This is our first robot vac, so we've learned a lot this month. We have the basic vacuum, without the mop function. We've used it 3-5 times a week for the last 4-5 weeks. TL;DR: This vac works well as long as the suction is turned all the way up. With or without the suction turned up it is NOT quiet. The vac seems very slow to learn its environment. And its battery life is not enough to clean a 1200 sq ft area without recharging at least once. Charging takes a while. We chose this particular vac for its low cost, advertised quietness (see below) and battery life compared to similarly priced robot vacs. We have basically replaced our full-sized standup model with the Tapo, which cost one-third what the standup vac did. If you're reading this wondering whether you should buy a robot vac, it might be helpful to consider the following questions about your home: - Is my home old, with inconsistent types of flooring, variable door sizes and lots of funny angles? - Do I have area rugs with fringe that will get sucked into a vacuum's intake? - Do I light my home with lamps that require long cords? Or does my internet setup have loose cords that lie on the floor? - Do I work from home? Does background noise bother me? If, like myself, you answered yes to all of the above questions, a robot vac might not be for you. But if you like clean floors more than you dislike background noise and stopping to free the robot vac from its latest tangle, try it out. PROS: - The actual vacuum is pretty good. It's not perfect, but it keeps the floors reasonably clean as long as the suction is on high. - The vac frees itself from most reasonable obstacles. It rises up on its wheels like a custom low rider to get itself unstuck. Pretty cool. - This $160 vacuum is doing a better job keeping the floors clean than our $600 standup vac, partly because it goes places the standup did not and partly because it spends 10x more time actually running. - The little HEPA filter does an excellent job of minimizing dust and odors. - The dust bin is large enough for one battery cycle, and there is plenty of time to empty it during recharging. - It's a robot vacuum cleaner! I mean, it vacuums for us! CONS: - On normal suction, the vac doesn't even get loose dirt off the kitchen floor. On high suction, it does great. - Even though it can run for 1.5 hours at a charge, the vac cannot clean our 1200 sq ft of floor space on one charge, probably because the vac gets lost in rooms. - The battery seems to take almost as long to charge as it does to deplete. If the vac gets stuck a few times, gets lost once or twice, has to recharge, it can take the majority of the day to finish one cleaning. - The vac's mapping abilities seem extraordinarily weak. It can get lost in our kitchen, which is only one room away from its home base in the dining room. - The vac does not seem to learn where hazards are. Even after we've freed it three times from the standup desk legs, it just keeps coming back to the same place for more excitement. - This vac is NOT quiet. One of the advertising points was how quiet it was. It's just not. On the upside, you always know what room it's in. Our biggest issue with the Tapo is its ability to navigate. To give it credit, it has improved probably 150% since we got it a month ago, but it still will completely miss some rooms on some days. I have watched it switch to homing mode, turn 180 degrees away from its base and slam into the kitchen cabinets for five minutes before I finally guided it back home with my feet. I have watched it get "trapped" between the toilet and the tub and the sink and just keep turning around and banging into the same places when all it needs to do is pick a slightly different angle to free itself. And its mapping capabilities are clearly not good enough for it to remember when it starts to climb up the base of the standup desk legs that it should stop and back up before it gets high-sided. I've mentioned that it gets stuck, but that's mostly due to our older home. If we're careful about cords and cables and rug fringes, it seems to do okay (except for the standup desk leg bases, which are angled just right and are just thin enough to neutralize the vac's off-road capabilities every time). I'm hopeful that the Tapo's navigation will improve with future firmware updates. It would be great if it would learn how to find certain rooms that it must certainly know by now, and it would be even better if its trapped pattern could get it out from under a chair in less than 5 minutes. A true bonus would be a hazard memory that reminds it to back up off those desk legs before it keels over sideways like a helpless four-wheeler.
