Best robot mops of 2021: Reviews and buying advice

Mopping is arguably disliked more than vacuuming as far as household tasks go (but let’s agree that cleaning toilets are at the top of the list). The filthy water, back-breaking effort, and the fact that most homes have far less mopable flooring than carpeting make it all too easy to overlook the job.

Robotics, like vacuuming, has come to the rescue. Robot mops do not necessitate the use of bulky buckets or the ringing out of unclean mop heads. All you have to do is fill their tank with water, place them on the floor, turn on the machine, and walk away. Some may even vacuum or sweep the floor before you arrive, saving you time and effort. They won’t completely eliminate the need for an old-fashioned stick mop from time to time, but they will make cleaning the floor much easier when you do.

Here are our current top robot mop picks. Because this is a new market, manufacturers are still figuring out what creates a successful robot mop, there can be a lot of variation in terms of features and functionalities. Even so, there are some basic things to look for, which we’ve listed below our top recommendations to aid you if our top options don’t fit your specific requirements.

Best robot mop

iRobot Braava Jet m6

The iRobot Braava Jet m6 is a great robot mop with a lot of useful features for automating a tedious household task. It’s perfect for households with a lot of hard surfaces.

The Braava Jet m6 from iRobot dethrones its smaller sister, the Braava Jet 240, as our best robot mop. This larger machine can not only clean greater surfaces, but it can also function in tandem with some Roomba robot vacuums, allowing one to clear up particulate matter while the other scrubs. Yes, it’s a pricey one-two punch, but it’s a lot better than manual work.

iLife Shinebot W400 floor-washing robot

The iLife Shinebot W400 scrubs stains from your hard floors with care. However, because it can’t fit under most cupboards or between narrow places, it’s not perfect for small bathrooms or kitchens. The iLife Shinebot W400 has a four-step mopping system that wets the floor with clean water to loosen dirt and stains, washes them free with a microfiber roller brush, sucks the dirty water into the robot, and scrapes off any residue left behind.

It also separates clean and unclean water to prevent cross-contamination of your floors. The results are very similar to those obtained with a push mop. The mass of the Shinebot w400, on the other hand, can be a barrier in tight rooms, thus it’s best suited to homes with lots of open floors.

Roborock S7

The S7 is a fantastic robot vacuum/mop combo that cleans both hard floors and carpets equally well. It gives one of the most automatic cleaning experiences available when paired with Roborock’s Auto Empty Dock.
The Roborock S7 balances vacuuming and mopping modes better than any of the competing hybrids we’ve tested, and it produces more stunning results.

Most robot vacuum/mop hybrids, which just drag a damp cloth across the floor, are incapable of loosening stains, but this LiDAR-packing robot comes with a unique mopping assembly and sonic scrubbing technology that allows it to do so. The S7 is no slacker when it comes to vacuuming both floors and rugs, having a maximum suction of 2500Pa. It can even be used with Roborock’s optional Auto Empty Dock, which recognizes when the S7 returns to its charging pins and sucks the contents from its dustbin.

What to look for in a robot mop

Dedicated floor mop or vacuum/mop hybrid

At their core, all robot mops work the same way: you fill a tank with water, and the water is dispensed as the robot navigates through your floors, scrubbing dirt off the floor with an attached cloth/pad.

Robots, on the other hand, are usually divided into two categories. Before mopping your floors, models like the iRobot Braava Jet 240 and the iLife Shinebot W400 can’t vacuum them (though the former can do a dry sweep of dirt).

Vacuum/mop hybrids are simply robot vacuums with a water reservoir attached. You fill this small-capacity tank with tap water, connect a microfiber cloth to it, then slot it into the bottom of the vacuum when you want to mop.

Although there are no hard and fast rules about which sort of robot mop is superior, we have noticed some broad trends. App control and smart home connectivity are more likely to be included in hybrid models. They also give you the benefit of completing two tasks with one gadget. However, we’ve discovered that dragging a damp microfiber cloth across the floor isn’t the ideal way for removing difficult stains. Water is sprayed directly on the floor by dedicated robot mops to dissolve muck and stains, and agitation is applied via a scouring pad or brush. These brushes were consistently more effective on deeper dirt in our tests.

Navigation

Robot mops, like their vacuuming counterparts, use an array of sensors to navigate around furniture, walls, and other objects. Some hybrid models make use of mapping technology as well. The majority of the ones we tested, on the other hand, have no idea what kind of floor they’re on. This can cause issues if the floor you wish to mop is adjacent to a carpeted room, which is common in kitchens and bathrooms. To keep the robot out of trouble, many robot mops come with a virtual barrier that you can place between hard floors and carpets.

Battery Life

The length of a robot mop’s battery life is proportional to how much ground it can clean in a single charge. We’ve discovered that one hour is the sweet spot for most apartments and condominiums, but larger residences should allow at least 90 minutes. It’s also worth noting that mopping consumes more battery life than vacuuming, so expect to obtain less than the manufacturer’s promised run time when utilising the mopping feature on a hybrid model.