[Vid6639]

Mi Vacuum Mop P review and tips on how to use a Robot vacuum cleaner:

What you'll like:

• Convenience during lockdown. No need to spend time on daily cleaning of the house
• Will not ask for salary hike every year or salary advance. Also no tantrums and no absentia due to XYZ reason
• The Mi one is VFM. At pre-launch it was Rs. 18,000 and now it is Rs. 25,000, which is still the lowest laser guided model with mopping function
• Mopping function is good to have as it can do the daily wiping that remove finer dust
• Cleans better than maid doing the "walk around the house pretending to sweep away dust"
• App has tons of features and even allows multiple maps for multi-floor houses (new update)

What you won't:

• Mopping is just a wipe and will not remove any stains
• Battery life for large houses will not be sufficient to cover the entire house in a single pass
• Dust compartment is rather small. Can easily get filled up if house is larger with more dust
• A house with less furniture is best suited. The more furniture, the more time it takes and more spots missed
• Needs some effort before cleaning; removing rugs, mats and rearranging some furniture so that it doesn't get stuck

So, everyone is buying a robot vacuum cleaner thinking they can easily replace the maid during the lockdown. I did too and ordered the Mi Vacuum Mop P around 5 months ago. I also have a Dyson V8 Absolute and figured this would be ideal for daily cleaning and the Dyson could be used when I have more time on the weekends. But there are many things that online reviews don't tell you and most of these you find out only after buying one.

Here's a review and tips and tricks to use the Vacuum Mop P. This will apply to most robot vacuum cleaners as well.

Cleaning wise, there is no complaint at all. It does a good job of picking up the dust and the house is as clean as it would be with the maid. The Dyson can do a better job as its suction power is higher, but for daily cleaning, the Mi vacuum cleaner is perfect. It truly is a boon during these lockdown days in which we have discontinued maids, but it is not a replacement (especially when it comes to mopping). I can confidently say vacuuming is better than the maid cleaning.

However, to get the house as clean as possible even with the robot, needs some effort. It is not a hands-off procedure in which you can schedule a daily cleanup and not monitor it.

First time use:
This is where you need a lot of patience and some work needs to be done before hand. When you start the robot for the first time, it will run around the whole house in a very unfriendly manner bumping into anything and everything. It also gets lost a lot and you will wonder why it keeps going back into one room even after cleaning that room. It's super confused the first time and meanders around the house like it's completely lost. It's so slow and confused as well as bumping about that you would think that they put Nikita Mazepin in control of the robot. Before turning it on, this is what you need to do:

1. Close all bathroom doors, else it will enter the bathroom and start vacuuming.
2. Close all balcony / garden doors as well as main house door. If you forget this, you will realise that the robot is either at your neighbour's house or has mowed the lawn as well.
3. Arrange the chairs in such a way that the robot has enough space to clean under them. This is especially true for the dining area. I usually draw the chairs out and arrange them close to each other - place the legs of the chair next to the adjacent chair.
4. If you are using the mop mode, remove all rugs and bathroom mats outside the doors.
5. Move all chappals and shoes out of the cleaning area.

Once you've taken care of the above, the robot will go around your house fully in a very confusing way. Don't interrupt it in the middle. Wait for the machine to finish, no matter how long it takes, and go back to its dock. Once it has gone back to its dock, the app will show you the map of the house. Now this next part is where the optimization happens.

Depending on the brand, the app might be smart enough to make out rooms using the doors. It will recommend what it thinks are your bedrooms. Alternately, you need to use the app to divide sections and draw rooms. This will ensure the robot finishes the room before going to the next. If you don't create these rooms, it might take the corridor or the space outside the room as one zone and be very inefficient in cleaning, going in and out of the room.

There might be some places you don't want the robot to go. In my house I have glass doors opening into the balcony and garden. The robot is able to see through the glass and map the garden as well. It will keep trying to break down the glass door since it can't detect glass. This is where you need to use the virtual wall feature and draw virtual walls where you don't want it to enter.

