How to make robot vacuum work better: 3 setup tips

The horror story of robot vacuum owners stems mainly from two resolvable misfortunes: they accidentally purchased a DINK robot vacuum cleaner, or just didn’t set up a very capable robot vacuum cleaner to succeed.

For those who resonate with the first statement – for example, you need to upgrade from an old five-year-old indoor – I reviewed some good robot vacuum recommendations. (If you still want to pay a similar price to your current clumsy price, I even curated a list of cheap robot vacuums.)

But for those who have recently purchased robot vacuum cleaners Know Your model has greater potential than you see – you may not be taking advantage of some robot vacuum capabilities. These settings, such as suction power adjustment or customizable cleaning areas, hide a hidden line of sight in most robot vacuum applications. We know they are there at some point, but it’s easy for our conscious mind to go into full handheld mode and expect robot vacuum everything Yes, right on the bat.

Over the years of testing robot vacuums in my own various apartments, I have developed a very reliable strategy to customize robot vacuum settings to suit a wide range of house sizes, numbers of rooms and floor types. These obvious robot vacuum tips are blown by many people, but they vary a lot.

Detailed introduction through mapping and area cleaning

An important part of the robot vacuum finishes the job is how well it knows about your living space. Most of this comes from the initial mapping of the robot vacuum and your house map runs – while many robot vacuums actually create fairly accurate maps in their first attempt, it may not be perfect. The first step is to separate or merge the rooms, even if that’s easy to be lazy. For some time, I simply used maps and created a robot vacuum even if I mixed two rooms into two. Then, I realized that my life didn’t have to involve too much procrastination. Editing and marking all rooms of the bat make the chores even more streamlined in the future.

Roborock Saros 10 knows every room and floor type in my apartment.
Image source: Screenshot: Roborock

The Roomba Home app allows you to mark repeat cleaning areas in the map.
Image source: Screenshot: Irobot

My personal favorite strategy is to get super extra strategies by customizing the cleaning area in these rooms. Some apps don’t provide duplicate areas, so I just created a room like the “front door”. Others do let you add permanent cleaning areas to the map, which I always use to specify faster areas, such as those around the trash. These allow robot vacuums to enter and eliminate faster on days when you aren’t doing a family cleaning.

Yes, smart mapping is valuable even in small apartments with only two or three rooms. Without it, you won’t be able to get the luxury of virtual boundaries through area cleaning. You still want to be able to say “mops on this square, but don’t make a distance area near a pile of rope next to the TV shelf.

Subtitle: If you read this book in the initial shopping phase, rule out robot vacuums that don’t have smart mapping at all. When smart mapping is the current feature in so many budget robot vacuums, knock and hope for the best thing. Not all robot vacuum brands will express this in the same way, but instead look for key phrases like “home mapping” or “by Room by Room.” After all, the cleaning performance doesn’t even work unless the robot vacuum cleaner reaches the right position first.

Send it to two cleaning channels, not one

It’s always fun to watch someone else watch robot vacuum cleaner for the first time. Almost certainly, the meeting about VAC’s lack of seats is almost arguable. Although some garbage robot vacuum cleaners yes Very good at cleaning, and many people don’t realize that the app has a built-in backup plan: toggle two passes instead of one.

You can select multiple passes in the Robot Vacuum app.
Image source: Screenshot: Irobot

The first round can sometimes be flubble, especially if the side brush accidentally sweeps the crumbs in the wrong way. There were countless times when I watched the robot vacuum, doing mediocre work for the first time, turning around for a second, and then looking back at the second pass to see the same area gleaming.

Also, remember that many robot vacuums first clean the edges of the room and then sweep back into the middle row. If your robot vacuum “misses” something within the first few minutes of cleaning, don’t be frustrated immediately. In the latter part of the cleaning, that droplet or a piece of debris will most likely be caught.

Adjust the suction and water settings on a case-by-case basis

Roborock Saros 10 cleans the carpet on maximum suction.
Image source: Leah Stodart / Mashable

Roborock Saros 10r wipes the kitchen floor with heavy water flowing.
Image source: Leah Stodart / Mashable

Not all the chaos on the floor is equal. Many of your robot vacuum cleaners cleaning courses are not a daily browsing of new dust and hair that has accumulated over the past 24 hours. But other times, your robot vacuum will actually fix legitimate spills or furry attractions on the carpet – requiring more cover than the default settings you use every day. Most robot vacuum applications have a settings tab where you can scale or down the suction power (if it’s a robot vacuum of mops, the water flows), so you can adjust the cleaning intensity depending on how the floor is dirty.

For example, when the robot vacuum cleaner wipes the total shoe area near the front door, I make sure to use a heavy water flow, or if I send it to wipe the liquid splash. I’m dependent on the medium suction for the bathroom cleaning to avoid the botvac sucking my tub, but I’ll definitely drive it to the highest suction setting for a room with carpet with cat hair.

Some advanced robot vacuums have the option to let the AI decide the cleaning settings for the room or area of your choice. While I do appreciate robot vacuums that automatically increase suction power whenever I feel the carpet, I still prefer to adjust the settings myself – I know my cleaning preferences are better than machines.

Manage your expectations, just like actually

While customizing the above settings can expand the diversity (or severity) of the chaos that machine vacuums can solve, they are not always all-round. Even the most powerful robot vacuum cleaners have limitations because of the compact motors required for their slim motors. Send it to catastrophic chaos, such as a pile of spilled powdered sugar or spilled full cup of juice, and expect the first attempt to be spotless. If you expect heavy duty cleaning like this, you should just buy a heavy duty rod vacuum.