iRobot Braava Jet 240 Superior Robot Mop

iRobot Braava Jet 240My latest foray into the robotic floor-mopping sphere is the lowly little Braava Jet 240 which was released back in March. I waited a while to buy this one, mainly because I already had several working Scoobas I’ve bought over the years that still work like a charm, and I thought I had no need for any more robots. More recently, I tested the Braava series 320, with the water reservoir add-on and a few extra reusable pads. My experience with the 320 was somewhat lacking to say the least. Though I really wanted to love it, problems kept popping up much too often on the 320. Navigation issues would lead to frequent coverage issues, and the Northstar cube just refused to connect 3/4 of the time, no matter what I tried. The older scooba 230 is on its second battery and is beginning to die early, and the 390 doesn’t really like the new thresholds and vents at my new house since I moved and has since become a real pain to use with 100% success.Enter the Braava Jet 240. I first saw this robot when it was released and decided this was one I would sit out. To me, it just seemed much too small to have any effect on dirt… just looking at that that tiny pad it uses. What could that possibly do? When I bough this little guy I was really tossing the dice, hoping it would make up for some of the shortfalls of the other floor washing robots I’ve used. And it did not disappoint.The Jet has a few tricks up its sleeves designed to make life a little easier. Like smarter, cube-free navigation, to the best suspension I’ve seen in any iRobot so far. It also has 3 cleaning modes for use in different situations, with a dry sweeping mode and a water squirting feature that is much more effective than the 320’s wet pad and reservoir (which dried up all the time before the reservoir was even empty) All these features made me really wish I had this model over the 320. So I got on Amazon and ordered one.The box it came in is gorgeous. iRobot has really nailed the unboxing experience here, with their sharp, eye-popping colour graphics and perfect placement of everything in the box, you get the feeling that you’re getting quality. From the instruction booklet to the charger, everything has its place, everything wrapped in perfectly-formed cellophane and surrounded by cardboard cutouts to keep everything tight for shipping. Lifting the cardboard away, we find the shiny white plastic-clad ‘bot accompanied by a lithium battery, wall charger, and samples of all 3 types of pads. Picking the robot up for the first time revealed a hefty, solid-feeling product with a very premium feel for the price. I suspect heavy weights are placed inside for balance. The bot itself is beautifully designed. Nothing is left wanting. I was still leery about the puny pad size, but we’ll soon see if they do the job.I wasted no time and got the battery charging right away. I was happy that it only took a couple hours to get the green light so I could get this thing going. I loved that the battery just pops in by pressing it into the robot, no need for alignment or orientation, it just pops in. Some extra batteries would be nice, but I couldn’t find any at this time. The iRobot website claims that replacement batteries are coming, though when is anyone’s guess. It would add so much convenience to keep working longer with pre-charged batteries, which is a huge advantage over the Scooba 230, which took 7 hours to charge and had to charge on-board.Using the Jet 240 is just stupid-simple and hassle-free compared to past Scoobas. They just couldn’t have made it easier. Simply choose a space roughly 200sf that you want cleaned, place the appropriate cleaning pad on the robot, set the robot on the floor in the bottom left of the area chosen and press Clean. Depending on the pad installed, the robot will read it and adjust its operation for that specific cleaning mode. In wet modes, the whole cleaning head actually vibrates, increasing scrubbing effectiveness. Gone are the days of measuring cleaning solution, cleaning half a dozen dirty robot parts and rescuing the robot from those dreaded vents and thresholds. This unit just works and works wonderfully. What they don’t tell you though, is that these floor cleaning robots work best when you start with a thoroughly hand-washed floor, and periodically run your iRobots to maintain the clean. When I tried the Braava Jet on the dirty kitchen floor it left the entire floor cloudy and when I ran the Scooba afterward, the dirty water was filthy. So this robot won’t clean up heavily soiled floors, and it’s necessary to run a Scooba once a week to do the deep cleaning.After the 200sf was finished, you can set it for another 200sf by creating a virtual wall by holding the Clean button, you can prevent the robot from going back to the area it has already cleaned, and in this way you can cover more and more space with each battery charge. There is no need to expect this robot to clean an entire 800sf area at once, as its cleaning performance does suffer at that square footage, leaving streaks. A quick rinse of the pad between runs and streaks are kept to a minimum, if any at all.What I dislike about this unit is the rare occasion it does get stuck, it completely aborts the mission, and you must restart from scratch. Elation quickly turned to frustration as I watched the bot hang up on the corner of the nastiest vent in the house, only to call it quits. There’s a narrow passage beside my bathroom vanity which Braava entered but couldn’t escape. The Scooba 230 navigates this area with ease. I was disappointed with the lack of grout-cleaning performance on the bathroom tiles. Neither the reusable washing pad or the disposable washing pad were able to reach into the grout lines at all.I really liked the tough build and high-quality feel of the bot in my hand, the rubber wheels feel nice and grippy, the suspension is incredibly well-designed, and I liked the reusable blue wet pad, with what feels like bristles embedded in the microfibre for more effective scrubbing.I’ve always recommended the Scooba line of robots over the years but this robot solves a lot of the frustrations involved with using those older models. The absurd simplicity and the sensible price make the Braava Jet 240 easy to recommend for anyone looking for their ticket out of one of the worst chores. If you’re thinking about buying one, don’t hesitate… go for it! It’s a great little helper to have around and won’t break the bank.If you found this review helpful please let me know by clicking “Yes” below! I’ll be happy to answer any questions in the comments!

