Robot mops have come a long way
The Dreame L20 Ultra is a serious help around the house
Robot vacuums have become arguably the most common autonomous devices in the modern home. Whether you've been letting a Roomba vacuum your home for more than a two decades (the first model launched in 2002) or you've just jumped into one of the modern competitors, it may be hard to remember life before your robotic housekeeper.
Today, I'm not going to get into the amazing evolution of the modern robot vacuum. Instead, I want to take a look at its more complicated sibling the robot mop. Sucking up dust bunnies is child's play compared to the intricate workflow of mopping. You obviously need water and that doesn't always play well with electronic devices. You need either reusable or disposable pads of some sort to clean up the mess. And you need the ability to actually maneuver into hard to reach spots or else you'll need a human follow-up cleaning which defeats the purpose in the first place.
For today's comparison, I want to look at the first robotic mop I ever had. It was the simplest model offered up by the fine folks at iRobot. The Brava Jet 240 was really as basic of a cleaning solution as you'd find. It couldn't be controlled by an app. It didn't have a docking station. You just filled the tank with water, placed it in the corner of a room, and pushed a button. The little tank would then proceed to meticulously scrub around the room spraying ahead of its path as it traveled. You could swap out the scrubbing pads depending on the surface you were cleaning. And while you could use pre-moistened wipes, I opted for the reusable thick pads that could be tossed into the washing machine as needed.
Was this the most efficient solution? No, probably not. While the Brava did a pretty good job for its small size, it didn't always get every spot on the floor. There were no customizations or even obstacle detection really. This thing would just go back and forth until it bumped into all the corners or ran out of water, batter, or both. Despite its limitations, it was still pretty practical for cleaning small bathrooms and lighter messes on the kitchen floor.
Fast forward a few years and we recently purchased a Dreame Ultra L20 robotic vacuum and mop combo. Gone are the days of having one robot vacuum and one robot mop. Now, you can kill two birds with one stone! Or two robots with one battery!
The L20 has really simplified our routine cleanings. It has the ability to remove its mopping pads and leave them behind in the dock when vacuuming. Or it's smart enough to know when it's approaching a rug and can lift the mopping pads to not interfere. It's really an amazing piece of technology.
The mopping abilities of the L20 really make the Brava mop look like it's from the stone age. It's able to apply downward pressure on stubborn stains and sticky spots until they are removed. Its base station is able to clean and heat the mopping pads keeping them fresh and absorbent. The docking station even has two voluminous tanks for both clean and dirty water that don't need to be changed very often at all. It really is about as "set it and forget it" as a mopping solution can be. Hell, you can even sit around and meditate while your mop does its thing (as the cheesy promo image above illustrates.)
And that's perfect for a busy guy like me with two kids and two messy pets. While the Brava mop was a fun little party trick, it didn't ultimately eliminate the need to use a manual mop sometimes. But the L20 has absolutely put the old Swiffer WetJet out of work. I get an immense level of joy and satisfaction watching its scrubbing mop pads extend into hard to reach corners. It really knows the best angles to get every nook and cranny. It's using technology (LiDAR, cameras, lights, etc) that the Brava mop could only dream of.
Don't get me wrong, I know that the Brava 240 in particular had a really loyal fan base. I still see posts on reddit where people are scouring the internet to find one of the discontinued little scrubbers. They were cheap, simple, indestructible, and honestly kinda cute. But they were far from a perfect robot mopping solution.
So I do think that the L20 will be our mopping solution for the foreseeable future. Will there be some new advancement in mopping technology in the next few years? Sure, most likely. Will it be a total game changer? I doubt it. Let us all just enjoy the current state of robotic cleaning solutions and appreciate how far we've come.
Thanks for reading, I’ll see you next week!
Hey! Could you use some help establishing healthy habits? Do you have a big project or new business that you want to get off the ground but could use some advice? Maybe you could benefit from hiring me as your coach. If you’re interested, read more about my coaching services here, or go ahead and book some time on my calendar to discuss further.
Iterate is free today. But if you enjoyed this post, you should let me know that this writing is valuable by pledging a future subscription. You won't be charged unless I enable payments at some point in the future. Think of it like an IOU in a tip jar.