Bissell SpinWave Hard Floor Expert Wet and Dry Robot Vacuum, 3115

I'm comparing this with the Deebot which I returned. The Deebot was easily three times the price and jsut didn't work at all. Some of what I hated about the Deebot; it had a complicated app and you needed to train the bot on the areas to clean. There was a lack of any type of organized pattern when cleaning - it just rolled around in circles and missed huge areas in the single small room that I confined it to. It couldn't figure out how to go home and got stuck on it's own base. The cleaning was totally inadequate - if you clean your floor by lightly dragging a low pile wet rag without any cleaner on it, then the Deebot is for you. It basically smeared the floor with the filth that it picked up. Finally, the Deebot got stuck on literally everything. I named it "slow and stupid" in the app. The Bissell doesn't need training. It moves back and forth in a logical pattern. The spinny cloths are nappy and actually absorb the dirt. You can put cleaning fluid right in the tank. The vacuum is in the front and the wet cleaning follows behind. The vacuum includes a roller brush as well as the side sweepers and the suction is great. I feel like the other robots focus on the robotic features and put zero thought into the cleaning functionality. Bissell's features focus on cleaning first. If you want something functional, get the Bissell. It's much cheaper and works so much better. The app is simple. I use it to start a cleaning cycle and to tell it to go back home. I'm really happy with my Bissell SpinWave.

I bought the vacuum to clean the main level of our house. It does work, but not as expected. Our house, typical of houses built on hills does not lie on a North-South axis, but somewhat skewed to match the contour of the hill. My guess is that, although the manufacturer claims the robot is stabilized by gyroscopes, they actually make considerable use of an internal compass. If it were really a gyroscope it would tend to train itself against a solid surface like a wall and make long rows parallel to the wall. Instead, no matter where it is placed or in which direction, the robot tends to whirl around and take off on a diagonal. Better instructions on initial placement would certainly help, but I suspect that this odd feature may be unavoidable."Bizzie Lizzy," as we call her keeps changing her course to run diagonally across the room instead of parallel to the walls. This makes for excessive wall- and furniture-bumping. She also loses track of where she has been and tends to get caught up in circles in complex rooms with irregular walls. On the other hand there was no problem with getting caught up in draperies or bed skirts. She seems to sense that something is there and makes no effort to fight with them. I watched closely to intervene, if necessary. In the dining room and kitchen she spent a lot of time repeating certain areas while pretty much ignoring other areas. Nevertheless she eventually got to most of it. She certainly did a better job than having your teenager do the vacuuming. I did remove the dining room chairs in the sake of efficiency, which only took a few minutes. I also found that it was better to close the draperies on the sliding glass doors because Bizzy Lizzie kept trying to climb into the track section and would get caught on a tilt (remember, she goes diagonally so she keeps doing the same thing on each trip across the room). I am assuming that I will gain more expertise in learning where I can initially place her so that she will do more broad sweeps first rather than spending a lot of time whirling around in pockets between the larger pieces of furniture.One big complaint I have is that she keeps losing her foam "ears" which help guide her around corners. These are not glued in place, just sort of snapped into a groove. They pop out frequently. Sometimes she runs over them and vacuums them up. I would like to see these more securely attached with some sort of clamp.Not too surprisingly, she does better in smaller rooms with less furniture. The bathrooms, kitchen and hallway were accomplished with ease--though I did find it useful to close the door in the middle of the hallway as she seemed a bit confused with trying to deal with a full 30 feet. A 15 foot section seemed easier. Again, it would be helpful if she did long runs parallel to the walls rather than bumping around with shorter diagonal sweeps.It was particularly useful to have Bizzy Lizzy clean in the pantry, where the dust bunnies tend to collect far back under the deep lower shelves, the robot is short enough to go under the bottom shelves, which can be very difficult to reach otherwise.At this point we do intend to keep her, and see if we can figure out how to overcome her oddities. On her initial cleaning runs she picked up lots of dirt and debris and left each of the rooms that I put her in looking nice. Given her habit of getting tangled up in the hollows between furniture and beeping for help, together with the need to confine her to one smaller space after another I can't imagine even trying to let her run without supervision. There is absolutely no way she could manage to clean several rooms while I am away. I can be in a nearby room doing something else, but the vacuuming would simply never finish if she didn't have someone to move her around. As far as returning to the space where she started, that didn't even happen in my 8 X 16 foot galley kitchen. However, it is still a whole lot easier than doing the vacuuming myself.Update: After trying to use Bizzy Lizzy over the Thanksgiving weekend she is going back. My sons were here and they experimented with me on placement to try to find a way to get her to actually do a whole room without being picked up and put in a new location to start over. Pretty much total fail. I wouldn't mind her wandering around a lot and overdoing some areas if she would just get the whole floor. At one point we left her in a bathroom for 30 minutes. When we opened the door the shred of toilet paper left slightly off the center of the room was still there. Two of four corners were untouched. Too much attention is required of Lizzie to be considered a time saver. Stars are reduced from 3 to 1 because the only thing I really care about is that the floor is eventually cleaned. Didn't happen

