Hands-free Cleaning

Keir Thomas investigates the latest in labour-saving devices.

BACK in the early 20th century, vacuum cleaners were heralded as the ultimate labour-saving device, but in recent years, technology has taken us one step further with the robotic vacuum cleaner, or robo-vacuum.

Unlike traditional vacuum cleaners, there’s no need for any human effort with a robotic model. It glides automatically across the entire floor area, cleaning as it goes and detecting objects so it can route around them.

Its electronic brain slowly creates a map of the entire area, ensuring every inch of the floor is vacuumed.

We tested the Aircraft Pilot Max (http://amzn. to/2tizotf), which can be bought for around £300, although cheaper models such as the Vileda Cleaning Robotic Vacuum (http:// amzn.to/2tjgvs4) can be bought for as little as £100.

More expensive models have better suction that, as with traditional vacuums, will result in a more thorough clean.

Initial set-up involved some tricky steps such as inserting the battery, but this need be done only once.

After this it really was a case of turning on the Pilot Max using the hand-held remote control, and then sitting back while it worked.

It coped equally well with a small apartment and larger bungalow. It knows to halt at stairs, but you’ll need to treat each floor of the house separately. Luckily, the machines are fairly light to carry up and down.

Initially it’s impossible not to follow the robo-vacuum to watch what it’s doing, but after a few times you come to trust – and ignore – it.

As with any vacuum cleaner, a robo-vacuum needs a floor clear of objects. Trailing electrical cables caused the Pilot Max to become snared up, for example, although we found it always freed itself after a few seconds without causing damage.

Sometimes the Pilot Max would push against some objects, actually shifting a dining chair at one point!

The moral is simple: if using a robo-vacuum then you need to ensure the floor isn’t cluttered, keep things like cables out of the way and always push chairs under tables.

The Pilot Max had no problems moving between rooms or cleaning under items. A small supplied additional gadget called a Virtual Wall can be placed on the floor to tell the Pilot Max not to go somewhere, but you can also simply close the door, of course.

We anticipated a robo-vacuum being fun but, as with some gadgets, perhaps not entirely useful. However, we found the Pilot Max at least really does work. Carpets came up looking terrific.

Perhaps the biggest downside was the speed. Whereas a human can vacuum a room in minutes, a robo-vacuum could take anything up to an hour as it trundles around working out what to clean through experimentation.

Watching it can be frustrating as it seems to redo certain parts of the room repeatedly and ignore other parts. The saying about kettles not boiling while being watched is old hat – nowadays it’s a robo-vacuum that never cleans while being watched!

However, it does cover the entire floor eventually, and the Pilot Max at least was relatively quiet.

For ease of use a robotic vacuum cleaner is certainly worth a look, especially if illness or disability makes it hard to use a standard vacuum cleaner. n