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- Keeps on Cleaning- Braava’s rechargeable battery cleans for up to 3 hours dry sweeping on a single charge, or up to 2 hours wet mopping
- Knows where not to go- Braava’s smart sensors avoid stairs, area rugs and raised transitions to carpet
- Pet-Perfect- Braava is ideal for picking up pet hair every day, but its whisper-quiet operation means your pets won’t be bothered while Braava cleans
- Cleans Edges- Perfect Edge technology allows Braava to clean right along walls and edges, and around chair legs and other obstacles for a complete clean
- Quiet operation and compact shape. Sweeps and mops hard surface floors. Sweep and Mop Mode.
– irobot braava
With proper expectations set, this is the droid you’ve been looking for.,
This little robot is a helper, and keeping that in mind, you’ll find your floors stay much cleaner in between your more dedicated cleaning sessions.
That’s not to say you’re completely out of the picture. You have a responsibility to use this robot, and while his AI is quite impressive at times, it is still an appliance. This is not entirely a “set it and forget it” robot. Think of it as other helpful appliances. Your dishwasher is great! But you still need to properly load it, pre-rinse when necessary, and occasionally still scrape some dry food off of a fork with your thumbnail. Your washer and dryer are fantastic! But you still need to make time for use in your evenings, transfer from one to the other, and darn it, they still don’t fold your clothes.
The Braava, is like an appliance in that way. You don’t need to babysit it (other than your first few run-throughs) but you need to be aware of it, take it from room to room, change pads, and charge as necessary.
Our home is ~1600 square feet and mostly hardwood floors with area rugs centered in the dining room and living room.
The Braava works most efficiently in our kitchen (pretty much rectangular) and bedroom (again a square with the bed, which comes all the way down to the floor, is centered on a wall and all of our dresser/end tables are legged tall enough for the little guy to easily get under.
The only prep these rooms need when I put Braava to work are; Kitchen) move the two little rug mats we have out of the way. Bedroom) move the dog bed out of the way.
The dining room and living room are connected through a doorway, and I suspect I’ll want to get another Northstar Navigation cube to just combine them. As it is now, the Braava gets places I’d never get with a broom. Under the couches, under the book case…it’s great.
It’s quiet enough to let run while we’re cooking, eating, watching TV etc… (though it’s a little louder when mopping)
The methodical way in which it cleans was a surprise and is sometimes even fun to watch. They way it reacts to corners, walls, and furniture legs is impressive and it diligently works around them to cover every inch it can get to.
I found the Braava stuck once, so it’s the one room that I wouldn’t put it in and then leave the house. That room has an older couch where the arm “slopes” in towards the base. This slope was such that the Braava wedged itself and couldn’t get unstuck. The rest of our furniture, though, is pretty straight angled and tall enough for the robot to clean under.
It does a wonderful job identifying our area rugs and the more open your floor plan, the quicker it will get around and signal it’s done.
We use disposable swiffer pads for dry mopping and the reusable micro fiber for mopping.
We have a dog and a dirt driveway (wooded house) so we definitely are happy with the help in keeping sand, dirt, and hair to a minimum. Yes, the dog barked a lot at first. Yes, he got used to it within the first hour. Yes, we made a funny youtube clip of it which you can view here. […]
Very pleased with this robot so far and would recommend it to anyone, assuming they know that they do need to actively use it in order to keep the house clean.
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|Good for floors that you cant use Scooba on,
The Braava looks very similar to the Mint vacuum series and from what I can tell there are few differences from the original mint to the Braava. I am sure IRobot puts some of their technological wizardry into this to make improvements though.
Braava is built for hardwood floors, laminates, linoleum, and tiles as opposed to Scooba which really is too wet for laminate flooring. Braava has a Dry/Damp Mop dual mode which allows you to pick up top level dust and dirt (like a swifter mop) in dry mode or get a deep clean to take out grime and stains while in wet mop mode. Both clothes are microfiber (2 each come standard with the Braava out of the box).
The Braava like the other Irobots has sensor technology that avoids stairs and other areas it isn’t suppose to go. The difference now from my 300 Series Scheduler and Scooba is that it uses a type of locating sensor cube that is suppose to help map out your area that you want cleaned. After using a bit, I am not so sure that it works better than just letting my IRobot loose to do its thing. The one thing I have noticed is that one cube for large rooms doesn’t seem to be sufficient for cleaning the whole area without moving the cube from place to place which makes it a bit less convenient than just placing it and go. The 380T according to the specs has the ability to do 1000 square feet but the cube itself doesn’t have that range. Sure you can buy additional cubes but my argument is that you should not have too as you are obviously buying the 380 over the 320 because of its ability to do larger areas. At least IRobot should include a second sensor to help with that fact especially since you are paying a premium for this robot.
Braava is compact and will fit under your couches, tables or whatever it needs and being square it clean corners better than the round IRobots. Unlike my 300 series and Scooba the Braava is surprisingly quiet. I have to hunt around just to find out where it is at.
Although I am a fan of these Robots, I do think the Braava and all the Irobots for that fact are pricey and should be a bit better price, but unfortunately with very little effective competition, then there is very little incentive for IRobot to do so.
Braava 380 vs 320
There is a $100 differential between the 380 at about $300 and the 320 at $200. There are a few differences between the two. The 380 as I mentioned above can cover more ground in one session. It can have multiple navigation cubes (although only provided with one), giving it the ability to memorize the schematics of more than one room. The 320 can do one medium sized room at a time. The 380 has more liquid dispensing capability than the 320 so that it can mop a larger area at a time. The 380 also comes with a turbo charging dock capable of recharging the device in about 2 hours. Whether these things are worth the 100 buck difference in price is up to you to decide. For me, I wanted larger room coverage but I still have a gripe about only providing one cube.
Although I have a few complaints about the Braava, it still is a good device and worthy of 4 stars.
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