Roomba with Mop - The Braava jet mj6 [Perfect Roomba Combo]

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Gained early experience with automation technology in the private and industrial sector, can turn his living room into a movie theater with one voice command and is the owner of this website. He is happy to share his accumulated experience with every new article.

Braava jet m6 – Overview

The Braava jet m6 is a premium robotic mop that intelligently moves through your rooms. You can have it mop specific rooms at specific times. For orientation – unlike many vacuum robots – no laser tower is used, but a camera is integrated at the front. This ensures safe and, in particular, effective movements. The water tank is hidden under the lid on the top.

This can be conveniently removed by a handle. In the middle of the front is the nozzle through which the bot sprays water and detergent onto the floor. After spraying, the device moves back and forth with a kind of scrubbing motion. As it does so, the mop, which is attached underneath the device, removes the dirt from the floor surface that it passes over. The plate to which the mop is attached vibrates during the scrubbing movements. This makes it easier to remove the dirt from the floor.

Setup of the Wiping Bot

Braava Jet M6 is intuitive to set up. After you turn on the bot and install the app, it opens a temporary Wi-Fi network. The app tells the bot the access data for the home network. The bot then connects to the home network.

Control via the Intuitive iRobot App

You start or stop a cleaning process via the user-friendly smartphone app. In the app, you configure the times and rooms for automatic mopping. For example, you can define in the app configuration whether the entire apartment should be cleaned, only individual rooms or only certain areas of rooms.

For high-traffic areas, you can define cleaning zones that the bot should wipe particularly frequently. Furthermore, you can define protected areas in which the wiping bot should not be active. These can be, for example, carpets, furniture that cannot be moved under and other objects. Thresholds can also be drawn into the navigation.

With these defaults, the bot will navigate through your home in the desired paths. Maybe you’d prefer to have the bot work when you’re not even in the house? You can also automate this via the app.

You can save specific jobs as favorites so you can easily start the same cleaning schedule the next time you use the iRobot App. This gives you quick access to frequently used mopping instructions. The desired mopping power can be set in three levels. Another feature of the app is the cleaning history. You can check which surfaces have already been cleaned at any time.

Via the app you have these setting options:

Cleaning schedules
Maps of the cleaning areas
Establishment of protection zones (NoGo areas)
Wiping power (three levels)
Amount of water that the bot sprays on the ground
Overlap thickness of the individual wiping paths
Language
Release for Amazon Alexa

First Steps Before the Start

For wet cleaning, open the flap on the top of the robot before the first mopping and remove the water tank. Through the opening on the narrow side, you fill it with tap water and, depending on the floor covering, also with cleaning agent. There is a valve on the bottom of the tank that allows Braava to draw in water while cleaning. To clean tile and sealed hard floors, add a few milliliters of detergent to the mop water. A trial pack is included, which is sufficient for two cleanings.

Before you start cleaning, you attach a wipe to the guide rails located on the underside of the bot. You can choose between cloths for wet or dry cleaning, disposable or reusable cloths. The smart bot automatically registers which cloth is mounted and then knows whether to start a wet or dry wipe round. If a cloth is mounted for wet cleaning, the bot warns if the water tank is empty.

On the edge of the water tank flap is an LED light ring that pulses in different colors depending on the status.

What do the different colors on the light ring mean?

White: The bot is awake and everything is fine.
Blue: The bot is performing a special task.
Red: The bot has a problem.

Braava jet m6 Navigation

Of course, Braava Jet M6 doesn’t just crisscross your home, it recognizes each room and piece of furniture. During its wiping tour, the bot follows its parallel paths room by room. Unlike competing products, it does not orient itself via a laser distance sensor, but rather with a camera that is installed on the top of the robot.

As long as it is bright enough, navigation in the room works perfectly. However, in the dark, navigation performance is severely limited. Braava jet m6 does not like darkness at all! In complete darkness, the bot takes more than twice as long to swipe than in light. Despite frequent criticism on this point, iRobot sticks to the camera technology.

During the first swipe rounds, the bot learns the floor plan of the home and creates smart maps based on it. Braava jet m6 needs these maps to calculate its paths. In addition, the smart maps show it where it stopped mopping when the battery was empty. After automatic charging at the base station, it continues cleaning exactly where it left off.

As a rule, the bot reliably recognizes the room boundaries. In the floor plan view of the smartphone app, you can also create or delete additional rooms if necessary. You can also move the room boundaries manually. Braava jet m6 learns with every trip and updates the Smart Map constantly.

Automatic Wipe Recognition

The robot automatically detects whether you have mounted a wipe for dry or wet cleaning and automatically switches to the appropriate wiping mode. If a dry wipe is fitted, the m6 leaves out the water. Very practical! According to the results of many tests, dry mopping is only useful when there is only dust or hair and possibly smaller crumbs on the floor. Due to electrostatic forces, dust and hair stick to the dry wipes.