Ok, this has been a fun mission, to say the least. I have been on a journey to find the best robot vacuum they make and I think I’m making headway. So far I have tried The Shark 720, Ecovacs N79S, iLife V5, iRobot Jet 240.iRobot Jet 240Noise Level: pretty quiteFunctionality: Cleaned on a mission but does not do what I felt it shouldCleaning Duration: cleaned for 100 minutesEmptying Convenience: the process was fine but it will never outdo a regular mop. Cleans a quarter of the floor and then is empty. Felt like I had to babysit the thing all the time.Mop future is uselessWould not recommend to anyone.OverpricedThe iLife V5-Noise Level: 3rd loudestFunctionality: TERRIBLECleaning Duration: cleaned for almost 100 minutesEmptying Convenience: TERRIBLENot worth it at all, had it for 1 hour and sent it backThe Ecovac N79S-Noise Level: This was a tad bit louder than the shark, but not by muchFunctionality: cleaned well but with no kind of plan, just zigzagged here and there, picked up more than the shark.Cleaning Duration: cleaned for almost 2 hoursEmptying Convenience: easy to empty had a back-end tray that slid out easily.Amazing Value for the cost – may end up with this oneThe iClebo Omega-Noise Level: is the loudest so far, sounds like you are using a regular vacuum cleaner for 80 minutes, that’s because of the amount of pick up power this has.Functionality: Cleaned on a mission and was very strong, great mapping technology, picks up the bigger stuff more than all of the bots so far.Cleaning Duration: cleaned for 80 minutesEmptying Convenience: personally, I do not like the design in this one, tray stores in the top of the robot tray seems a lot small than all of the rest of them.Mop future is uselessOverpriced – Sending back for its little brotherThe Shark 720-Noise Level: This was the quietest so farFunctionality: cleaned well but with no kind of plan, just zigzagged here and there. Did not fin under the couch as good as the Ecovac.Cleaning Duration: cleaned for almost 2 hoursEmptying Convenience: easy to empty had a back-end tray that slid out easily.Great Value

 It was great for the first two or three weeks. Ocansionly used two or three times a week. Just used about a month, it starts not to work correctly. Contact customer service over the phone for more than an hour, and they did not solve the problem. They said they would call back the next day, and it’s been five days haven’t got any phone call from iRobot service.