How to prepare a household for robotic cleaning

Robotic vacuum cleaners vacuum hard floors and carpets and even wipe some. After cleaning, they return to the charging station to recharge and be ready for further work. They are useful helpers that can save hours of time. However, they are not flawless, which is why it is a good idea to check the household before cleaning and sometimes even slightly prepare it for robotic cleaning. A few small adjustments will bring you a lot of nice moments without thinking about cleaning.

Ensure a stable WiFi connection

For the correct functioning of the robotic vacuum cleaner, which is controlled by a mobile application, a high-quality home Wi-Fi connection, without signal fluctuations and setting the router to 2.4 GHz is necessary. For robots with an automatic cleaning station, a high-quality WiFi connection is a direct condition for the functioning of the robot, here we recommend placing the cleaning station closest to the router.

Position the charging/self cleaning station correctly

In order for the robot to find the charging station without problems, it must be positioned correctly. Find a place for it ideally on a hard washable floor, not on a carpet. Place it directly against the wall, within reach of the electricity sockets and at the recommended distance from other obstacles (see instructions). The better the visibility of the station from other parts of the room, the easier it will be for the vacuum cleaner to return after cleaning. The ideal place is a space from which the vacuum cleaner can exit directly without the need to turn and avoid obstacles.

If the mopping part remains in contact with the floor after the robot is parked in the station, remember that when returning from mopping, the residual water in the tank and the wet mop may wet the floor around the station. Therefore, it is better to choose the location of the station on the pavement, or immediately after finishing mopping, empty the water tank and remove the mops to avoid damage to the wooden or laminate floor.

Measure how high your transition strips and door thresholds are

Classic door thresholds can be an obstacle that prevents the robotic vacuum cleaner from reaching other rooms and cleaning the entire apartment at once. Thresholds up to a height of 1.5-2 cm can usually be overcome by the robot, but it always depends on the slope and roundness of the threshold itself. Transition strips are the ideal solution.

Check the height of the furniture, the spaces under the bed or under the sofa

If the spaces under your furniture are lower or the same height as the robot itself, you run the risk that the robot will get stuck somewhere while trying to clean under the furniture, or it will not reach the spaces at all and not clean. Therefore, when purchasing, focus on the total height of the robot (+ 1 cm = space that it can safely enter) and at home measure the space under the cabinets, under the sofa, the bed, but also under the heater or wall-hung toilet. Cabinets with adjustable legs can possibly be raised a little, but you can no longer adjust the heating and it is a shame that the robot does not clean under it.

Can a robot clean between the chairs under the dining table?

Measure the distance between the chair legs and the diameter of the vacuum cleaner. It is important that the robot fits between the legs of the chair, think about this when choosing the robot itself. And then also measure the size between the individual chairs, sometimes it is enough to move the chairs slightly so that the robot can clean under the table without any problems, without you having to lift the chairs.

Watch out for chairs that have legs connected by a bar, this can cause problems for the robot vacuum cleaner and the robot can easily get stuck when crossing it.

What about cables and smaller objects and obstacles on the floor?

The great enemy of robotic vacuum cleaners are loose cables, especially thin ones. There is a danger that the robot will wind them on one of the rotating brushes. One solution is to set prohibited zones in the application, another option is to cover or attach the cables to the rails.

Also, be careful if you are going to dry clothes in the home, because the legs of the dryer can be a big trap for the robot, as well as armchairs, chair legs or tables that have connecting strips right next to the ground.

Water spilled on the ground can also cause a problem, as the robotic vacuum cleaner is not designed to vacuum liquids. It is necessary to pay attention to the water bowls of our pets, so as not to spill water on the floor, which the vacuum cleaner could suck in and damage its internal electronic system. We recommend marking the bowls as a prohibited zone or placing them in a safe place. If you let the vacuum cleaner also vacuum in the shower, (the so-called walk-in shower), which is already part of many modern households, make sure that there is no water left in it.

How does a robot cope with carpet vacuuming?

Most robotic vacuum cleaners today are already equipped with a carpet detection function. The robot not only recognizes the carpet, but also increases the suction power when cleaning it.

If the robot is mopping, it must be ensured that it does not get on the carpet and does not unnecessarily wet it with a wet mop. You can easily set this in the mobile application with the prohibited zone function, or you can demarcate the carpet with magnetic tape, depending on the capabilities of your robot. The best robotic vacuum cleaners can lift up mops on carpets and vacuum them even while mopping.

Robots usually manage to clean classic carpets with a pile length of around 1.5 cm without any problems, but watch out for too distinctive color changes or even black color on the carpet. This can really mess up the robot vacuum cleaner's head. Likewise, long carpet tassles can cause problems and wind up on the side brushes.

Let the bot load the map and then edit it as you need

Once your apartment is ready for the first robot cleaning, leave all the doors open so the robot can go through and load the entire household. With laser robots, the household map is copied into the application, and there you can modify it according to your preferences. Place prohibited zones in it or adjust the division of rooms.

With gyroscopic robots, there is no need to load the map, the robot can start cleaning right away and during it will share its current location to the application.

But the same applies to all robots, regardless of the navigation system: When cleaning for the first time, stay nearby to see how the robot is doing and whether any intervention in your home will still be necessary.