Braava jet m6 – Scope of Delivery

iRobot Braava m6 robot mop
Charging station with plastic base plate
Lithium Ion battery
Operating instructions in paper form
1 small bottle of special cleaning agent “Braava Jet Hard Floor Cleaning Solution”, specifically for Braava jet m6 . No other cleaning agent should be used.
1 reusable wet wipe
2 disposable wet wipes
1 dry wipe
Disposable dry wipes

Braava jet m6 – Features

Perfect for Hardwood, Tiles, Stone: iRobot Braava Jet M6*

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Design

The futuristic design and angular format of the Braava jet m6 sets it apart from competing products. The robot mop is mostly white, with some silver and black highlights. The angular format allows for a particularly efficient cleaning of corners and edges.

Noise Level

Compared to robotic vacuums, the mopbot is whisper quiet as it does not have a suction unit. During cleaning, the Braava jet m6 is extremely quiet compared to robotic vacuum cleaners. You only hear the sound of the motors that drive the bot and the spray nozzle. The robot is even barely distracting when you’re watching TV or listening to music in the same room!

Range

The low power consumption has another advantage: One battery charge is sufficient for a relatively large area. In tests, the bot was able to cover an area of 100 m2 with one battery charge in the simplest cleaning mode – i.e. with little liquid.

This corresponds to a runtime of about three hours. As soon as the battery runs out during a mopping round, the device returns to its base station to refuel. It then resumes its work independently.

Water tank

The tank volume of 540 millilitres was sufficient for about 70 m2 in tests. Depending on the spray strength, it can also be more or less square meters. You can set the amount of water sprayed in the app.

The easily removable water tank or its connection valve to the robot is always a little leaky, so that some drops accumulate below the water tank. However, this never led to problems in tests. Nevertheless, this is a minus point, especially for an electronic device.

Wipes

The wet wipes made of microfibre are used for sticky and non-sticky dirt and kitchen grease. The dry wipes attract dust and hair electrostatically. A scanner integrated into the bottom of the bot detects which type of wipe has been used and automatically adjusts the cleaning process accordingly. Many users only use the wet wipe because they don’t want to spend time changing wipes.

Three Buttons on the Top

With the “Spot” button you can clean the immediate vicinity of the bot, with the “Clean” button you start the cleaning manually with the Home button you can send the robot back to the base station. Due to the restriction to a few buttons, the bot is easy to handle.

Room Coverage and Orientation

Braava jet m6 can tell the kitchen from the bathroom. Thanks to Imprint Smart Mapping, the bot maps your home. With the smart room map, the bot learns your surroundings with every swipe and saves the rooms it passes through.

The intelligent room detection and control technology is called Imprint by the manufacturer. The room coverage and orientation of the bot usually works well. You can define via the app which rooms should be mopped and when. The Braava jet m6 wipes angled niches and narrow passages reliably and leaves only little dirt.

The bot also cleans corners and baseboards well. This is due to the square shape and the position of the wiping cloth. This extends to the outer edges at the front of the bot, i.e. over the entire width of the robot. The camera and the IR sensors at the front detect most obstacles. In one test, obstacles were rarely bumped – and more gently than hard. So you don’t have to worry about your furniture. The bot detects stairs with the help of sensors.

Obstacles

When encountering obstacles, the bot shifts light objects such as doorstops or shoes. In the worst case, this can prevent it from continuing its journey. You can counteract this by setting up restricted areas in the app that the bot will avoid in the future.

The bot effortlessly goes around small obstacles such as chair legs at a very close distance. The bot passes edges reliably and at a minimum distance. No dust rims are left behind in the process. With a height of around 9 cm, the Bot can wipe under most furniture.

In addition to the camera, Braava jet m6 uses sensors and a bumper to detect obstacles. The bumper surrounds the entire front and the front half of the sides. Therefore, frontal collisions are detected immediately, as well as lateral collisions with an obstacle.

Doorsteps and Carpets

I’m sure you’d like to know how well Braava jet m6 climbs over doorsteps. The climbing height is low, just under one centimeter. The bot cannot climb over doorsteps that are higher. Especially in old apartments, it is therefore necessary to carry the bot into each room to be cleaned. Fortunately, it does not weigh much.

The Bot recognizes firmly laid carpeting by the sudden change in frictional resistance when switching from the smooth floor to the braking carpet. If the bot does land on the carpet, it will stick to it thanks to the anti-slip pads on the underside and stop the wiping process. So your carpet won’t get showered by accident! You can also use the blocking areas in the app to ensure clarity in this case.

Then the bot does not even get onto the carpet. Runners, bridges and other single carpets are not climbed by the bot, as it can hardly overcome height differences. Suction robots, on the other hand, can manage height differences of 2 cm and more.