Finally you should have something that looks like this image below. You can see I have named my robot "Ironman" and he uses his superpowers to keep the house clean


The area in the red zone is the garden and balcony. I have a virtual wall as well as a restricted area setup to ensure that the vacuum cleaner doesn't disobey the third law of robots and goes against humans.

You can also see the red lines which are the virtual walls.


Here's a quick video of the mop in action. Note that the edges are don in first pass of the room. Once it does the borders/edges of the room it goes in between in an S pattern.

https://youtu.be/c4w1iE5Aa8o

If you are using the mop function you can program S mode or Y mode. Y mode is like a traditional mopping action by hand and takes longer time but works better. S mode is quicker but not as thorough as Y mode.

I have worked out a pattern to use it. I run it dry in vacuum mode only once daily then every alternate day, run it in the Y pattern mop mode.

Once you have taken care of the initial setup, for daily cleaning you still need to do the following that I mentioned:

1. Remove all rugs, carpets and floor mats if you are using mop function. If the mat if made of cloth then you need to remove this as it will get stuck.
2. I still close all bathroom doors and balcony doors, even though I have virtual walls.
3. Rearrange the dining chairs so there is room for the robot to clean below the table and it can slot in below each chair.

Pictures:

Ironman charging its arc reactor ready for the next attack of dirt monsters. After cleaning, it makes its way back to the dock. You need to ensure that there is enough width for it to backup into the dock:


On the top is the laser guided navigation system. When running, you can see this spinning like a radar system on a ship:


Under the hood is the dust compartment. You get 2 of these. One dry and one wet and dry which has a small tank for water:


A look at the dust compartment with the filter. This opens out for emptying the dust and cleaning:


A look at the underbody. It's 2WD with drive sent to the 2 larger wheels which also have a torsion beam suspension. The front wheel is free rolling:


You can remove the roller brush for cleaning:


This cleaning tool has a brush and a small blade to cut the hair that usually gets tangled up on the roller above:


Front parking sensors that make it reverse as soon as it bumps into something. The front bumpers are also spring loaded so that the bump is softened:


With the mop attachment. The mop cloth is attached with Velcro to the plastic tab that clips onto the bottom. You need to remove the cloth, wash it and fix it back:


The wet and dry container with the rubber cap for pouring water. It takes barely half a tea cup of water, maybe lesser:

[Aditya]

Thread moved out from the Assembly Line. Thanks for sharing!

[camaroZL1]

Thank you Vid6639!

I have been contemplating a robot vacuum/mop for my mother since the past couple of months. She wanted some clarity on usage in Indian households and your thread helps so much!

A few follow-up questions, if you can shed some light on those:

- How many sq.ft. can it approximately do before it runs out of steam?
- Can the small dust-compartment go through the entire house? or does it need to be emptied and cleaned in the middle?
- when mopping on alternate days, do you do a dry vacuum then mop or only mop?

Thanks again!

[Turbolove]

Thanks for the review Vid66639.

One question, how good is the mop at disinfecting the floor ? we mainly mop the floor only to disinfect it and prevent ants and bugs. We usually mix the disinfectant in the mop water.

[benbsb29]

Thanks Viddy. I have the same Mi vacuum cleaner sans the mopping function. We used it extensively when first bought, owing to the novelty factor. Once we got ourselves a Dyson V6, the ease of portability with the Dyson made it the default choice. The Mi is more of a long drawn clean, and yet sometimes it misses some particles.

Some hilarious incidents with it though:
1.) We have rebated sliding doors, and so one evening Mi decided to go for a stroll out to our outdoor area, and consequently the backyard lawn.
2.) Mi fears no heights, which isn't good for its own health. As a result, it once took a dive headfirst down the stairs of the upper floor of my house. Thankfully it's carpeted and there is a landing area 4 flights of stairs down, so not much harm done, as Mi now lay sprawled on its back spinning its wheels and crying for help.
3.) Mi once managed to bring down my Xmas tree, along with the lights and then wound the wires into the wheels. Took some scolding and unravelling to free it of the wires. Feels like bringing up a toddler.
4.) In the early days of getting Mi, I couldn't get the connectivity to the app working. This meant I press the button the device to start cleaning, and couldn't control any other settings using the app, including the language. Mi only spoke Chinese those days, and it was highly amusing to have a Chinese lady scold us inside our own house.

