[reignofchaos]

Originally Posted by dark.knight

Personally, I'd advise iRobot all day, any day, even if its only dry vac. Eureka Forbes are locally made pieces of junk that fall apart in a year or so, horrible experience with their hand held, noisy vaccum cleaners, all show and no go. Never buy Indian/Chinese anything if the aim is quality and durability.

Having used a roomba i7 before and now a Roborock s5 max. I'd choose the latter in a heartbeat. Vacuuming is better and the mopping works amazingly too. Roomba needs to reduce their prices to stay relevant.

[Mortis]

Originally Posted by UPS_Guru

Currently, they do not have a sensor to determine when the dust compartment is full, hence the reminder.

Any idea how to reset it though ? I think it came on after using it for "X" amount of time or area and it's stayed on ever since. Or maybe it came on after the last update to the app, I can't be sure.

[UPS_Guru]

If you don't want to clean the dust box every other day and can spare 50K, this is for you: Xiaomi Lydsto R1 Robot Vacuum Cleaner available at Digicartz.

[shamanth]

Originally Posted by Fillmore

Eureka Forbes also has a model
https://www.reliancedigital.in/eurek...uv/p/491903128

If any of you own one would appreciate your feedback on it.

Eureka has horrible feedback for its robo vac online. Just can pick up blindly Mi Robo, you wont find laser and mapping features below 50k which Mi provides.

[vsrivatsa]

Any news on the availability of consumables for the Mi Vacuum Mop-P?

They claim to have sold over 10,000 units of the Vacuum Robot post launch - hope they make the consumables available soon. We started using the mopping function also regularly and need some Mopping Pads now.

[deathwalkr]

Originally Posted by vsrivatsa

Any news on the availability of consumables for the Mi Vacuum Mop-P?

They claim to have sold over 10,000 units of the Vacuum Robot post launch - hope they make the consumables available soon. We started using the mopping function also regularly and need some Mopping Pads now.

Think i read somewhere that the consumables are available at the authorized mi service centers.

Need to verify that. I think it's time i replaced my dust filter. This thing sucks dust like no machine's business

[sridhu]

I got a Roomba i7 finally. (I did not know Roomba was officially sold in India. Had I known, I would have bought it 2-3 years ago!

https://irobot.in/roomba-i7.aspx

TL;DR: Cleans well enough. Worth buying.

Alternatives Considered
The Roborock seems to be good for sweeping (mopping not so good) and is about 10k cheaper. I avoided it as there is no support in india. Roomba is sold & serviced in Bangalore.

I picked this, i7, over the 976 as that model is end of lifed. And since it discovers the floor plan each time, slightly less efficient. It is also difficult to keep it out of no-go zones like the bathroom. Both because it does not remember the plan and because it does not come with the virtual wall. But the price on it is excellent- 30k. So do consider it it you have a single floor. Might be worth it even after you buy a virtual wall.

The i7 handles multiple floors or levels within a house. This is the main reason why I bought this rather than the much cheaper 976. That one rediscovers the floor everyday. Strangely, the 976 does not come with the virtual wall - an addon it desperately needs - whereas the i7, which has the ability to define no-go zones in the app does. Go figure!

I dropped the I7+ (with the automatic cleaner) because of cost. In hindsight it is the right decision as things (like hair) do get entangled on the brushes. So a hands-off system does not work, at least for India

Sales Experience
you have to commit up front. There is no trial or return possible. They do do an involved demo but ideally I would have liked to try it for a week before buying. The at-home use cases can never be adequately explored. I seriously think they should have a "rent" option. They did send a sales person home with a demo piece and we did try it for over 90 minutes in multiple scenarios. So there is that.

Otherwise they were pleasant and helpful. Not very knowledgeable but not clueless.


Usage

For India, think the dustbowl is too small - on my 1000 sqft floor, the latter portions were not cleaned as well initially, With repeated use, now I dont really have to empty the bin in between cleaning one floor. It does not, surely, hold more than 1000-1200 sqft in one go in a reasonably clean house. (We clean an area approximately once in 3 days)

The i7 is not very smart: For example: I had mistakenly scheduled a ground floor cleanup when the vacuum was upstairs, it happily did it upstairs and said complete. Problem is, my bathroom is above the utility. So it cleaned the bathroom. Luckily, it was dry as I scheduled it at 2 am. It cannot handle water in any quantity - the filter is made of paper. I understand that this is because since my upstairs & downstairs are very similar in plan. But the i7 has a camera which helps it figure out where it is. I think it should have figured out it is in the home theatre rather than the living room. I dont know why it did no.

The other thing: it is afraid of the dark! It uses a camera to navigate and hence light is important. Other models have lidar. So better to schedule jobs at daytime.