After we read a bunch of online reviews, this floor cleaning robot stood out for strong scores in mopping performance and in privacy combined with a really good price. The list price is on the high side, but the product is routinely discounted, so look for deals. When on sale, and given that this robot is surprisingly effective, it's a killer bargain, and you could even buy separate robots for different zones, rooms, or floors of your place.This is a wet/dry floor robot, so you swap out a module in the back to change between wet and dry modes. It automatically avoids carpets in wet mode. The mop is two rotating pads, which is why it works so well (it actually scrub-scrubs the floor), but mopping performance is better with the included thicker scrubber pads than with the fluffy normal pads (it ships with a set of both). It does also vaccuum while mopping, but the dust compartment is smaller, so for major vacuuming use the dry mode only. For mopping, you can use plain water or add one of Bissell's floor cleaners. A small bottle of all-floor cleaner is included. Also included are an extra set of spinning brushes, 2 sets of mop pads, and an extra air filter on the dry vacuum module. You can reorder these things, and a new roller brush when eventually needed, from within the optional-to-use iOS or Android app.Dry vacuuming performance is excellent. Definitely not as good as with our Miele cannister vac, but we have to use the Miele way way less now. It easily removes crumbs, hair, fur, bulkier items up to the size of about a large marble, smaller leaves, pine needles, and definitely dust dust bunnies. The carpets look fresh vacuumed texture-wise, too.There are two navigation modes: back-and-forth whole-space cleaning (automatic or manual mode), and spot clean (manual mode). The privacy advantage over other robot vacuums is that this robot doesn't make an map of your house and store it in a hackable database somewhere. This means it's "dumber" than other products that have this feature. We bought this product *specifically* because of this, however. So to us, this is a feature, not a bug.We also like the "spot" cleaning feature, where you set it in one area, and it runs in increasing and then decreasing circles thoroughly around that spot (about a 3-foot diameter area) for a deeper clean, either in vacuum or mop mode.With sensors and a front bumper, when you start the robot, it just heads out and figures out a way to cover 90-95% or more of most floor spaces around most obstacles. It can detect some obstacles and avoid bumping into them, but even when it does bump, it is very gentle and there has been zero damage to baseboards or furniture.You do not need to use the iOS or Android app to operate the vacuum, and instead simply press the start button 1, 2, or 3 times depending on what you want. But with the app, you can set up a daily automatic schedule, reorder supplies, see cleaning history, and change suction strength/water use, and also command it to return to its dock.We found the robot runs for about 1.5 hours in dry mode with medium suction before needing to recharge, which is enough to clean the main floors. You can extend the run time by setting a lower suction strength in the settings.Wet mopping can use a low, medium, or high water use setting. The cleaning with the high water use setting is very good indeed. Medium is great for dusting floors or when there is no major mess. Low mode mops less well, but the battery will run longer with it if you have a big house.The robot is not that good at finding its charging dock when it's done if the robot ends up in a different room from the dock. However, if there is a clean line of sight, it docks no problem at all. If it couldn't dock while you were gone, just put it in the same room and press the top button twice, and it'll dock no problem.Pros:- Really quiet operation--not silent, but quiet enough you can watch TV or take a phone call with it running- Acceptable operating time between charges; charging is fast enough to run two automatic schedules per day (but only if it makes it back to the dock in between)- "Dumb" navigation is actually a plus because of added privacy; there are still onboard sensors and navigation algorithms to avoid or work around obstacles which work decently- Navigation is effective in a relatively uncluttered space- Sensors effortlessly avoid "cliffs" such as stairs, in wet mode also avoids carpets- Bumper is gentle and sensor can detect some obstacles without colliding first at all- Once everything is set up optimally, you can have it operate at night or when out of the house with no worries- Pricing: one of the most affordable robots with the best bang-for-the-bucks (be sure to look for sales)- Excellent vacuuming, including pet hair and food mess- Wet mode also includes a light vacuuming- Rotating mopping pads are highly effective- Cleans really well under furniture (better than with a regular vacuum)Cons:- Takes about a week of trial and error to clear clutter/tweak furniture arrangements and where best to put the dock so that the robot operates reliably enough to leave the house or have it work overnight- Can get stuck sometimes in tight places- Crumpled carpets can get it stuck- Things like hairpins or thumbtacks will stop the roller brush (which would probably not happen with a regular vacuum)- Doesn't detect visible messy areas to focus on- May not detect charging dock when in another room- Sometimes weaker at mopping edges of rooms and corners- May miss ~5% of a given space, but over multiple days it does get the whole area cleaned- Smaller dining tables with chairs seem to be harder for it; if you can put your chairs up on the table overnight, and that will improve performance if your dining area proves too tricky- We think you still need to do a detail/base clean about once or twice a month using your regular vacuum and steam mop, but the robot is great for everyday maintenanceWho is this for?- If vacuuming and mopping just aren't happening, then you, because it's way better than not cleaning.- If you already vacuum and mop two or three times a week, maybe you don't need a robot at all.- Works equally well on hard floors, vinyl, tile, wood, and on carpet, and mopping performance good (but not as good as a human)- The target audience is pet owners, so, yes, if you have a pet this will work for you--but if you don't have pets, it's a great product at a great price regardless- If you have younger kids, you'll need to clean up toys and clutter from the floor first and larger bits of dropped food, but otherwise it should work OK on wet and dry messes. There is a sanitizing solution you can buy for use with the mop tank, too.- If you have older kids who are good at doing chores like vacuuming and mopping, you can skip the robot, but if your kids are too busy or not good at chores, then the robot may be a really good idea.- Households that are not very cluttered will fare better. If you tend to store things on the floor or hide stuff under furniture, you would need to declutter a bit for best effect.- Small spaces including apartments (as long as not cluttered) and midsize homes should do well. Large spaces are fine, too, but battery may need recharging to fully cover a larger home.- When on sale, you could buy multiple robots to cover different zones or floors of a larger home separately.- People with mobility issues and certain disabilities may really benefit from a robot vacuum, but you have to evaluate if a pricier product that uses mapping technologies and automatic waste removal would be better.Bottom line:In our household, the vacuuming and mopping just wasn't getting done. This robot vac/mop is thus a huge net improvement for us, and it forced us to declutter slightly which is also a net improvement. We also really like the affordability and the strong mopping performance. Definitely recommend.