[motorworks]

Great review Vid!

I’m in a very similar situation, we bought a Dyson v10 some 6-7 months back and looking for a good robotic cleaner to complement the Dyson. No maids at all, since we invested in a LG dishwasher too.

My only question is, did you consider other options like Milagrow and Ecovacs? Mi seems absolutely value for money, but does it miss out on something that the others have? 25k for the mi seems extremely value for money, the Ecovacs is around 43k, and the Milagrow imap nano is close to 50k, so to spend twice the money on these rather than the mi, there should be something significantly different.

[khan_sultan]

Very informative review and many thanks for sharing!

Q: if someone were to choose between Dyson & this Robot, and can have only one and not both, which one would you recommend and why?

How's the app? Can you also post detailed review about the app also -- features in app, what feature means what, how to use and when to use which feature? For example, what is Secondary Cleaning?

Originally Posted by Vid6639

...A look at the dust compartment with the filter. This opens out for emptying the dust and cleaning:

Possible for you to share a picture of the dust compartment after a cleaning cycle? Will be good to see how much dust it collects.

With the mop attachment. The mop cloth is fixed via velcros to the plastic tab that clips onto the bottom. You need to remove the cloth, wash it and fix it back

Again, possible for you to share an after mop pic of the mop cloth? will be good to see how it is after a mop cycle. Also, I believe there is one more mop cloth that comes with this. What is that for? I think it is of a different pattern.

The wet and dry container with the rubber cap for pouring water. It takes barely half a tea cup of water, maybe lesser

Can we add lizol to this water?

[vsrivatsa]

Great Review of the Vacuum Mop-P

Adding on my experience as well here. I had placed the order in May 2020 and received the unit in the first batch of shipment during December 2020. Yes - it was almost a 6 month wait for it Got it at a price of ₹17,999 as a result of the pre-launch offer. Mi also gave a complimentary Automatic Soap Dispenser which too has been extremely useful at home. (Link)

Here is an unbox video I had made at that time:

Mi Robot

Agree with most points in the review. We have been using it on a daily basis since the day of arrival. Once the map is set, it is possible to draw some virtual walls and prevent the entry of the Robot in some unwanted places.

Since March we have started to use the mopping feature as well. Xiaomi has recently introduced the multiple Maps feature as well so one can name and keep multiple maps and use it in multiple areas or multiple floors as well. For the Mop feature the water tank is small and we need to re-fill it mid-way (depends on the area to cover) and it cannot complete the full house with just one filling.

Regarding the spares I see that Xiaomi says they have made it available but given the lockdown situation in Bangalore I have not had a chance to verify its availability. Spares are not available online but need to be purchased from authorized service centers.

[skyocean]

Originally Posted by Vid6639

Mi Vacuum Mop P review and tips on how to use a Robot vacuum:

• The Mi one is VFM. At pre launch it was Rs.18,000 and now it is Rs.25K which is still the lowest laser guided model with mopping.

Thanks for the detailed review. I bought this at 17999 at prelaunch. We must thank Mi for bringing in this product, they make affordable products for all and its true to its name. Following are a few points I would like to add:

We got the product as an early bird when they started dispatching after a long long wait. They had rescheduled the product launch by two months I remember.

