The Mint Robot

The Mint Automatic Floor cleaner is guided by NorthStar Navigation. Mint comes with an indoor GPS unit that you place on a counter in the center of your cleaning area. The Cube projects a signal that Mint uses to find itself and it starts cleaning. It builds a map of the room and obstacles that it needs to go around. Mint can clean up to 1000 square feet in a large open space and weaves in and out of doorways cleaning other rooms. I’ve watched it clean our large open area and then into the bathroom and avoid the carpet. When it is in mop mode it will only clean 250 square feet so that you can change the mop pad or rinse if off and add it again. When Mint is finished cleaning the room it returns to the point it starts at so it is easy for you to find.

The sweeping mode uses dry cleaning cloths and it comes with three reusable ones. Mint is compatible with Swiffer pads (not the Swiffer wet jet, those pads are too small). In sweep mode it moves in an S pattern along your floor. In mop mode it moves in a Y direction to help dissolve the dirt. Mint works with reusable microfiber or disposable cloths cleaning cloths in both modes.

The Cloths come in two varieties. You will receive two that are white and work best for sweeping. Then you will also receive one gray one that works best for mopping. It is more textured than the white ones; both types are microfiber and work very well at picking up dust, dirt, hair and other things in the floor.

About the Video Review/Vlog:

I realize that I still need a bit more practice in making video logs. I stumble over words and my vocabulary abilities diminish to almost none existent. Basically, I took the video to illustrate how the Mint Automatic Floor Cleaner operates. There are buttons on the top, one of the button is an on/off switch. When you push the on button the Mint machine makes a happy little sound and comes to life. Then you choose between a sweeping button or a mopping button and they are easy to tell apart. The sweeping motion makes long strides and then turns a 90 degree turn if the furniture allows for it. Then it goes forward just enough to make sure it is covering all of the floor. Then it turns back the direction it came from and continues doing across the floor. I didn’t think that it would recognize carpet and stay off of it, but it actually has only gotten trapped on the carpet once. It also got trapped under our couch once. The line between our carpet and hardwood floor is just a switch in surfaces. We have no divider of any sorts. So the Mint robot seems to be fairly intelligent. The weight of the robot is enough to pick up more dirt than I usually pick up with my stick sweeper. I was saddened about how dirty my floor actually was. First time I used Mint to sweep it picked up so much dirt and debris that I had to change the cloth half way through so that it could clean up more.

The mopping is the actual type of cleaning that I captured on video. The button for mopping looks like a tear drop. I pushed it and watched it mop up my floor. One thing I was not able to articulate properly in the video is how the Mint moves while mopping. Instead of long strides, it take short strides in a Y shape, going left and right in that Y shape making sure that is cleaning. Then it goes forward a bit and continues doing the Y shape.

I was concerned that certain areas in the area would not become clean. I figured it wouldn’t be smart enough to feel it’s way along all of the nooks and crannies that we have. I was wrong. Mint Cleaner finds it’s way around the objects and in and out of different rooms with ease. I would have to say it only misses places that it can not fit in. Certain corners in under the kitchen cabinets and around the toilet in the bathroom. It doesn’t scrub stock on spots but I’m really happy with it. It saves me time during the day and my floor is cleaner now. I charge it overnight.

The only negative would be that the charge isn’t strong enough to sweep and mop the entire downstairs. So I sweep one day and mop the next unless I remember to mop in the afternoon after sweeping that morning.