Vacuuming droids have been one of the first domestic robots to catch on. The Klarstein’s Cleanfriend will be familiar to anyone that’s seen a Roomba in the past. Its circular body has a 34cm diameter, it’s 10cms high and it weighs in at around 3kgs.
What Can it Do? The machine offers 5 different modes of operation. Spot Mode is for problem areas and it cleans an approximate 1 meter circle in a spiral pattern taking around 4 minutes. Clean Mode is a 30 minute program ideal for small rooms. Max Mode will clean continuously until the battery is exhausted (around 60 minutes), ideal for larger rooms.
In addition there are 2 modes that work with the charging base station. Timing Mode starts a 60 minute cleaning at a pre-programmed time you enter into the charger, so perhaps you could kick off a clean once you’ve left for work each day. Finally, in Full-Go Mode the cleaner enters a permanent cycle of cleaning, then charging, then cleaning again each time the battery gets back to its full capacity.
Does It Really Work? When you start the Cleanfriend off on its way it seems to choose a route that’s a tad random at first but it does eventually cover the room. The side brushes allow it to sweep right up to the edge of say your kitchen cupboards and its front bumper sends it into instant reverse as soon as it makes gentle contact with any object. It won’t fall down the stairs either as it can detect drops and reverse away from them too. Noise levels are less than a regular vacuum cleaner and I was able to continue watching TV by turning it up a bit whilst the little fella did the business.
It’s worth pointing out that you’ll need to spend a little time after every few cleans to maintain the robot. The brushes filters and rollers all require attention and clearing to keep them working trouble free.
Having a home robot is fun at the start, but after a few weeks does the novelty wear off or does it actually earn its keep? Well we tested the robot over a few months, on a variety of surfaces around the Automated Home, hard wood floors, tiled floors and carpet. On each type of flooring it really did do a great job, even impressing SWMBO. The best visual confirmation of its effectiveness, on top of a clean looking floor, is that the dust compartment is always full of the debris it has managed to collect. Robot vacuum cleaners really are a practical alternative to manual ‘hoovering’ these days and at £120 they are affordable too.
Highlights:
- Independent connection & disconnecton from charging base
- Change settings or turn on/off via remote control
- Intelligent space recognition (won’t fall off balconies, attempt to move through walls, etc)
- Suitable for various surfaces – small rugs, tiles, hard floors, wood floors
- Powerful, long life rechargeable battery
- Includes barrier unit – creates an electrical field that the cleaner will not pass, e.g. for preventing it from entering an open door
- Complete brush set including side brush for full room coverage
- Compact dimensions -a unit that fits anywhere and goes everywhere!
- No need for for vacuum bags
- Operates quietly
Available from hifi-tower.co.uk and amazon.co.uk
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We’ve had one of these for a few days now, I we are quite pleased with it, although we are still working some stuff out.
It’s worth nothing the instructions are rubbish – very badly translated. It is cleaning our floors very well, although we only have hard floors downstairs.
We are finding that we like watching it clean, and see how it deals with the various objects we have around the home. It’s novelty factor still has a way to go with us, but I can imagine the day when we have clean for us when we are out.
We have no complaints so far.
I will update my comments again in a couple of weeks.
Colin.
Well? How’s the mid term testing working out?
The item came as 2 seperate parts. The main part being the vacuum unit, the other being a floor cleaner. The floor cleaner didnt really do anything at all on our hardwood floors so we returned it for a refund.
The vac unit has worked fairly well, although the battery life has not been as expected. i think the unit would run for about 3 hours on a change when new, this reduced to less than an hour more recently. We are returning the item today as it runs for about 15-20 minutes before stopping, it doesnt appear to be related to the battery, but who knows.
It was very noisy on hard floors, you could only have it running whilst out or over night. It did however do a reasonable job of keeping the floors clean.
Will we replace it? most definatly, with something different? probably. Can i recommend this item? not really.