1) Solid build quality, from the panels to the wheels everything is made out of good materials.
2) 6months+ use and no issues till now. Our usage is heavy, We use it 4 times a week in Mop and Vacuum mode. I must say the device is brilliant and gets the work done to our satisfaction.
3) In the last update they have added support for multiple maps, this is really a boon for people who have duplex houses. Initially we had to rescan the floors repeatedly, but now with multiple maps it works like a charm. One needs to physically move the device from one floor to another, but that`s a tiny bit of effort when compared to cleaning the whole house.
4) Regarding furniture I agree, more the furniture more the time. But the device and its LDS mapping technology works great. it rarely missed any spots. This is the edge Mi has over the other products out there. 25k vs 50K for others with similar technology, that's half the price.
5) If the house is very dirty, I would recommended recommend a vacuum run first and then a Mop and Vacuum run, this works like a charm to clean house after a long vacation.
6) The accessories are holding up very good inspite of heavy usage. kudos to build quality. Although they have provided a spare set, Mi should make this available in the market.
7) The Mi Home App is really user friendly. Has many customizations and I have never seen it crashing. Stable and great.
8) The product suits all, lazy bachelors to hardworking moms. My mom loves it so much she has given it a pet name "Boo Boo".
9) Boo Boo cleans the entire house but gets dirty himself

Grey areas:
1) Long term reliability /life : For the price I expect at least 5 years of device life.
2) Spares availability like brushes. Microfiber Cloth can be stitched to fit the dimensions.

I see many brands have sprung up like mushrooms in this space, not sure how many of them will even cease to exist in the coming years let alone providing spares. Select a reliable brand before investing I would say. Mi Mop is highly recommended and its a steal at that price, total VFM.

The only one in the house who is not happy with "Boo Boo" is our Cat. She freaked out the first time she saw it, she still hasn't understood what on earth is this flat looking creature ! Although they live in harmony now

[grevvity]

I believe I can answer some of your queries based on my 2 months usage of the same MI robo cleaner.

Originally Posted by khan_sultan

Q: if someone were to choose between Dyson & this Robot, and can have only one and not both, which one would you recommend and why?

I have had Dyson V8 which I got during last year lockdown. No doubt its a wonderful machine but the limitation of doing it yourself and taking out time to vacuum is still there. The flexibility it bring being a wireless is a boon however I had to let go of it because I had my maid back to work later in 2020 and I didn't find any additional usage as its is only dry vacuum.

Robo vacuum let you schedule cleaning and you don't have to constantly monitor it. I just schedule the dry cleaning at night and by the time I am awake, the whole house is vacuumed already. Then I put it on mop mode while I go for my morning routine.

If I have to chose one, MI robo vacuum would be my first choice.

Originally Posted by khan_sultan

How's the app? Can you also post detailed review about the app also -- features in app, what feature means what, how to use and when to use which feature? For example, what is Secondary Cleaning?

App is the best part with many features already explained here like virtual wall, full house map, spot cleaning, scheduled cleaning , different modes of cleaning (s pattern, Y Pattern), selection of rooms to clean are few of them.

The best thing is scheduling which helps a lot to schedule the type of cleaning at a specific day and time.

Also, you can check the cleaning history in the app and it also show what area it has covered while cleaning.

Secondary cleaning is another round of cleaning after your scheduled cleaning. Two rounds in one go.

Originally Posted by khan_sultan

Possible for you to share a picture of the dust compartment after a cleaning cycle? Will be good to see how much dust it collects.

I do not have a picture handy but you'll be surprised the amount of dust and lint it picks up after every round of cleaning. Especially from the nooks and furniture where we do not broom every day.

Originally Posted by khan_sultan

Again, possible for you to share an after mop pic of the mop cloth? will be good to see how it is after a mop cycle. Also, I believe there is one more mop cloth that comes with this. What is that for? I think it is of a different pattern.

The additional mop is just a free accessory similar to one which comes by default. You also get an extra cleaning brush. You can use the same mop for any pattern.

Originally Posted by khan_sultan

Can we add lizol to this water?

No you cannot. It is not recommended by MI. What I normally do is to spray it little disinfectant on the mop cloth or at times on the floor directly


PS: I have named my robo Alfred.

Originally Posted by Turbolove

Thanks for the review Vid66639.

