Hard Floor Vacuums Find Best Hard Floor Vacuums Reviews, Tips, Videos
- Scooba Three-Cycle Cleaning Process with pre-soak technology cleans hard floors three times better than ever before. Scooba automatically sweeps & pre-soaks, scrubs, then squeegees your floors, washing away up to 99.3% of bacteria.*
- iAdapt Responsive Cleaning Technology in the Scooba 450 enables Scooba to find its way around the room, covering every area of floor multiple times, maximizing the removal of grime and stuck-on messes for a complete clean
- Dual-Compartment Tank keeps clean and dirty water separated, so Scooba 450 will never put dirty water back down on your floors.
- Ideal for most hard floor surfaces, including tile, linoleum, stone, and sealed hardwood
- Two Cleaning Options let you choose from a full 40-minute cycle or a 20-minute cycle for smaller spaces.
iRobot Scooba 450 Floor Scrubbing Robot Scrubbing floors doesn’t happen as often as it should. The iRobot Scooba 450 is the only robot that tackles the tedious work of scrubbing hard floors so you don’t have to. Scooba 450 is the perfect choice for thoroughly clean sealed hard floors every day, the easy way. Scooba automatically sweeps & pre-soaks, scrubs, then squeegees your floors, cleaning stuck-on messes and washing away up to 99.3% of bacteria. * The revolutionary new Scooba Three-Cycle Cleaning Process with pre-soak technology has been redesigned from the ground up to clean hard floors three times better than ever before with even less work for you. Just fill the robot and press ‘Clean’; the proof is in the tank. Featur
– irobot scooba
I call it Turbo!,
I’ve had 2 Scoobas before this one, starting with the 5900 series, upgrading to the 300 series and now this one. This is a dramatic departure from what I’m used to in some good ways and some bad. I like it– but with some caveats. I’m also a devoted Roomba user, currently having a 650. I started way back with the Roomba Red that I bought on Amazon way back on Feb 23, 2007. I’ve been a long term customer of the robot vacuums.
Unpacking the unit, the first thing I noticed was that this design was drastically different than what I’ve been using for the last several years. It looks like they stopped making a separate body style for the Scoobas, and consolidated on a single design. This one is very much designed just like the Roomba, replacing the dirt bin with the water tank. This also means that cleaning of the Scooba itself is easier, and the brush scrubber area where the scrubbing takes place removes much easier for rinsing than the previous models. This model also has more useful symbol/light feedback on the top of the unit. There is a dedicated info button that can give you current status, as well there is more visual feedback as to the status of the cycle (lights that build until complete) and more feedback in the status color of the battery as it charges.
Charging is fast and easy, filling is easy, and overall maintenance and use seems simpler than the previous models. The quick start guide had only images and it was fantastically well thought out. This model offers a lot more voice prompts to tell you what is going on and if it needs help, what it needs– dirty water full, can’t detect water bin, needs charged, done, etc.
Turning the device on for the first time, it has the option to choose small or large room size. This is also an improvement over previous models. I started the cleaning cycle and ZOOM! This thing races across the floor, easily double the speed of my previous model. As it raced across the floor I was initially concerned that something was wrong. The squeegee is so effective that I thought it wasn’t properly putting down the cleaning liquid. A test with my hand confirmed that it was damp, so I know it was cleaning. A couple other things: I don’t prefer that this one has no dedicated error voice or code when it’s stuck and needs restarted. All past Roombas and Scoobas would give a real tone that you can recognize when it needs assistance. I was finding it silent thinking it must be done, but nothing.
It did a good job cleaning, and I have a challenging floor– a wood floor so old that the nails that hold it down are square head hand-forged nails. The floor doesn’t look uneven, but for a robot it can be a challenge. While many of the challenges it posed to my old Scooba were gone due to new functionality of this model, this model brought me some new challenges.
This unit was a little bit more willing to hop up on my rugs than the previous model. They are very thin rugs. Most of them I take up anyway to clean under, but I have one under an antique coffee table that is oak, heavy, and difficult to move off of the rug. As well, this model is a bit more stubborn at times.
The old model would let me end a cycle if I was satisfied that the floor had been adequately cleaned & dried. This one won’t do so (so far as I can tell). I have a tiny bathroom with hard floor that I usually clean second after my main floor. The battery was still good, so I shut it off, emptied dirty water, refilled clean water and moved to the second room. I turn it on, press go.. oops! It wants to do more drying. I turn it off, back on again, oops! It still wants to dry. Ok. I let it finish it’s stubborn tirade. I turn it back on when complete to clean this 3’x6′ bathroom, and NOPE! It demands to be emptied and charged. Okay. I give up. 🙂 I’ll look into whether there is a way to tell it that I want it to move on from its last assignment.
One thing I did notice is that at the end of a cycle this Scooba does a little dance: it kind of reminds me of a dog shaking off water after having a bath, or kicking the back legs and scratching the ground. It does this, pauses, does it again and is done. I assume this has something to do with forcing any lodged water off or drying out some spot inside. At first I thought there was a problem, but in the end it’s a bit funny and entertaining. 🙂
To be honest, I went through a lot of batteries in my previous Scooba. I didn’t use it daily or even weekly, and I know it is good to keep charging and using batteries. Maybe this unit is keeping me from ruining the battery, but the inflexibility combined with the rug hopping caused me to ding it a star.
There are two things that I like a lot about this new model– first being that the entire mechanisms where water flows are removable and rinseable. The old model had some water channels and vacuum channels made through the unit which could…
Was this review helpful to you?
|OMG! Yes, it cleans floors. It’s a noisy little beast, but so cool,
1) Is it loud?
Yes it is. I mean, not rock concert loud, not even vacuum cleaner loud, but it makes a bit of a ruckus.
2) What types of floors does it clean?
It mops and vacuums, so pretty much any hard floor. I tried it on a vinyl kitchen floor, a tile bathroom floor, and several hardwood floors. It did a great job on each.
3) Does it get stuck a lot?
No, and on the rare occasions it did, it signaled to me with a sound, and when I pushed the information button it told me “I’m stuck” in a cute voice.
4) How’s the battery life?
It charges fairly quickly (but do a long charge the first time before using it) and will last for a couple average sized rooms before wanting to recharge.
5) So uh, does it like, clean floors?
Yup. I let my floors get pretty bad, but it did a great job of cleaning. There were a few small wet dust bunny clumps left behind, but it got 98% of what was on the floor.
6) Is it a pain to clean?
You need to empty and rinse the water tank and rinse the scrubby brush assembly after each room. This is very easy, just rinse in the sink. The water tank will probably dump out some dust bunny clumps. Toss them in the garbage. Not a big deal.
7) But . . . is it worth the price?
This little monster is pricey, no doubt, but if you hate cleaning floors as much as I do, it’s worth it. It’s well built, the programming is smart, it really gets the floor clean, and can be run with just plain tap water, or you can add a little of the included cleaning fluid if you like. It has a little invisible barrier unit that comes with so you can prevent it wandering into another room. It has everything you need.
Happy cleaning!
0
Was this review helpful to you?
|