What had originally been intended as a birthday gift is now under common ownership in our household: the iRobot Scooba. We have a lot of tile flooring (most of the ground floor as well as the bathroom upstairs), and mopping it is a real pain in the you-know-what.

So I took a chance and, after reading a couple of reviews on Amazon, ordered the unit.

A couple of insights after some first use:

• the device is definitely NOT usable for wood flooring (despite indication of such on the manufacturer‘s website) unless the wood and especially the cracks between the panels are 100% sealed and water-tight.
• the battery lasts long enough for about 15 square meters (approx. 150 sq. ft.) - enough to do a bathroom every couple of days, but certainly not if you have a lot of tiled floors (like we do). In the latter case, you‘ll have to split up the floor into sections using either rolled-up carpets and/or the virtual wall sender delivered with the system. To do this properly, you‘d have to purchase at least another virtual wall unit (about 30€). The 80 sq. meter coverage promoted with the product is clearly not attainable on one charge.
• the unit is very thorough in cleaning and low enough to get under most of our furniture (something we probably haven‘t done with a mop in years) - definite plus points there
• even the added difficulty of our semi-island cooking bay didn‘t phase the Scooba while cleaning the kitchen and next room section (the cooking island juts right into the middle of the two areas)

Tags: Household, Technology, Gadgets

Publisher: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC)
Moderator: Nora Young
Language: English
URL: www.cbc.ca/spark

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