Evolution Robotics Mint Automatic Hard Floor Cleaner, 4200
- Compact robot floor cleaner runs up to 3 hours on single charge using microfiber cloths or most brands of disposable cloths
- Guided by North Star Navigation System to methodically clean open areas, around furniture and rugs, and along room perimeter
- Whisper-quiet operation; turns itself off when finished
- Low maintenance with no bins to empty or filters to change
- Measures 9.6 inches wide by 8.5 inches deep by 3.1 inches high; 1-year warranty
Mint sweeps and mops hard surface floors automatically, using popular dry and pre-moistened disposable cleaning cloths or re-usable microfiber cleaning cloths (included). Dry sweeping mode is ideal for picking up dust, dirt and hair. And Mint’s special mopping motion gets deeper dirt and grime off your floors. Guided by the North Star Navigation System, Mint tracks where it cleans so it doesn’t miss a spot. Mint starts by cleaning open areas, moving methodically back and forth across the floor. Mint detects and cleans around furniture and other obstacles as it encounters them. Mint then follows with a perimeter sweep along the edges of furniture and baseboards, then returns to where it started and parks itself. Smart sensors help Mint avoid area rugs and raised carpet transitions, detect areas that are too low to enter and avoid falling down stairs.
List Price: $ 249.99
Price: $ 189.99
Beware False Hopes,
First: notice the 5-star rating that I have given this.
I agree with all of the 5-star reviewers: this product is worth the price (have had it about 6 weeks now). I have used it on vinyl (Congoleum/linoleum) floors, tile floors and wooden floors. It works well on all of them. Time will tell more.
However, rather than repeat what others have said, I will describe some aspects that might disappoint you when/if you buy it, but these do not outweigh the benefits.
– This does NOT do a deep clean. That takes elbow grease and this, naturally, is not heavy enough to scrub that well (you wouldn’t want it to be that heavy). You will have to do a deep clean first. The Mint will then maintain that clean floor. I use it about once a week.
– The designers did a generally good job, except for the week when they all took vacation at once and let the janitor decide where to put the charging port. Believe or not, these idiots put the port in a spot on the underside of the unit. You have to turn the thing upside down to plug the charger in. An automatic charging-base system would have been a much better approach than having to plug it in manually every time.
– Sweeping: does an ok job, but it would be difficult for such a device to get everything. It is more useful when cleaning (washing).
– Washing (as opposed to sweeping) battery life is about 2 hours and it takes about 45 minutes to do a 12 x 20 area having several obstacles (island, tables, multiple angle walls, etc.). This allows me to wash with a mild detergent and then do a second pass to rinse (see below).
– While the Mint senses an overhang and will not fall off, it does often stop moving and generates an error message. It’s as though it gets confused and just gives up.
Tips:
The Swiffer washing rags work, but leaves a bit of a sticky residue. Water, with a little bit of Dawn dish-washing liquid (seems a little better than the Ivory) or Ivory liquid dish soap, and the Mint washing rag works better. I soak the rag in a bowl of solution and then pour a little of the solution at different spots on the floor to make sure the rag on the Mint remains wet. Following that, I use the same process, but only water to rinse any residue away, again adding water on the floor to help keep the Mint rag wet.
When you clean with many floor cleaners, including too much vinegar, the floors have a sticky residue that you will hear when you walk on it long after it’s dried, and which will attract dirt, unless you rinse the floor after washing. One or two squirts of Dawn in a bowl of water is all you need for this maintenance activity. For a very soiled area, you may want to hand-clean it or pour a little of the solution on it to let it dissolve the dirt before the Mint gets to it.
More details can be found at mintcleaner dot com.
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|Fantastic cleaning robot!,
I must say, I’m impressed with the mapping system on this little guy. I have a very large (20’X20′) open living room/kitchen area giving plenty of obstacles to confuse it. There’s a staircase (which it deftly avoids), an island, a kitchen table with chairs, a couch and a number of tables for it to go under, an area rug and a piece of curved beveled glass on the floor that serves as a stand for a fireplace (which it surprisingly does not ride up on). Also, the room is overall “U” shaped with several entryways. This is the only robotic cleaner that has been able to figure this room out in its entirety. Other things to note is the room has a large fan and high, sloped ceilings and it can still find it’s way.
My Roomba did terribly. It would get stuck in one section, the Neato XV was OK but would miss some parts. This thing does a great job of freshening up the floor and getting at just about everything due to it’s small size!
One thing I did not know is the Mint comes with wet and dry reusable cloths for cleaning. They are great! It does pick up a lot of stuff, even if your floors look clean it’s going to find something!
Wet pads are very good and stay damp for a longer amount time than I would have imagined. The floor is drier behind the mint than if I were mopping the floor myself!
I have found some things that confuse it. It doesn’t like heater vents too much, especially larger ones (like intake vents) because it thinks it is falling off of a ledge. It will eventually figure it out though. It will get stuck on vertical blinds, so you might want to block them with something and it might get stuck if it drives into an area that is very tight and it decides it can’t back out. After a few runs of finding what confuses it, it pretty easy to mint-proof a room.
Noise levels are good. It drives about very quietly. It is a bumper-bot though. Which is where most of the noise comes from. Though every bump really matters as it is mapping the room.
Speed is good. Not the fastest but very efficient. It really gets at every spot in a methodical fashion. I was impressed with the final “edging” step. Once it cleans the room it will clean the edge. Not just the outside edge, but also the “inside” edges such as area rugs, tables, islands and so on.
What is the practicality of this? I wouldn’t have thought much for a Swiffer bot but something about the speed and thoroughness of it’s cleaning really brings out much more grime than I would get myself. I notice it gets much more cat fur than I would because it doesn’t blow it out of the way before getting to it.
The personality of the bot is OK. It’s more like a clinical, efficient nurse doing it’s job. It isn’t quite as chipper as other cleaning bots but it gets the job done.
Battery life is good. Not the fastest at charging but a long enough life to get through more than a couple rooms per charge.
Can these guys get on making a vacuum bot now?
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