It got into the pooja room and did not know how to get out. Hence I have named it "Abhimanyu"!

Overall, I am pretty satisfied. About 75 / 100 and would recommend it, if you can afford it. The floor is definitely cleaner than when a maid was 'sweeping' it daily.

PS: My wife lost her diamond earring and when we ran the roomba, it found it. So, at least for us, it paid for itself!!

[sridhu]

Originally Posted by deepaktpatil

Hi All,
Does anybody know where to buy a roomba in India. Rather is it available for sale in India. Any information on place to buy in Bangalore would be helpful.

You can buy it at Koramangala Authorized showroom

https://goo.gl/maps/8LFjcn3zLVwuHDC69

[docsinghal]

My Experience with iRobot’s Robots since 2017

I just chanced upon this thread today and it prompted me to try and write about my experiences with iRobot’s devices that I have used since 2017.

First Roomba, the 980
I purchased my first iRobot in Aug 2017 when I had moved to Gurgaon and was undergoing a Fellowshiop in Critical Care Medicine at Medanta. Due to really weird working hours and my reluctance to hire any maids, I decided to jump to the robotic vaccum cleaner bandwagon. (I had always dreamt of owning one since I saw it on Breaking Bad)
I decided on buying the Roomba 980 online from Amazon since it offered interest free EMI options. iRobots have been sold in India through Puresight/Nashtronics on iRobot.in but I didn’t like their website and decided to stick to trusted Amazon. (I still dont like the way iRobot’s India operations are run, more on that later). I paid ₹69,990/- for it and all my well wishers thought that I had gone bonkers as according to them I could have easily hired a maid for about ₹2000-2500 per month for cleaning my house and the robot was just going to be “dry cleaning” and not mopping the house.

The main reasons for me buying the top of the line model available at that time:

1. Wi-Fi enabled and could be controlled using an app on the phone remotely
2. Brushless Rollers - I have a dog and brushless rollers are recommended for homes with pets so that their hair don’t get caught in the brushes
3. Smart Navigation with auto docking and recharging
4. A powerful suction motor with automatically increased suction for carpets

To add to this, there weren’t any other decent robotic cleaners players in the market at that time.


Mr Roomba comes home in August 2017.

This little thing, although expensive, made me experience a whole new level of cleanliness as far as the floors were concerned. There was no more feeling any micro grits when I walked at home (even bare feet).
I could schedule Mr Roomba to run automatically while I was at the hospital or even start it remotely and it would finish up while I was away.
What this also did was that the requirement for dusting the house went down as there was almost no dust on the floor and the robot had a HEPA filter which filtered the air while retaining all the dust in the bin (I had also installed 3 air purifiers around the house that meant that I just had to dust the house once a week on my weekly off days)
The requirement to mop the floor also went down as I only needed to mop once a week to get rid of any occasional spills and stains.

Likes

• Smart Naviagation
• Wi-Fi Connectivity/ Ability to control remotely
• Auto Docking/ Recharging
• HEPA Filter/ Dust free house
• Rugged and Trouble-free

Dislikes

• Small Waste Bin Size: Although the robot could be set to continue cleaning with bin full, I always used it with it set to pause cleaning when the bin got full, it used to return to the dock and wait for me to empty the bin. This was the only intervention needed from me but it still meant that I had to empty it daily. It would still be able to clean the whole 4bhk house in one go with the bin empty to begin with though.
• Battery life: the robot generally ran our of battery while cleaning the whole 4 bhk house, although it wasn’t a problem as it would dock and recharge befor starting again but that would add about 2 hours to its total cleaning time.
• Not too smart navigation: There was no means to customise its run between different rooms or map the house. Also it needed physical electronic barriers to prevent it from crossing into areas your didn’t want it to go. iRobot supplied two of these with the robot.

I always felt the need for two things:

1. A smart mop to compliment Mr Roomba
2. A way for Mr Roomba to empty itself

None of these options were available at that time and I used the Roomba 980 for a good 2 years and was a happy customer.
By the way, the Roomba 980 gave me a completely trouble free ownership experience all this while. I only had to purchase its consumables like the side brush, rollers and the HEPA filter every 3-6 months or so.

Enter Ms Brava

By the end of 2018, I had gotten married, and since my wife moved to Bangalore, I sent Mr Roomba with her along with the complete household luggage. Just like me, my wife also wasn’t to keen on employing any maids. So in April 2019, I gifted her a Brava 390t mopping robot to compliment Mr Roomba.





