Samsung’s Jetbot Is One of the Most Affordable Robot Mops Out There, But Does It *Really* Scrub Floors?

You simply pull the bot out of the box, charge it up, wash the cleaning pads and you’re ready to get started. At first, I was a little bummed that the device didn’t have an app that could track its progress or allow me to clean the floors while I was away from the house. But anyone who’s owned more than a few smart gadgets can attest that those apps are often glitchy, run in the background unnecessarily and slow down your phone. And with a device this easy to use, you truly don’t need it.

Before each cleaning session, you fill the Jetbot’s two rotating wheels with water, dampen the cleaning pads—which come in a deep-cleaning “mother yarn” and a quick-cleaning microfiber cloth—and pop them onto the machine. Then press start. That’s it.

The first time I ran the Jetbot, it seemed to go at warp speed, spinning in circles like an out-of-control top and fumbling onto my low-pile carpet. I was convinced this was a disaster. I turned to the manual and realized I had it on “intensive” clean mode (one of eight options offered, which range from a “focused” spot clean to an edge clean that gets into the corners of the room). When I switched settings to "step cleaning," it slowed down, seeming to “step” around the the carpet as it shimmied left and right across the floor.

You Still Have to Do Some Work

The biggest con, in my experience, is pretty unavoidable: You’ve got to refill each of the water tanks after each use and clean the mother yarn/microfiber pads. (Cleaning the pads is as simple as popping them in the washing machine, but still.) As awesome as it would be to press a button and never worry about mopping at all, Jetbot isn’t Rosey the Robot from The Jetsons.

However, Jetbot does save you one huge annoyance: Having to scrub that four-inch space under your kitchen cabinets, where crumbs and drips seem to mercilessly accumulate. The cleaning pads extend just beyond the robot, so it can reach those little nooks that other robot mops and vacs miss. And if it doesn’t get quite close enough for your taste, Jetbot comes with a remote control, so you can maneuver it yourself.

My Absolute Favorite Feature

The true victory, though, is what surprised me the most: At first, it didn’t seem powerful enough to scrub dried spills and scuffmarks, particularly when I saw it glide right over them without lifting much. Give it time—during the device’s 50-minute runtime, it’ll make multiple passes over your floors, eventually lifting caked-on grime. Intense scuffmarks may still require manual scrubbing, but for keeping things clean day-to-day, the Jetbot gets the job done (all while taking up half the space of the typical robo-cleaner, I might add).