don't discard the conventional vacuum cleaner of yours yet because it is more likely that the robotic floor cleaner that you intend to get will serve to compliment rather than a total replacement for the old manual operated appliance.

Inaccessible & Hard To Reach Areas
No matter how smart or intelligent a robotic cleaner is, there are bound to be areas where it won't be able to reach and clean properly. For instance, uneven surfaces as the steps of staircase, low height furniture, bends, corners and etc.
The bigger the appliance, the more difficult it will be for it to reach those narrow corners. Most of the current products are either oval and round in shape thus you will need to use your manual floor vacuum with adapter attached to reach difficult areas.

Battery Life & Charging Time - Power Consumption
The operating duration without charging is one of the most important factor that you need to consider. Such appliance usually runs on battery pack (not practical to attached power cord to it ) and depending on the product design, some brands can operate continuously up to 4 hours while the cheaper models may last for about 2 hours and then it requires recharging.

The recharging time can take as long as six to eight hours!. Newer models might take shorter time to recharge fully but even then it is still in terms of hours. Some cheap models has many trade off such as high power consumption resulting in lower operating hours.

Thus beware of any salesman who try to sell you their product based solely on the price itself. The cheaper the price, the more likely that is will consume more power. Ask the salesman and if you are technical enough, review the technical specification.

If you have a huge floor area to cover, power rating and efficiency becomes utmost important, otherwise, operating hours of up to 2 hours is adequate for normal usage.

Monday, March 12, 2012

Robotic Vacuums - How to Find the Best Robotic Floor Cleaner

After a hard day's work,reaching home tired and exhausted, household chores such as cleaning the floor of your house can be a real put off. That's where high tech house appliance such as the robotic vacuum cleaners come in real handy.

In this post, we will ponder the question as to the reason for considering a robotic vacuum cleaner? We will review the features of a good robot vacuum cleaner, as well as explore the major brands and the products available in the market.

Why Should You Get a Robot Vacuum Cleaner?
Who doesn't want their houses to be tidy, neat and clean? I bet most people look forward to stay in a nice and clean environment but unfortunately we don't always have the spare time to spend cleaning them due to work and other commitments that take much of our time.

We live in a fast paced stressful environment where work hours seems to get longer and longer. It is not surprising that most of us might not have the time to clean the floors manually perhaps not even over the weekend.

Moreover, not everyone have the household budget to engage a cleaner to do the job either. Thus this is where a robotic floor cleaner comes in handy and useful.

A robotic vacuum, also known to some as 'robovac' is quite easy to deploy. All you need to do is place it on the ground, activate the start button, and off it proceed to do its job , cleaning in and around all areas in your house. So while the cleaning is ongoing, you can just sit back and relax, or get busy doing something more important.

Of course I am not advocating everyone to leave all cleaning to machines. There are some things that machines just simply can't do as well and efficient as human. Besides, household chores such as cleaning is a good form of exercise.

Features of a Robotic Floor Cleaner
There are many different brands from various manufacturers, thus as with all products, some are superior than others. When trying to decide which product to get, look for one that has all these main features namely

Best Automatic Default Setting:
It should be user friendly and you don't have to read through tons of user manual to figure out how to operate the cleaning appliance. Get one that you need not fiddle with confusing and complicated settings.

You want the gadget to work right out from the box, to be able with just one single push button activates and automatically clean the floor, detect obstacles without user intervention and moving n and round them where necessary.

Easy To Dispose Dirt:
The less hassle it is to dispose the dirt after cleaning the more time you will safe to do other things. All user friendly vacuum cleaners should not require too much effort to empty, and that applies to robotic counterpart too.

Versatility:
Cheap brand usually works on one type of surface only for instance a hard dry floor. You should look for one that works on various types of flooring such as carpet, ceramic tiles and etc. It should automatically detects and uses optimum cleaning settings for that surface. The price of such feature might increase but it is worth the cost.

Reliability:
There are so many brands and models in the market but not all are the same in terms of durability. You don't want to end up with one that breaks down after just a couple of hours of usage. Check with other customers on the reliability of the various models.

Choose A Reputable Robot Vacuum Cleaner
Most current automatic floor cleaners are high technological products with advance features, there are only a few well known manufacturers with brand models that will give you a run for its money so to speak.



Neato is one of the most well known automatic floor cleaner with unique features not often found in other lesser known brands.