This was again purchased on Amazon on interest free EMIs at a total cost of ₹27900/-

The Brava 390t didn’t meet our expectations from day one. The reasons are listed as under:

• Firstly, it was SLOW, very very slow and it used to take forever to mop even small areas
• It could not mop more than 2 average sized rooms on a single charge
• It had a very primitive navigation system with it being unable to go beyond 1-2 rooms and it also needed a “navigation cube” placed somewhere in the room for it to find its way. The navigation cube used “C” sized batteries and went through them really fast too.
• No auto docking/recharging. We had to pick it up and place it on its dock manually.
• The quality of mopping was below average, it was unable to clean stains
• There was no way to sync the vacuuming and mopping as the Roomba and Braava were not connected in any way.

Mr Roomba in the meantime was carrying on with its duties and Ms Braava was relegated to generally being used to mop a couple of rooms occasionally.

In the meantime, iRobot launched a few more products in India, interestingly they launched the i7+ in India around the same time that S9+ was introduced in the USA. i7+ Had the advantage of emptying the bin and also had better navigation with ability to remember different rooms so that it could be programmed to clean specific rooms. Apart from this, the cleaning performance of the two robots was the same. i7+ didn’t seem like a worthy upgrade to my 980 at that time and also the 980 was performing well.

What I really wanted was the combo of the Roomba S9+ and the Bravajet m6 both of which hadn’t been launched in India at that point in time, so I waited.

Then the Covid pandemic hit us, and being an Intensivist my life went crazy.

Ms Brava Gets Upgraded

Somewhere around mid 2020, Jun 2020 to be precise. After the initial lockdown was over, I visited the iRobot store to get the battery on the Brava 390t replaced as its had started dying out within 15 minutes and I could not get it checked earlier due to the lockdown. The service engineer was very helpful and although the warranty had expired he replaced the battery for free because I was a “COVID Warrior”. On my way out, I saw the Bravajet M6 on display in the showroom.

It was a decision taken on the spot, I purchased it outright.







And that’s how, the Brava 390t got upgraded.

Advantages of the Bravajet M6

• Proper smart robot with Wi-Fi connectivity, smart navigation, auto docking and recharging and app controls
• Ability to link up the Roomba to synchronise a mopping job after Roomba finishes vacuuming
• Better mopping generally

Bye Bye Mr Roomba 980, S9+ comes home

After we got the Bravajet M6 the old Brava was used to mop the kitchen and the bathrooms for a few days but was eventually listed for sale on OLX and we were contacted by a very nice couple in the first week of September 2020. They came home, checked out the Brava and also liked the Roomba 980. They wanted to buy both. As luck would have it, iRobot had launched the S9+ In India that very week and I sold off both the Roomba 980 and the Brava 390t to the nice couple and placed orders for the S9+ online.
We picked it up form the store ourselves on the next morning ie 5th of September 2020.



















So now our family was complete again, Mr Roomba (S9+) and Ms Brava (Bravajet M6) were a perfect match.

Likes

• Lates models in the iRobot line with updated features
• S9+ is quieter and more powerful than i7 or 980
• Self emptying of bins, I don’t have to touch the Roomba for a month
• Better docking mechanism on both Roomba and Brava, they generally dock morte easily without any failures
• Bravajet M6 has all the smart navigation features that the Roomba has
• Ability to map the house, name rooms and then selectively vacuum or mop each room, scheduling is also possible. Automation with Alexa, IFFIT is possible.
• Linking Roomba and Brava to vacuum and mop sequentially is possible.

With the S9+ and Bravajet M6 our homes cleaning needs are fully sorted out and apart from the fact that some firmwares on both the robots have made them act a little wonky at times, its been a satisfied ownership more or less.

The iRobot operations in India aren’t as professional as their counterparts in the US. The consumables are often out of stock and take months to be available at times. Technical support on the phone is non existent (needed at times of buggy firmwares creating problems). They don’t reply to emails either. I have found a solution by tweeting and writing to the USA tach support team and they understand and respond remotely.

Our house stays clean, I mean spotless clean. The two robots a expensive to buy and the consumables are expensive too. We still feel its worth it.

It’s been a long post. Please excuse any errors as its one of my first detailed reviews. I will be happy to answer and queries regarding these products.

Happy Cleaning!

[Sebring]

Congratulations. You just spent a Lakh and Fifty on the S9+. I still remember, when I spent 17K on the iLife - people were aghast. They calculated the maid cost with this machine. But when lockdown kicked in, they had to eat their words. Besides, by then, these machines were out of stock as well. The best part about your machine is that it ejects the dust which is in its container by itself. Otherwise it is quite a chore to empty it out, and I do it everytime I use the Robot

Originally Posted by docsinghal

So now our family was complete again, Mr Roomba (S9+) and Ms Brava (Bravajet M6) were a perfect match

[docsinghal]

Originally Posted by Sebring

Congratulations. You just spent a Lakh and Fifty on the S9+

I purchased the M6 for ₹42k in June 2020 and S9+ came home in Sep 2020. I was the second one in the country to pick it up.