One question, how good is the mop at disinfecting the floor ? we mainly mop the floor only to disinfect it and prevent ants and bugs. We usually mix the disinfectant in the mop water.

Sorry, you cannot mix anything additional in the water as it is not recommended by MI. What you can do is to spray a little on the mopping cloth or on the floor directly. I usually do it once or twice in a week.

[VVN]

Brilliant timing hahaha. I bought the Mi Robot Vacuum a week ago.

A little background - I moved to Dehradun from Bombay last year when the lockdown eased and continued to stay after the situation worsened this year. The maid used to do a shoddy work around the house and I often found myself cleaning the house after she left anyway (Kind of a freak in that sense). Decided to stop her from cleaning and limit her to the utensils. Bought a Deerma vacuum and a mop and did it myself for months. Although I was satisfied and happy, I couldn't help but notice the amount of time I spent in cleaning the house. Close to 90 mins for a 3BHK. At the same time, my brother bought the robot vacuum back home in Bombay and was pushing me to get one.

After tonnes of reviews and videos, I bought it last week. Been using it for close to a week now and I must say that I am more or less happy. Much better than what my maid used to do but nowhere near what I did :P . Having said that, I have a Golden Retriever at home and so we have the famous dog hair all around the house. This is where I absolutely love this vacuum. I have scheduled it to vacuum the entire house 3 times a day. Morning, Afternoon and Evening (I still mop in the morning). No more dog hair and the house is as clean as it can get. Battery does drain out quite early though. I see that it is barely able to complete the last room before it runs off to the dock.

The mopping function is below average. It cannot be your primary mop and this is where it struggles. It covers the corners and the edges pretty well though and that matters.

All in all, I would say that its a tad expensive at almost 25k. More like a 20k product given that you still have to do a deep clean on weekends but no worries.

[Sidban85]

We also got this model in April.

The performance has been disappointing as it barely picks up pet hair and just puts most of the dust and hair in clumps all over the house, to be cleaned again manually by us.

Navigation is OK, although sometimes it gets stuck around slippers on the floor.

Had compared the Mi vs Dyson V8 and now thinking if we made the wrong decision.

Using the Turbo mode makes it louder without much difference in actual cleaning.

[thechinmay]

I had pre booked the same vacuum at 18k last June. Its a really great product for the price. Navigation is much better than the similarly priced competition and so is the app based interface.
The mopping feature is decent but can't get rid of spills, stains and stickiness. We generally manually mop the house every 15 days. We also sweep from behind the doors and corners and bring the dirt in the vacuums path for it to pick up every few days.
Overall pretty satisfied with the performance, especially the vacuuming bit.
Availability of consumables is a concern though. I chatted with the Mi folks for them to direct me to a service centre. I called them to check, but they did not have any consumables in stock.

[sriharsha_m87]

We use a similar combination as well, Dyson V11 + Mi Robo Vacuum mop P.
Had been using V11 for over 2 years now, for everyday cleaning.

This duty is currently taken care of by Mi Robo on automated schedules.
Was almost on the verge of getting a Roborock S5 Max and luckily Mi announced pre-orders. Apart from the little hiccup in delayed delivery of pre-orders, the overall experience with the product has been good.

Thanks to the surge in demand and Mi's success, iRobot India has finally started deep discounts on their models.

As other users have pointed out already, mopping is not so great on Mi.
For a good mopping experience, one should look at iRobot's Braava Jet.

A while back, they had an offer on Braava, where they were bundling a free Robot vacuum >> https://irobot.in/braava-m6-roomba-976.aspx

https://youtu.be/dTzBa0UhQo0

Someone was asking about Ecovacs.
I think only the Ozmo series is their navigation capable robots, which start at 40k.
Rest all are old gen non-navigation robots.

Pricing is what makes Mi Robo a hit in India.
It was an even sweeter deal for those who pre-ordered it for 18k.
Mi offered a free coupon for their touchless soap dispenser and 2k discount on their Google Assistant speaker, to compensate for the pre-order delays.
For the current price of 25k, they are offering the speaker for free though.

