Mi Mop bot 2021 review (after 3 months usage)
Exceptions\Issues navigating when faced with:
Piano stand\iron stand bottom knobs. The bot is not able to gauge this, so it keeps crashing into it.
Long curtains touching the ground or almost touching the ground. The bot finds it hard to clean near by, as it sees this as an obstacle. So while cleaning you can fold or tie the curtain up.
Cleaning under computer chairs is fairly ok. Again it depends on the height of your chair.
Other small objects like - Papers, leaves, ropes, chocolate wrappers, toothpicks - get stuck inside the vacuum or under the bot, preventing the bot from cleaning properly. It is better to remove such objects before cleaning or pause the cleaning when the these objects are stuck with the bot. Remove and resume the cleaning.
Certain doormats which are thin tend to get moved around by the bot, it is better to have hard and sturdier door mats or to remove them temporarily.
Cleaning the device:
Cleaning the roller is a tough task. Lot of hair strands tend to get caught up in it.
Cleaning the mop cloth is required after every mopping. Do not keep the mop cloth to the bot when not in use.
Cleaning the dust compartment box is a little tricky - there is a trick to open the white box.
The black box with the water compartment requires frequent filling of water when mopping. It needs cleaning too after completion of task.
Jet black colour of the bot - prone to dust build up. Needs to be wiped from time to time.
Clean all three wheels , else it would leave tracks during mopping.
Map Feature:
Requires that you have strong wifi coverage across the house.
Either use Mesh routers or place the wifi router in a place where wifi comes to all edges. (You can use wifi heat map on your mobile to check if wifi connectivity is available on all corners.)
Use the edge cleaning mode to map the house before performing any task.
Later classify the rooms, this will enable you to selectively clean rooms which you want.
While mapping first time, try to map the edge as much as possible.
ex: remove the flower vases \ chairs \ small furniture from the edges.
Make sure you start the mapping from the charging dock.
If you do not follow the above, you will find difficulty in mapping the home and face issues.
UseCases:
During the course of time or when you move your fridge \ bed (which was lined up to the wall) to clean underneath it.
You will have to use selective area cleaning (instead of room cleaning.)If you select room wise cleaning in such a scenario, the bot will use the old map and it will ignore the new space which was got by moving the appliance or furniture.
We are NOT supposed to fill any cleaning solution in the water tank compartment. If required you can sprinkle some diluted cleaning solution on the floor.
Device may find it difficult to navigate to selective areas if there are restricted zones in between.
So it is better to lift the bot and place it where it is required. ex: if there is a spill of sugar on the kitchen floor, when you mark the area to be cleaned via the map. The bot might find it difficult to navigate from the DockingStation to the cleaning area. You can also use the "Manual Navigate" option in the app.
Internet failures during cleaning:
If it is a matter of few secs, there will no issues. If it is more than a minute, the bot looses its context and has issues retaining the map \ cleaning info. In such cases, use "Selective Area Cleaning" to continue cleaning. However this requires some manual supervision.
Note: During the initial edge cleaning for the mapping - make sure the internet stays on.
There is a gap between the intended cleaning area edges and the actual cleaning. So you will have to ensure that you give a bigger cleaning area, so that your intended areas are cleaned correctly.
If you are having trouble mapping the entire house due to some reason. You can either just turn on the sweep \ mop mode.
It will do a complete cleaning on its own. Or you can place it inside a room and lock the door, it will complete the cleaning .
Do not turn off the docking station in the middle of cleaning. The bot will either end up crashing into the device or it will end up roaming about.
You will require to place the bot and docking station in a place where there are no obstacles for 90CM each side.
I would recommend using the vacuum mode separately and then the vacuum and mop mode.
It can clean without a map. It will mark the edges and go about cleaning it.
(There are other competent models in ILife which are cheaper, if you do not want the mapping\selective area cleaning\ restricted area feature.)
Error Message: "Please complete the cleaning task first and make sure remember map is enabled"
If you see the above message, it means that you have to set the Remember Map setting in the app.
Followed by selecting edge cleaning ie "Vacuum along the edges" option in the map. This will map your entire house. After that with the help of Area Editor you can classify various rooms.
Follow the "Map Feature" instructions in this article to solve this problem.
Conclusion:
Good at cleaning under tables, chairs etc where the broom is difficult to fit.
Note: It picks up all the small dust just like your vacuum cleaner. (Explore Karcher Vacuum cleaner for your vacuuming needs)
It serves as a good relief for your cleaning chores , as it does most of the work. Definitely it is not an alternative to the manual work but it does atleast 80% of the actual cleaning.
Mopping - Good enough. (tested for Ceramic Tiles, rubber mat flooring)
Good suction power.
Though this has only one fan\brush, it does a decent job.
Price point is very competitive, during sale season you will find it for 20k INR
S-mode and Y-Mode cleaning. S-mode is quicker. Y-mode is slower but mopping is better. Choose it depending on your need.
Missing:
Dirt sensor is missing in this bot. It is available in Roomba. (You can use targeted cleaning to overcome this.)
Software or App can be refined. It requires a good amount of knowledge to operate. (Use it as a regular cleaning bot without the mapping function.)
Obstacle avoidance can be better. (Supervise the bot for the first few times in your house, understand the objects which the bot finds difficult to navigate - then adjust them accordingly)
Sometimes the map gets adjusted drastically in the app while cleaning, however this does not affect the cleaning. The GPS accuracy can be improved.
If you are using the map feature to clean various rooms, the cleaning requires wifi. It cannot navigate with map alone, though the initial map is done.
Support from MI is not upto mark. Most of the service people do not know the product well. Mi support forums on the web require you to use VPN and proxy sites to access.
Cleaning Algorithm:
It is observed that it breaks the room into smaller parts based on the furniture\ obstacles and cleans the larger area that is emptier and then moves on to small areas.
It is normal for it to find a different pattern every time it cleans or mops.