You are right, I consider the 2 lakh rupees spent well invested.


On a side note, both Roomba and Brava on firmware 3.10.8 had issues with smart maps.
T
iRobot is aware of the bug but for some reason the firmware update is not available to everyone.
If you reach out to the USA technical team (on email or Twitter) they will push an update for your device after confirming the serial number.
Mine got updated to 3.14.14 last night.

[ron178]

Congratulations on your purchase! I've been a Roomba owner (the 600 series, though) since 2016 and I am loving it. People say it won't replace a fullsize vacuum or manual cleaning but I believe that holds true only for carpets. It does an impeccable job on hard floors catching even minute debris that my shop vac doesn't.

The only issue I've had is the poor availability of spares (for example, my cornering brush has been broken for a year and I can't find reasonably priced spares). It's also grown noisier with time (I believe this is a trait of the 600 series) My mother was actually pushing for a Braava to cover the 'pochha' part of it too, but the availability of the disposable mopping pads was a big question mark. How has your experience with this been?

[rhsakarp]

Originally Posted by ron178

Congratulations on your purchase! I've been a Roomba owner (the 600 series, though) since 2016 and I am loving it. People say it won't replace a fullsize vacuum or manual cleaning but I believe that holds true only for carpets. It does an impeccable job on hard floors catching even minute debris that my shop vac doesn't.

The only issue I've had is the poor availability of spares (for example, my cornering brush has been broken for a year and I can't find reasonably priced spares). It's also grown noisier with time (I believe this is a trait of the 600 series) My mother was actually pushing for a Braava to cover the 'pochha' part of it too, but the availability of the disposable mopping pads was a big question mark. How has your experience with this been?

Hi, have been using the roomba E series and the braava m6 since a year, ordered spare filters, rotor brushes and mopping pads for the braava from AliExpress (before it got banned). Costed 1/5th of the official spares, works like a charm. DM me for details.

[dipdawiz]

Originally Posted by docsinghal

My Experience with iRobot’s Robots since 2017

Ms Brava Gets Upgraded

Somewhere around mid 2020, Jun 2020 to be precise. After the initial lockdown was over, I visited the iRobot store to get the battery on the Brava 390t replaced as its had started dying out within 15 minutes and I could not get it checked earlier due to the lockdown. The service engineer was very helpful and although the warranty had expired he replaced the battery for free because I was a “COVID Warrior”. On my way out, I saw the Bravajet M6 on display in the showroom.

Great reviews, was looking for some real experience with M6. Using Braava 390T since 2017 Feb. Absolute useful machine. Though slow, I use only for wet mop, its silent and that's the best part. As it needs manual intervention, hence was thinking of M6. But then Braava 390T replacement accessories are simple and with some jugaad can use regular microfiber cloth hence becomes easy to use specially in times of accessories shortage or out of stock situation. For daily use Braava battery is Achilles heel, to clean 900-1000sqft open room area daily, battery would reduce its capacity in just 8-9 months and needs replacement by 1 year and it costs 3500. How is the battery longevity of M6?

Tried Roomba twice (once in 2017 and then again in 2020), but it takes almost 2 hrs to clean my home, the sound is too intrusive to my liking for those 2 hours specially now that I am full time WFH. Both used twice and returned, thanks to Amazon and iRobots no question asked return policy.

I now use Dyson V8 Absolute+ for vacuuming (then Braava wet mop) and its takes hardly 15min to vacuum the house - light weight, cordless and articulated head makes it easy to handle and use. No issue with battery or anything so far. Its my daily house hold chores exercise . Customer service is another gem. Using it since 2018 and 2 months back when soft roller motor gave up; though out of warranty by almost a year, Dyson send me a new soft roller head for free as good will gesture. Also with all attachments it comes with, helps in lot of other cleaning at home, and easy carpet cleaning with one of the best carpet cleaner attachments.

And all these investments are worth spending when you think about the freedom from maid (waking up early to open the door or constant monitoring or look after the corners whether its clean) - happy to brag that no house hold help since 2017

[kiran_cr]

Congratulations on the purchase. I purchansed MILAGROW IMAP 10.0 Pro robotic vaccum cleaner with mopping feature about 2 weeks back. I narrowed down on this because its a local company and accessory availability wont be an issue. I was initially eyeing ROBOROCK S5 Max but read about its serviceability and spare part issues and hence chose MILAGROW.

After 2 weeks of usage i can tell that its doing a pretty good job of Vaccuming and Mopping at the sametime.