If you hate washing or mopping the floor just as much as you
hate vacuuming the home, then the Scooba floor washing robot
might be what you are looking for. The Scooba comes from the same makers as the
Roomba, iRobot. There are a few models available but the
best selling tend to be the Scooba 330 and the Scooba
350. The latest model is the Scooba 380.
These appliances look and function like a Roomba. Not so
much a vacuum robot but a floor
cleaning robot. They are disk shaped and can be programmed to
function independently. They can clean floors such a
linoleum or hardwood floors when you are at out of the
house or even at night when you are a sleep.
They are 'intelligent' enough to sense various obstacles and
can follow walls so as to get as much coverage of the floors as
possible. They even have a cliff top sensor so
that they do not fall down stairs or over ledges (when used on
a multi-level house).
All the Scooba's work in the same way. They use a
4 stage process when cleaning a room.
This includes a prep stage that picks up
any loose dirt or other debris on the floors surface.
Then comes the washing stage. A brush
spreads a cleaning solution around to loosen dirt and grime on
the floor. Separate containers for cleaning fluid and dirty
used solution are housed in the Scooba so that clean solution
is always used on the floors.
The next stage is the scrubbing which uses
a brush mechanism to remove the dirt, grime, and other stuck-on
messes.
The final stage is the drying process. The
Scooba will go over the floor with a squeegee like device to
mop up any wet spots. This should leave the floors dry and
ready for walking on.
The Scooba can use water as the cleaning solution but better
results will be achieved with the Clorox Scooba cleaning
solution that comes with the purchase of the Scooba. You
receive one bottle of Clorox with your
purchase but after that you will have to re-order new bottles.
See if this is warranted by trying a wash with Clorox and with
water or any other combination of water and other cleaning
liquid.
Along with the 8-ounce bottle of Clorox Scooba cleaning
solution you will also receive a measuring cup, an APS battery,
a power supply and charging base. There is also a detailed
operating guide so that you can get the best out of your
cleaning robot. One Virtual Wall is also supplied for more
advanced use of the Scooba. This allows you to set an area of
the room or house that you don't want the robotic floor cleaner
to access. It is called a virtual wall because it sends out an
infra red beam of light that the Scooba detects as a wall and
will turn away from. The floor-washing robot measures 14-3/4 by
14-3/4 by 3-1/2 inches and carries a one-year warranty.
Many comments on the Scooba are favorable. It does what it
says it will do. It may not cover every area (such as hard to
get places or tight corners) but in general it will
clean your floors to a good standard.
Now you can let your pet cat be
in charge of the floors !
