Following the impressively middle-aged excitement expressed by a relative recently around the convenience offered by their new robot hoover, we picked up a TP-link (Tapo) RV30 Plus a week or so back.
We wanted one with a docking station that would both charge, and empty the on-board dust compartment. Check. This one also has a mopping function for hard floors, which I wasn't that bothered about. Reviews suggested it was a good performed on the hoovering front, and not awesome on the mopping front (rear actually) as it's a static as opposed to active mop head, but I struggle to imagine any of them are really good at the latter task...
So you control it via an app, and as you have to name the device - it's now "J.Edgar". You can set up various automated cleaning schedules & shizzle, but haven't really explored that yet.
So any good?
Yeah, it vacuums well, and relentlessly covers as much surface area as it can get to, managing to squeeze under couches, units, beds etc that you struggle to get to with a normal hoover. With Lidar tech it quickly gets a rough idea of the house (setup step 1 is a mapping run - it then hones the saved map during cleaning runs) but this tech allows it to move around without constantly crashing into everything. It does a good "98% job" - by which I mean it's clean, and it copes with dog hair etc, but if for some reason it fails to pick up <object> it'll just carry on, whereas a human would run the hoover over the area a 2nd time to do the job properly.
Self-emptying to the base station (bagged) is awesome,
BUT it doesn't have a level sensor on the robot. Chateau mik is either too vast, or too filthy for it to hoover a whole floor of the house without filling the on-board
- which you can get around by getting it to do individual rooms/zones and then returning for an empty, but obviously an on-board sensor would be better.
Multiple levels in your abode?
You can save upto 3 maps, so that should suit most needs. Lift the unit and base station to whichever level you want it to clean, and it recognises where it is in a few seconds, and gets on with it.
Throwing away your Meile then?
Well despite Daleks now being able to climb stairs, it's beyond the capability of J.Edgar, so you still need to do them with your existing hoovery device, and maybe also do a quick jjzuzzzch around some other areas to do a full clean, but this is obviously massively less arduous than a full clean would be.
Mopping function?
Bobbins, as expected.
I've got deep pile carpets in here that I wear my shoes on too often, and while they'll want a proper carpet washer, they've dragged up crap from there that I thought I'd need a drill brush for.
