The last two months have been especially difficult. New house, moving, cleaning, vacations that have not been, and all this in a delicate social context due to the outbreaks of COVID-19 that brings us all upside down. And with this panorama, and before starting my busy weeks, I got my hands on the new Roomba s9 + from iRobot. Like rain from heaven, I started cleaning each of the three floors of my new home, and the truth is that the experience has been a success.
I started by putting her in the greatest difficulties in the basement (see photos), where the wifi barely reached. And see that from iRobot the first thing they tell you is that the connection be ensured and that it be good and stable, everything that was not on the lower floor of the house. But even so, the smart vacuum cleaner was able to cover the almost diaphanous one hundred square meters without any problem, and even coordinate with Brava Jet m6 to later also scrub the same area.
Next, I gave the Roomba s9 + another interesting challenge, and placed it on the top floor next to the stairs (see photo) to see if the sensor that simulates a barrier so that the machine does not fall down did its job well. And I attest that it was. At first she seemed to go a little crazy hovering around the sensor, until she recognized it and began to suck with a fury that far surpasses her i7 + sister. Aspiration power to power, which the company says is 40 times higher than the Roomba 600 series.
Creating the smart house map cost the new Roomba s9 + about an hour, and not a few minutes as iRobot claimed. The robot vacuum cleaner, in normal situations, requires approximately three complete tours of an entire space before the intelligent Imprint mapping is performed. I also trained it by vacuuming in variable lighting conditions, especially in the basement, without light, since when I tried it I had no electric light in the house. And not a but.
In search of dirt
They say at iRobot that PerfectEdge® Roomba s9 + technology finds dirt wherever it hides. And I also attest to this. In the same basement, in the dark, I accidentally broke a glass into thousands of pieces. I was sweeping the small particles from the glass for more than half an hour, but when I passed the Roomba I found that it had also vacuumed the tiny crystals that I had not been able to see. In addition, a new advanced 3D sensor constantly scans what is in front of the Roomba s9 + at a speed of 25 times per second, allowing the robot to penetrate deep into corners, the edges of the walls and cleaning large areas with efficiency. No wonder he found the dwarf crystals that I could not glimpse.
Roomba s9 + is, as a robot vacuum cleaner, compatible with intelligent voice assistants such as Alexa and Google Assistant. I have it used to working with an iPhone and Google Assistant, but I also checked how it works with Alexa and the truth is that they work very effectively in both environments.
Genius Home Intelligence
And before finishing, a novelty that I did not have time to try, but that I will do in the next few days. A few days ago iRobot introduced Genius Home Intelligence, a platform that offers users an unmatched level of customization and control over their cleaning robots, taking into account the unique characteristics of their homes, schedules, cleaning preferences and the degree of integration in the smart home.
The iRobot Genius interface is a redesign of the iRobot Home App for users to go far beyond the standard use of the app and provide them with a new control center with easy-to-use and custom cleaning commands. This app, which works with all Wi-Fi connected iRobot products, offers cleaning based on user habits and personal preferences, allowing for a smarter and more efficient experience. This also provides the user with a better understanding of the cleaning performance of the robot.
Clean where it is needed
With the new application the user can send the robot to clean precisely where the dirt is thanks to the Clean Zones function. Using this state-of-the-art artificial intelligence (AI) -based technology, the Roomba i7 / i7 + and s9 / s9 + robot vacuum cleaners and the Braava jet m6 robot mop employ self-learning to automatically detect dirt and proactively suggest cleaning around objects specific, such as sofas, tables and kitchen countertops. Users can also customize a smart map by creating their own cleaning zones or Clean Zones. This allows cleaning in specific areas or around objects that collect more dirt.
Tomorrow I will try to tell Roomba s9 +, through Google Assistant: “Roomba, clean in front of the sofa.” And I’ll tell you if the Roomba will know exactly where to go.
