Robot mops can seem to be a giant indulgence, notably when you’ve already spent a couple of hundred {dollars} on a robotic vacuum. But there are occasions they make lots of sense, comparable to when you may have primarily onerous flooring in your house. iRobot’s Braava Jet m6 is the most effective we’ve seen for that state of affairs.
It performs each dry sweeping and moist mopping, masking as much as 1,000 sq. toes in a single cleansing session. It maps your flooring plan for focused zone cleansing. It may even clear in sequence with suitable Roomba vacuums.
Design
Though bigger than the iRobot Braava Jet 240 I reviewed earlier this 12 months, the Braava Jet m6 remains to be comparatively compact, measuring, 10 x 10.6 x 3.5 inches and weighing 4.4 kilos. There’s a digital camera and a sensor on prime for navigation, together with a retractable carrying deal with. The silver disc within the heart is a lid masking the water tank. Adjacent to which are Home, Clean, and Spot Clean buttons.
A “precision spray” nozzle on the entrance of the Braava Jet m6 wets the ground for mopping. On the underside are a pad reader, driving wheels, cliff sensors, and charging contacts.
The Braava Jet m6 can dry sweep and moist mop onerous flooring.
The Braava Jet m6 comes with a charging dock, attachable drip tray, a number of disposable mopping pads (three moist, three dry), and a small pattern bottle of Braava Jet Hard Floor Cleaner. You can buy extra pads for $8 for a seven-pad pack, or a pair of washable pads (one moist, one dry) for $25. A 16-ounce bottle of cleansing answer prices $8.
Setup and efficiency
Setting up the Braava Jet m6 is just like organising any of iRobot’s Roomba vacuums. You plug the dock right into a wall outlet and set the robotic on it to cost. The predominant distinction right here is that this dock features a drip tray that you just snap into place earlier than setting down the robotic mop. This added accent will hold residual water from pooling beneath the bot when it returns from mopping jobs.
With the Braava Jet m6 docked, obtain and signal into the iRobot app. When you add the Braava Jet m6 from the checklist of iRobot merchandise, the app prompts you thru a couple of steps to hook up with your Wi-Fi. The course of took simply a few minutes for me.
Michael Ansaldo/IDGYou can ship the Braava Jet m6 on a coaching run to map your house’s flooring plan.
Roomba customers will likely be accustomed to the iRobot app interface, because it mirrors the one used for these merchandise. First-timers ought to be capable to discover their means round intuitively. A big Clean button within the heart of the display begins and stops mopping jobs.
A battery icon above this shows the present cost stage. A row of icons throughout the underside of the display supplies entry to scheduling, cleansing logs, good maps of your house’s structure, assist matters, and numerous settings.
You can even management the Braava Jet m6 through Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant. Using your telephone or a type of firm’s good audio system you should use voice instructions to start out, cease, and pause cleanings and ship the Braava Jet m6 again to its dock.
To begin a cleansing job, you simply slot one of many cleansing pads into the Braava Jet m6’s pad reader and press Clean. I began with a dry sweeping pad to clear the particles off the entryway and kitchen flooring in my dwelling’s decrease stage. The Braava Jet m6 navigated nimbly round corners and obstacles with none hangups.
One of the issues I like finest about this robotic is it acknowledges carpet proper out of the field, with out the person needing to arrange bodily or digital limitations. That stored it from monitoring grime—and later, water—into my carpeted lounge, which adjoins the entryway. When the Braava Jet m6 was completed sweeping, I had a dirty pad to eliminate and a a lot cleaner flooring.
After I eliminated the soiled dry sweeping pad, which ejects with the push of a button, I inserted a moist mopping pad. Then I eliminated the water tank and crammed it with faucet water and half the cleansing answer from the pattern bottle, per the instruction handbook. (You can use water solely, as properly.) Finally, I returned the tank to its compartment and hit clear.
In mopping mode, the Braava Jet m6 sprays a stream of water a couple of inches in entrance of it, then goes forwards and backwards over the moistened space with the mopping pad a few instances. As it inches ahead, It repeats this cycle till the job is finished. Again, the robotic did a superb job navigating and cleansing, leaving loads of filthy proof behind on the mopping pad.
Michael Ansaldo/IDGThere are three wet-mopping modes and you may alter the quantity of water used as properly.
You can customise your moist mopping preferences within the app’s Settings menu. Three preset mopping modes are provided: Standard mode balances cleansing energy and complete space lined, and I discovered it finest fitted to upkeep mopping. Deep mode boosts the ability and reduces the cleansing space to sort out powerful messes. Extended Coverage mode mops a bigger space extra rapidly and with much less cleansing energy. In any of those modes, it’s also possible to alter the quantity of water the Braava Jet m6 sprays on the ground, utilizing a easy slider.
If you may have a bigger dwelling or a posh flooring plan, you’ll be able to have the Braava Jet m6 map it and divide it into rooms. With a map enabled, you’ll be able to ship the Braava Jet m6 on to particular rooms, set digital limitations—referred to as Keep Out Zones—and customarily acquire finer management over the cleansing jobs. Once you activate the mapping characteristic within the app, it takes the Braava Jet m6 two to 5 passes over the world to construct the map.
Another perk of the mapping operate is it permits you to hyperlink the Braava Jet m6 with an iRobot Roomba i7, i7+, S9, or s9+ robotic vacuum for tandem cleansing. Once the Roomba is finished vacuuming an area, it’s going to inform the Braava Jet m6 that the job is full, so the mop-bot can begin dry sweeping or moist mopping. iRobot provides bundle pricing if you buy a type of robotic vacuums with the Braava Jet m6.
Verdict
At $400, the Braava Jet m6 is a major funding, however its good options, very good navigation, and customised cleansing modes are well worth the cash when you have lots of onerous flooring in your house. If you reside in an condo or condominium the place these surfaces are restricted to kitchens and loos, the Braava Jet m6 might be extra mop than you want. The smaller (and cheaper) Braava Jet 240 is healthier suited to these confined areas, and t nonetheless supplies a number of cleansing modes and straightforward operation. But for everybody else, the Braava Jet m6 must be on the prime of your checklist.