Dry Wiping

When it comes to dry mopping, the Braava jet m6 is inferior to a robot vacuum and picks up less dirt than it does. At least it removes loose dust and small amounts of crumbs. Dry mopping is usually sufficient for daily cleaning.

Damp Mopping

When it comes to damp mopping, Braava is in its element and performs better than most robotic vacuums with an optional mopping function. This is due to its relatively large tank and large mop, as well as its app-controllable sprayer. For example, you can set the bot to stop briefly every 50 to 100 cm and spray water onto the floor through its front nozzle.

Before spraying, it first drives over the area to be sprayed so that it does not wet any furniture, walls or objects lying around. If it does not encounter any obstacles, it drives back about 30 cm, sprays water and then drives over the sprayed area again. Similar to manual mopping, a large part of the floor is passed over several times.

This cleans the surface very thoroughly. If there are a lot of chair legs close together, the bot does not have enough space to move backwards before spraying. Then it often does not work with the spraying of the cleaning liquid, whereby the areas around the chair legs are cleaned less well.

Chaos Mode or Back-and-Forth Mode

In the chaos mode cleaning method, the robot travels through the room in a criss-cross pattern without any discernible rule and cleans the areas it passes over in the process. In this method, it covers much more area than in the back-and-forth mode, but the cleaning performance is less good. Sometimes it cleans certain areas twice, while it completely forgets about other areas.

In the back-and-forth mode, the bot continuously moves back and forth. This roughly corresponds to the cleaning movement in conventional manual cleaning. The robot overlaps its wiping paths, so that no part of the room remains uncleaned. The disadvantage of this mode is the significantly higher energy consumption.

Cleaning Performance

Depending on the selected setting, the cleaning performance is rated as satisfactory to good. In maximum mode, the wiping paths overlap strongly and the bot sprays large amounts of cleaning liquid. When using tap water without a cleaning additive, the cleaning performance is at least satisfactory but much better with detergent.

However, the floor will not be free of stripes. Depending on the type of floor and the incidence of light, tire tracks of the M6 can be seen. These are caused by the robot pushing the mop in front of it and then driving over the damp floor with the drive wheels. This does not allow for an optimal cleaning result.

The cleaning performance is not sufficient for stubborn dirt and large-area contamination due to the design. Vigorous scrubbing is not possible due to the low weight of 2.2 kg. The Braava jet m6 is not able to build up enough pressure on the mop. In a test with dried toothpaste, jam and condensed milk, the bot did not manage to reliably remove these contaminations.

On lightly soiled floors, however, the Braava jet m6 achieved a good cleaning result in tests. If the floor was first pre-cleaned with a conventional vacuum cleaner or a robot vacuum, the wipe still contained some dirt. The bot even removed dried coffee stains effortlessly. This makes the Braava a perfect complement to a robot vacuum. It can be used together with Roomba vacuum robots. whereby the cleaning schedules are coordinated.

The Braava jet m6 removes stains better than combined devices, even though it weighs less than 2.5 kg. Fresh coffee stains are removed on the first pass. Dried coffee stains were not completely removed in tests in all cases. However, this problem can be solved with the spot cleaning mode. The M6 removes mud stains, which are often caused by shoes in winter, very well.

Greasy substances such as mustard, ketchup, etc. should first be wiped away manually, otherwise the bot will spread these substances over a large area of your home instead of actually removing them. Since Braava jet m6 does not have a waste tank, you should change and clean the cleaning cloth regularly.

Size and Weight

The Braava jet m6 size of 27.0 x 25.2 x 9.0 cm and a weight of approximately 2.2 kg. The low dead weight is both an advantage and a disadvantage. The lightweight can easily be carried into other rooms if, for example, the door sill is an insurmountable obstacle for the bot. On the other hand, the low weight is a disadvantage when removing stubborn stains.

Control by Voice Command

“Braava, mop the kitchen floor!” Using Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant, you can give the M6 specific instructions to mop certain rooms or areas. Braava won’t say, “I’ll do that later,” but will power right on without a grumble. Whether it’s clay paw prints, jam residue or coffee stains on the floor, the M6 cleans everything effortlessly.

