In the spirit of the latest revival of one of my favorite shows from the early 2000’s BattleBots, we decided to orchestrate our own duel, with robotic vacuums. Granted, it won’t nearly be as exciting as circular saws and flamethrowers, but Legal would flip out if we turned the warehouse into a cage fight for machines.
The robot vacuum stage has become more crowded in recent years, and the brand ubiquitous with the home robot vacuum technology iRobot is joined by a slew of lesser-know brands like Moneual, Neato, RolliTech, and Kobot to name a few. With a variety of models from each manufacturer, you can easily spend upwards of $600 on one of these little guys, and that got me thinking; can one of the underdogs like Moneual actually take on the pioneer in the industry?
The weigh-in
The belt-holding incumbent iRobot Roomba 650
- Single side brush, counter rotating twin main brushes, vacuum suction
- Cliff detection, iAdapt Responsive Navigation, undisclosed sensor count
- Auto-redocking
- Scheduling up to 7x/week at different times each day
- Spot cleaning in a 3’x3’ circular space
- Auto heavy-dirt detection, engaging Spot cleaning
The up-and-comer Moneual RYDIS H68 Pro
- Vacuum, mopping, and hybrid cleaning (the mopping was not tested )
- Smart Vision Mapping, and location tracking
- Twin side brushes, main central brush, vacuum suction, (microfiber cloth for mopping and onboard water tank not taken into account in this test)
- Spot cleaning in a 3’x3’ circular space
- Double-deep mode- cleans 4x over the same full area
- 42 sensors, cliff-detection
- Scheduled cleaning modes:
- 1hr delay from the time the button is hit
- Same time every day
The ring
My house has two large short-hair dogs and an embarrassing amount of dust on the floor. I have laminate flooring with no carpet, and the floor plan is pretty open without much to get caught up on.
The scoring
Each scenario will be set the same for each bot, and they will be released to have at it. These models are the most comparable, and only the similar cleaning modes will be used. To test their performance I will place the debris both in wide open floor as well as near the baseboards and evaluate each together. Their standalone performance will be evaluated, and each round will have a winner based on the performance. The robot vacuum with the most rounds by the end will be crowned champion and defeater of filth.
Pre-fight
Navigation & obstacle avoidance
Roomba bounces around, with no discernible pattern aside from following along walls, often shooting across the room on a whim. The obstacle navigation is really good on this one, while bumping into things lightly it does not force itself into areas that are too tight.
Moneual seems a bit lost when it gets into corners, and sometimes takes a few spins around and slight movements before getting back on the route. The pattern it follows is very meticulous, back and forth across the room the way you would mow a lawn. The obstacle navigation is decent, although still sometimes it manages to get jammed under spaces that are too low.
The battle
Uncooked rice
Roomba
Against the wall, Roomba got about 98% of the grains, launching a small amount of grains that didn’t get picked up at first, and instead kicked out on the backside of the side arm. Only a few grains remained in the wake that were not sucked up. In open floor, the Roomba did very well, only leaving 2 grains behind and none were kicked up
Moneual
Against the wall, Moneual performed very well, snagging about 97% of the rice, and missing the last 3% because it got kicked out by the brushes. Moneual surprised me just before the first pass was over though; it paused, turned around, and went back over the path it just completed. It stopped just about where it started, and again went back on its route forward, managing to pick up some extra debris. It should be noted that some of the rice was still out of reach; however the work ethic was impressive. Open floor was no challenge, 100% pickup on the first try without any launched grains.
Round winner: Moneual (1/5)
While both units suffer from an overpowered side brush against the wall, and the Moneual actually kicked out a touch more debris than the Roomba, Moneual handled better cleaning up its own mess without needing to be repositioned.
Dog hair
Roomba
In open floor the Roomba gathered up all the hair, and got 100% of the hair in the room’s edge as well with the first attempt.