Here's a video of one of our Robot vacs at work, you can see the 4 cliff sensors on the bottom and the LIDAR bouncing off the edges to facilitate real-time navigation.

http://youtu.be/o4i-trbrsZI

[Vid6639]

Originally Posted by camaroZL1

A few follow-up questions, if you can shed some light on those:

- How many sq.ft. can it approximately do before it runs out of steam?
- Can the small dust-compartment go through the entire house? or does it need to be emptied and cleaned in the middle?
- when mopping on alternate days, do you do a dry vacuum then mop or only mop?

1. There is no approximate sqft because it depends on many factors. If you have more furniture it will run out of charge quicker in smaller area. Themop function takes away some extra charge as well. Overall I get 90mins for 3 bedrooms+hall+living room. My apt is 1600 sqft and has a lot of furniture.

2. 1 dust apartment can cover a house not cleaned for 1-2 days but if you havent vacuumed for 3-4 days it will fill up mid way. It also depends on whether you have more dust. I'm not street facing so the dust is medium level in my place.

3. Yes when mopping I always use the vacuum+mop mode. Cause the mop will be very dirty then. I use the vacuum mode daily and every alternate day or 2 days add the mop to it and do vacuum+mop. When house is little more dirty I run only vacuum mode then charge it and then 2 hours later run mop vacuum + mop mode. Vacuum only is S pattern and Vacuum + mop in Y pattern which takes a lot longer time. Almost double.

Originally Posted by Turbolove

Thanks for the review Vid66639.

One question, how good is the mop at disinfecting the floor ? we mainly mop the floor only to disinfect it and prevent ants and bugs. We usually mix the disinfectant in the mop water.

As other mentioned, manual says no liquid to be added other than plain water.

Originally Posted by motorworks

My only question is, did you consider other options like Milagrow and Ecovacs? Mi seems absolutely value for money, but does it miss out on something that the others have? 25k for the mi seems extremely value for money, the Ecovacs is around 43k, and the Milagrow imap nano is close to 50k, so to spend twice the money on these rather than the mi, there should be something significantly different.

The Ecovacs Ozmo T8 is quite recent and frankly speaking I never researched much other than looking for laser detection models. The Mi was the most VFM model with laser detection. Also, I picked up the pre order price of 18K last June 2020 which was delayed to December 2020 delivery. At 18K it was a no brainer at the time. Plus the soap dispenser and the discount on the speaker. Was a difficult deal to miss out on.

I believe the Ozmo T8 is superior in detection and battery and cleaning. If budget allows, it would probably a better pick than the Mi. Though I havent used the Ecovacs. A member did get it recently and he was very happy with it apart from the same problems I mentioned about it running out if doors are open and struggling in dining areas.

Originally Posted by khan_sultan

Very informative review and many thanks for sharing!

Q: if someone were to choose between Dyson & this Robot, and can have only one and not both, which one would you recommend and why?

lol. You are asking me question to which you have answer to since you own both the Vacuum Mop P and Dyson yourself. Pls. tell what if your feedback and review as well!

I can't pick one anymore. I like the Dyson and it cleans better as well as not just floor but cobwebs, sofa, mattress etc. but it's manual labour. If you have the time to run the Dyson and do manual mop the Dyson is a better buy.

However if you are work from home and short on time, the Vacuum Mop P is perfect. My pick would be a combo of Dyson V11 and a Mi Vacuum Mop P. Best of both worlds. You can literally replace the maid with these 2 pretty much.

Again, possible for you to share an after mop pic of the mop cloth? will be good to see how it is after a mop cycle. Also, I believe there is one more mop cloth that comes with this. What is that for? I think it is of a different pattern.

I'll send post cleaning later on. The pic I put up was after washing the cloth.

The other cloth is semi wet cloth that uses up lesser water and does a more dry mop.

Can we add lizol to this water?

Not as per the manual, but just pour a few drops on the cloth.