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Braava jet m6 – Advantages

Good wiping performance: Only a little dirt remains.
Clean wiping in nooks and crannies, corners, narrow aisles
Cleans the entire surface of baseboards
Also removes dried coffee stains
Dry and wet wiping possible
Pleasantly quiet
Structured driving
Sophisticated smartphone app
Battery charge sufficient for large area
Three hours running time
Good room coverage
Good orientation as long as it is bright enough
Good processing quality
High user-friendliness
Beautiful design
Areas lockable via app
App controllable sprayer
Compatible with Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa
Can be linked to the automatic cleaning schedule of Roomba vacuum bots

Braava jet m6 – Disadvantages

Low climbing height. Apartments with high door thresholds (e.g. in old apartments) cannot be cleaned by the Bot independently.
When dry mopping, Braava Jet M6 picks up less debris than a robotic vacuum cleaner
Stubborn stains cannot be removed.
The wipes must be replaced and cleaned yourself.
Poor navigation in low light
Tire tracks remain partially visible
Light dripping of the water tank
Relatively expensive compared to other mopping robots

The Dream Team: Roomba Robot Vacuum Cleaner and Braava jet m6 Robot Mop

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When paired with an i-Series* or s-Series* Roomba vacuum robot, Braava jet m6 cleans even more efficiently. For optimal interaction, the robot vacuum and robot mop can “communicate” with each other. The technology behind this communication is called “Imprint Link”. The cleaning schedules of both devices are coordinated with each other.

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In the app, you start the “Vacuum first” option. Once the Roomba Robot Vacuum Cleaner is finished vacuuming, the Mop Bot will start and wipe all surfaces with a damp cloth. It then returns to its base station. Here, the Wischbot manages on its own, except when the tank is empty. In the base station, it stands protected on a plastic plate.

This prevents the moisture in the mop from getting onto wooden floors and causing them to swell. Nevertheless, you should – for hygienic reasons alone – remove and rinse the wet mop promptly. Otherwise it could become foxing. The transition between the vacuuming round and the mopping round is fluid, just like a well-rehearsed team. All actions can be controlled via the app.

The vacuuming and mopping functions are intentionally separated in iRobot devices in order to achieve optimal cleaning performance. However, there are also many models on the market that combine vacuuming and mopping in one device. These combination devices (also called 2-in-1 models or hybrid models) vacuum and mop at the same time.

Tips for an Improved Wiping Performance

Add some special cleaning agent to the water tank. This will give you a much better wiping result and your home will smell fresher too!
Use the supplied reusable cleaning cloth and not the disposable wipes! You can also buy the reusable cleaning cloth in case the cleaning effect should decrease. The fluffy cleaning cloth cleans much more thoroughly than the disposable wipes.
Only use the cleaning solution recommended by the manufacturer! If you use a too aggressive agent, rubber seals and plastic parts of the bot could be attacked.
After each cleaning you should wash the mop in the washing machine at 40 degrees.
Vacuum your apartment before mopping!
Mop your apartment as often as possible! Either daily or at least every two days.
Clean the less dirty rooms first. You can set the order of the rooms in the app. This way you spread less dirt from one room to the other.
Every now and then, you’ll have to give your home a thorough wipe yourself, because the bot has limited cleaning power.
Add some special cleaning agent to the water tank. This will give you a much better wiping result and your home will smell fresher too!
Use the supplied reusable cleaning cloth and not the disposable wipes! You can also buy the reusable cleaning cloth in case the cleaning effect should decrease. The fluffy cleaning cloth cleans much more thoroughly than the disposable wipes.
Only use the cleaning solution recommended by the manufacturer! If you use a too aggressive agent, rubber seals and plastic parts of the bot could be attacked.
After each cleaning, you should wash the mop in the washing machine at 40 degrees.
Vacuum your apartment before mopping!
Mop your apartment as often as possible! Either daily or at least every two days.
Clean the less dirty rooms first. You can set the order of the rooms in the app. This way you spread less dirt from one room to the other.
Every now and then, you’ll have to give your home a thorough wipe yourself, because the bot has limited cleaning power.

Conclusion

If the floors in your home are primarily hardwood, laminate or tile, Braava jet m6* is a great choice for cleaning. It’s best used in combination with a Roomba robot vacuum that can communicate with Braava jet m6.

The interaction of iRobot devices works better than devices from other manufacturers. When it comes to wet cleaning, the Braava jet m6 shows a better cleaning performance than most suction-mop robots that combine vacuuming and mopping. However, the Braava jet m6 cannot really scrub intensively.

The tank holds too little water, the cloth surface is not sufficient and the contact pressure is too low. Unfortunately, the Wischbot has to pass when it comes to heavy soiling. However, it masters light to medium soiling without any problems. It’s best to clean your floors thoroughly by hand and then send Braava out to clean every day. If your home has few doorsteps, you can use Braava jet m6 as your only cleaning robot.

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Attention: When installing electronic equipment, please be sure to observe the manufacturer’s safety instructions. You have to take care of your own safety. The information on this site only helps you to learn.
Disclosure: This website is the property of Martin Lütkemeyer and is operated by Martin Lütkemeyer. Martin Lütkemeyer is a member of the Amazon Services LLC Affiliate Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to enable Web sites to earn advertising revenue through advertising and linking to Amazon.com. Links marked with * are affiliate links.