Wednesday, September 23, 2020

[Video] iRobot Braava - Unboxing

Below is a review of iRobot Braava robot floor mop. 

Hi Everyone welcome to our channel The J3D Family. You just saw the first run of our iRobot Braava. It is a wet and dry floor cleaner. The exact model number is m6 m6110. We are going to do the unboxing and test it. Testing is in our apartment which has wooden flooring. It is WiFi-enabled and controls through Android and iOS mobile apps. Setting up the mobile app is not included in this video. 


The package includes one bottle of cleaning liquid and 4 disposable mop attachments. The main attraction of this model is its capability to sync with robotic vacuum. If they are paired, the Vaccum starts first, and upon completion, this mop starts. Unfortunately, we don't have a robotic vacuum that can be paired. 

It is nicely packaged. Let us look at the components one by one. This is the Robot mop. This is the base of robot mop. It goes here to charge automatically. This is the platform attached to the base. It has a warranty and user manual included. This is a camera sensor. We can carry it easily using this handle. This is clean button, this is home which instructs the robot to go home or base. This target symbol is spot clean. This is another sensor. Maybe it is used to dock to the base. 
This is the pad ejection button. Currently, the mop pad is not connected. If it is there we can detach it by pressing here.

The manual is clear and easy to understand. This is the AC wire to be used between the base and wall plug. They provide cleaning liquid and recommendation is to buy the liquid from them always. Obvious isn't it. These are the mopping pads that came with the machine. 2 single-use wet pads and 2 single-use dry pads. We can buy separately the reusable mopping pad.
The machine understand whether the pad attached is wet or dry by the patterns in the pad. We don't know what would be the use of dry pads. Lets start with wet mop pads. It is easy to insert. Let us see how to eject it. Its easy as pressing the button. Isn't it?
Next step is to fill the liquid. Here is the tank at the top of robot. We can pull the handle to take the tank out. The opening to pour liquid is at the side of the tank. We can mix water with the liquid. There is a ratio between the cleaning liquid and water.

Now we are all set from the Robot side other than initial charging. In order to charge, lets set up the base. This is the power cord to be connected to the base. It is fairly straight forward. Just follow the path to loop the wire. Once it is connected place the base at a secure place. Connect the plug to the wall socket. That is missing as I was connecting not my partner. Then connect the platform to the base. Setup is done. Now start waiting to get it charged. It is charging.

Already ------ pass by. Trying to turn it on. Oh no luck. You may use this time to set up the mobile application and connect the app with the robot. That is skipped in this video.

It is already --- after it started charging. Now the mobile app is ready. We set up using my Android phone. The interface is simple. There is a 'Clean' button to start mopping. It is coming out of the base.

This is a test of a dark area under the sofa. It doesn't get confused. Instead, it is navigating. 

Here is a manual divider we set up. Once the map is built by robot, we can restrict the area by selecting its map. No manual dividers will be required. Oh it is going back to base. It didn't even complete one room. Why it is going back? Oh no its not going back to base. It started working.

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Let test how this can work with carpets. This carpet is not that thick. A simple quarter inch thick carpet

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This time it is facing against carpet. It identifies as obstacle and avoiding it. It is good as we don't want to damage our carpet.
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Now Johan has lifted the carpet. It kind of marked that area and not proceeding further. Good it works with carpet. Even if we start it in the night, it may not get stuck in carpet and cry for help.

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Repeating the same test of lifting carpet, Oh this time it advanced. Not able to reverse engineer their algorithm.

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It is cleaning other narrow area with different type of obstacles. An office chair.  Looks like its coming out from that area. It is confused? Not knowing where to clean next? Finally it is going to the carpet area. Dude that area seems cleaned already
733 - sending home
Jsut trying to send home. Pressing the home button. It seem not accepting the command immediately. IT is trying to go home it seems. The difference this time is that the route it came out has obstacles. The carpet has moved there.
Oh it is going some other place. May be it is trying to find another route to home. It uses base location that the route it came out. Wow its going to clean the places left in previous cycle. go home buddy. This is other area with a xmas tree with 4 legs.

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Finally it is getting home.

735 - Kitchen test
The kitchen is separated with a wooden bar as you are seeing. Let us see how a new obstacle is handled. It tried hard but not able to succeed. 
Here is another attempt. Its like 1/4 inch - 1/2 inch thick wooden slab. The better way is to manually place it inside kitchen and start.

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Here its inside a toy which moves when the robot pushes. It seems the algorithm they use is smart. It is coming out from a complex environment.

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Another area cleaning near the office chair. It has angled area. Its doing ok there.

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The mopping completed. The floor is not super clean. That is understood. First time running this may give us the professional cleaning results. Let us see how much dirt it picked up. We can easily lift it and press the button to eject the mop. It is lifting better, isn't it?

As mentioned earlier, there is we don't have any affiliation with iRobot.Also, this video is not sponsored by them. This is just an independent review of the iRobot Braava m6 model.
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This is a dark area with a Xmas tree. The tree has 4 legs. The legs are horizontally making it somewhat different terrain to navigate. It seems its managing to navigate.

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It is trying to get out through the opposite side. But there is a door and locked. No way to come out through that path. Let us see how it navigate this place. As a software engineer, I am really interested in reverse engineering their algorithm.

But it took a long time to come out by pushing the toy.

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