Moneual
100% on the first pass against the wall, again performing the curious pirouette and tripling back over the area. The open floor was another clean sweep on first pass.
Round winner: Draw
While the Monueal’s display of work ethic was impressive again, I am calling this round a draw based on the testing outcome from both contenders being equal.
Powdered sugar
Roomba
Roomba did a surprisingly underwhelming job on the first pass in open floor with only about a 60% pickup, leaving the sugar smeared across the floor for another 6”. Second, third, and actually fourth passes were needed to clear up the debris to a reasonable cleanliness. The same results came from the baseboard test, and I had to call in Moneual to clean up the Roomba’s shortcomings.
Moneual
First pass, Moneual handled it like a champ. About 99% of the sugar picked up, with only a smudge left on the floor. The second pass it was all gone. Against the wall, one pass was all it needed to clear the floor of any trace.
Round winner: Moneual (2/5)
Hands down this one goes to Moneual, and Roomba’s failure in this round could be due to the dual center brushes. One is more of a scooper, so it could have smashed the fine powdered sugar down into the ground more than actually scooping it up.
Dirt
Roomba
First pass Roomba knocked it out of the park, got about 98% of the dirt in open floor. Against the wall, Roomba performed almost equally as impressive, with roughly around 95% picked up on the first go
Moneual
First pass in open floor it picked up about 80%, and got the rest on the second pass. Due to the power of the dual front brushes, some of the dirt was kicked out. Up against the wall, the Moneual did much better, picking up about 95% of the dirt on the first go. This could be attributed to the wall blocking the kick out of the dirt.
Round winner: Roomba (1/5)
The dirt round was clearly where Roomba shines brightest, and even with one less spinning side brush it managed to cleanly remove more debris.
Buy iRobot Roomba 650
Oatmeal
Roomba
Roomba took a beating in this one, and a bad one. Against the baseboards he only managed to squeak out around 35% pickup on the first pass. Also, the brush kicked out oats so these were scattered across the floor a foot and a half too. The second pass was just about the same, resulting in multiple passes to pick up the oats. In the open field, Roomba redeemed himself with about 98% captured on the first pass.
Moneual
Killed it this round in open floor, got 100% of the oatmeal on the first pass. Up against the wall however, the dual brushes kicked the oats out a bit, resulting in about 98% getting picked up.
Round winner: Moneual (3/5)
The brushes can both help and hurt each contender; however Moneual handled itself far better in both situations.
The champion
Underdog Moneual gets a TKO on the incumbent Roomba
This is the exact opposite of what I had initially predicted would happen. iRobot is essentially the godfather of the robo vac world, and they hold the majority of the American market share. I had pegged them as the winner; however in the variety of tests conducted here the Moneual came out as a clear victor.
Buy Moneual Rydis H68
Buy other Moneual models
Other thoughts
The Moneual has twin brushes that are good for feeding debris from both sides into the suction mouth, while the Roomba only has the right side covered. I think this is a downfall of the Roomba, because due to the one-side brush it heavily favors the right side and turns into the wall on the right to sweep up extra rubbish.
Sometimes the brushes for both units proved a bit too strong and scattered the testing pieces, however if you have them running while you are gone at work I believe that they would manage to get the debris over the course of the whole cleaning cycle. Additionally, both vacuums are pretty loud; not as loud as a traditional stand up vacuum (comparing to an Oreck with a few miles on it, not a fancy new model Dyson), but you would want to run it while out of the house to avoid disturbing whatever you are doing.
The remote on the Moneual seemed unnecessary at first, however when you take into account the Spot Cleaning mode of the two bots it proves useful. The Roomba has no directional control and circles in a 3’ diameter, covering each space once or perhaps twice. The Moneual performs similarly, however if you have a specific area you want cleaned that does not fall into that area you can direct it around to complete the cleaning, without the need to pick it up and re-locate the unit.
Do you have any experience with robot vacuums? Which is your favorite? Let us know in the comments!
