[FONT=“Arial”][size=]I’m wonder what is the best robot to handle pet hair, litter and a toddler. I have 3 dog, 4 cats, and a 15 month old so besides from the little time I have to maintain my floors, within minutes of cleaning them, you can hardly tell.
It does not need to be programmable as I’m going to have to pick stuff up before it can be used and for the most part it will be used downstairs on tile and wood floors. However, it does need to be able to handle approximately 1000 sq ft a day (the space is divided in half). If it is run less than that, I don’t think any unit can handle the fur balls.
I liked the idea of the Mint robot as it is all in one (sweep/mop) but cannot see it be able to handle the amount of fur well and have concerns about the wet cloths leaving litter smears. And I’ve heard that Roombas can miss corners, which is often where the fur piles up for me.
Sweeping/vacuuming is the priority but mopping would also be nice to keep the stickiness from the food that get thrown onto the floor to a minimum.
So any recommendations would be appreciated. Thank you.[/size][/FONT]
Good day,
You have quite a task before you.
There are a few robots that may work in your case.
You could look at a Roomba 532, which is a Pet Series model. It doesn’t come with scheduling, but it has a second dustbin that has the vacuum motor removed so it can pick up more debris without having to empty the dustbin as often (which is a nice feature). However, considering the amount of pet hair you have to pick up, you will have to clean the brushes (all three) pretty much every time you run the Roomba, otherwise they’ll eventually seize and the robot will wear out prematurely.
Also, you may want to look at the Neato XV-11. it’s a new, yet very promising robot vacuum on the market. This robot will systematically clean your home by mapping it out with a mapping laser and do a methodical cleaning. It has very impressive suction for a robot vacuum and a good brush system that will not need to be cleaned as often as Roomba’s. As well it has a large dustbin that is removable and fairly easy to empty. One thing you also might like about the Neato is that if its battery starts to die before it’s done cleaning your home, it will return to the charger, recharge, and return to where it left off. Depending on how large an area, it will do this twice, that is, return to charge twice, and then return to clean your home twice. It will do this whether you use it’s scheduling feature or not.
Mint too may be a good choice. It is simpler than other robots in that it uses cloths to sweep/mop the floor, however what it does, it does very well. To determine if it will fit your situation, we want to ask if you’ve ever used swiffers before. If so, how long can you go in cleaning your home before having to change the swiffer cloth? Mint will run in a similar fashion, considering it uses a swiffer cloth too. So if you need several swiffers to clean your home, Mint will need pretty much the same. At that point you’d need to decide if you’re OK with changing out the cloth and running the robot several times to get the whole surface area done. One other thing to note - the mopping mode is slower and cannot do as large an area. You would have to run several cycles with a fresh wet cloth to do 1000 square feet. Depending on your home’s layout, that may not be possible on one full battery charge.
Something that will affect all the robots is the configuration of your home. If you have lots of obstacles and things to navigate around, it will in general take any cleaning robot more time to clean that area.
Please let us know if you have any questions.
Thanks,
